Lucifer's Hammer

Such a well-written story with the extra guilty pleasure of it being doomsday themed. Character development is without a doubt some of the best I've read . The writing felt absolutely timely and I could relate as I remember the world like the author wrote it. The rallying cry at the end to save the lights, topped the king of the North scene in GOT. A masterpiece!

From the start you are pulled, yanked and thrown into the maelstrom, looking for the exit into reality only to feel the gravitational force of one hell of a story. This is storytelling at it’s best with characters from all walks of life who find themselves in the same life or death predicament at the same time in the same place. How will they survive? Who will? What has to be done to do so? Who leads? How does it all end? Well, you have to read it all to find out.. Believe me, it is worth your time.

While not as detailed as it could have been, the basic premise is still valid. Our modern world is very vulnerable and even an event that is not as catastrophic can/will cause an almost total breakdown of civilized society

Just recently finished this. I originally read this back in the 80’s when it first came out. Great book. Great author. Hasn’t lost its edge at all.

One of my top five books, just finished my third reading. I need some recommendations for more like this and Battlefield earth.

It starts out slow but the author artistically connects all the characters together to make a terrific novel. I definitely would recommend this book.

Overall entertaining book on the destruction of the modern world, due to a comet. There are 2 main sections to the book, the 1/3rd which deals with the story before the comet hits the earth. The rest of the book deals with the story after the comet. I found the first 3rd of the book a bit draggy. A lot of people were rapidly introduced, several who would not survive the comet. The authors did helpfully provide a glossary of main characters at the beginning of the book. Many of the characters introduced at the beginning seemed pretty superficial, making it hard to identify with them. The book was written as a contemporary 70's novel, which also makes it hard to connect with the book in todays culture. Some of the best inside storylines, such as Henry Armitage being suspiciously similar to real life preacher Herbert Armstrong will undoubtedly be missed by younger people reading this book. Some people have accused the book of being racist, racist or not, the book reflects the contemporary culture of the 70's, and the authors can't be blamed for that.So, then the comet hits. The book because much more entertaining at this point. The books delves into the different survivor cultures that build up. Much more time is spent on the "good guys" side, it would have been nice to see an equal amount of time spent on all the survivor groups, this certainly would have made for a more suspenseful story, if readers could have connected with both sides of the conflict.I wasn't real thrilled with the ending. The authors obviously intended for people to identify with 1 side as "good" and with the other side as "bad", but I don't feel that their writing clearly supported that premise. While the 2 sides methods were different, before the main showdown, both were willing to kill outsiders to support their side. One could make the case that while the "good" guys killed passively (usually), and the" bad" guys actively, the "bad" guys almost always gave people a chance to join their side and only killed them when they refused, which is not an option the "good" guys did. So which side was the "good" guys?And the very ending, where the women are supporting the most perilously, risky choice, while the men are supporting the most conservative, safest choice, just doesn't match up with real life where women on average support the safest choice, and men the riskier choice. It did not ring true, and the development of the characters to that point, I felt, did not support their choices.I also felt too much of the writing was unclear, especially the comet personified chapters. A non-comet example near the end of the book mentions a main character who "felt Erica's hands on him." Who was Erica? His girlfriend, his slave, a deserter from the other side, a hallucination? We don't know, because that page is the only mention of Erica in the story. It would have been much more clear, if instead of naming Erica, the authors had explained who she was, something like "he felt the hands of one of his clanswomen on him."I did feel the book was a bit formulaic. I felt like the authors had a checklist of things that should be included in a doomsday book, and went down the checklist to make sure everything on the list was included in their book. Cannibalism, check, suicidal guy who finds a new purpose in life, check, prepper who has all his supplies stolen from him, check, sex with underage girls, check, etc.The authors did clearly have a "mission" in writing this book, yet they were very careful not to state that in the book, only near the end, did one character vaguely make a statement supporting the authors mission. Kudos to the authors for letting the story tell itself, and not beating people over the head with the point they wished to make.This book is a worthy read, the 3 star rating is based on the stiff competition it has with doomsday books. If someone doesn't enjoy doomsday books, then this book is not for them, as its not the best of the genre. But for people who do enjoy doomsday books, this book is quite enjoyable.

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Really well written Excellent character development and a fun read.

E um livro feito antes do ano 2000. A literatura de fim de mundo tinha muitos expoentes nessa epoca. Um livro muito bem feito mantendo o suspense o tempo todozunino

I really enjoyed this book, couldn't put it down. From time to time the sensibilities of the authors show through strongly in the character actions; there's no shortage of sideswipes given to the labor movement and unions, which the authors seem to equate with communism (which also comes under pretty strong fire through the lens of the Soviet astronauts in the book).Contrary to some other reviews, I didn't think there was any particular elements of racism though, the characters' race isn't held up as being important to their actions.All in all, a pretty gripping tale of the end of the world.

I needed to read this book for research proposes (I'm about to write a similar novel), so I can certaintly say that this was great inspiration material. The science is on point and the descriptions got me entretained well enough.But...I would sadly say that most parts of the story were boring as hell. A LOT of characters so I didn't emphatize with any of them, flat and mostly one directional. Most of the deaths happened without me knowing until one of the characters said that they died. And that I didn't really like because of the "Show don't tell" thing.Its a really long novel and I really don't recomend it very much.

This has always been one of my favourite reads since a teenager. I would recommend to anyone wanting an end-of-world story.

I gave up after 150 pages of formulaic soap opera-esque filler. Dated, badly written, cliched ... I can’t say less about this supposed “classic” sci-fi novel. Don’t bother.