From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

Lucifer's Hammer

Larry Niven,

Jerry Pournelle

Start date: April 1, 2017

Finish date: May 1, 2017

Discussion: AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

Discussion leader: Gertie

Why we're reading this: MAY 2017 book, discussion link here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Note, this is a longer book,…more
[close] MAY 2017 book, discussion link here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Note, this is a longer book, so you may want to get started earlier than usual.

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AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

* What is a good book for AW discussion? (Nominations pool)
By Gertie · 64 posts · 216 views

last updated Oct 03, 2025 09:53AM

* AW Book Club: what we've read
By Gertie · 16 posts · 1822 views

last updated Dec 10, 2019 09:01AM

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What Members Thought

Apr 19, 2009 Michele rated it really liked it

Shelves: dystopia-apocalypse

A bit dated in language and attitudes, possessed of a few too many convenient coincidences, and stretching credibility more than once (cannibalism so quickly?? surely not!), nevertheless still a classic of the genre and a fun read. It's also steeped in that optimistic, sunny, innocent 1970s belief that technology can save us from anything, a viewpoint which appears distinctly naive today given tech's decidedly mixed impact (I'm looking at you, Fake News and nuclear accidents and cyberstalking an ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Aug 14, 2012 Reads with Scotch rated it liked it

Shelves: sci-fi, alt-history

The start seemed a little disjointed, the middle seemed a bit redundant, the ending seemed a bit rushed. Overall I enjoyed it. It was about a comet hitting earth before such things were popular. Good stuff.

2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 10, 2010 Amy rated it really liked it

Shelves: post-apocalyptic, 2010-books-read

This is an interesting end-of-the-world book where the major disaster is a large comet that crashes into the ocean in the 1970s. The book kept me doing nothing else but turning pages all day on Sunday. Even though I knew the comet was going to hit, I wanted to see what happened in the chaos afterward.

However, I couldn't give the book 5 stars because there were so many characters with so little personality that kept popping back up on page 600 after last seeing them on page 6. And the author som ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 28, 2008 bsc rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, read-2008, science-fiction

Starts slow and ends slow, but the middle is pretty good. Too many characters and a bit too long, but it made for an enjoyable audio book even though the narrator was pretty horrible.

I'm not sure that civilization would collapse so fast or so hard (at least I hope not), but what Niven and Pournelle describe is plausible and quite scary. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 09, 2010 Thee_ron_clark rated it it was amazing

Shelves: action, other, post-apocalyptic

Lucifer's Hammer is a novel about a huge comet causing massive destruction to the earth.

Although it began slow for me, I could not put it down after I got past the first few chapters. The detail and thought put into the destruction, the events leading up to the destruction, and the characters are all very well thought out.

The event of the comet's strike and the natural aftermath of this were very detailed.

The actions of the survivors were innovative and probably original at the time. I noticed t ...more

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Jun 02, 2008 William rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction, apocalyptic, read-in-2009

Want a book to drag you down? This is it. An apocalypse that man is powerless to prevent. This is a story of a comet striking earth and the aftermath for humanity. It starts well in advance with the discovery of the Hamner-Brown comet. Sometimes the timing is a little suspect. I mean the government is able to throw together a mission to space that is a joint mission with the Russians in only a couple of months.

Overall, It was a great read and was exciting from start to finish. Good luck to the h ...more

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