Lucifer's Hammer

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Sci-fi fans will probably think the book relatively weak in this area and would have hoped for much more depth in the science. Any sort of link or text post is welcome as long as it is about printed / text / static SF material. Apparently Niven originally pitched the book as a hostile first contact novel, where aliens divert a comet towards the Earth to destroy it.

He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962.Tim mentions in the epilogue that Forrester died over the winter, a direct result of those events being higher priority than manufacturing insulin. If the outer sentry raises both hands over his head, this is the signal for the inner sentry to shoot the person at the gate, presumably because that is the one gesture least likely to get you killed if someone is pointing a gun at you. LUCIFER'S HAMMER is Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's graphic but frighteningly realistic vision of humanity's descent into anarchy and chaos and its struggle to re-establish a semblance of normality after an apocalyptic event devastates the world with inconceivable damage and death but does not actually push humanity over the brink of extinction - hoarding; heroism; brutality; the potential change in attitudes towards sex, sexuality, racism, marriage, religion and love; the evolution (or devolution) of government from democracy into potential more effective alternatives under the circumstances; the re-establishment of innovation and technological expertise; the potentially changing roles of women in a more basic almost feudally structured society; and, of course much more.

I suppose Niven and Pournelle's defense would be that not all of the New Brotherhood Army is black, and there is a black astronaut who's one of the good guys, and a few black farmers in the Stronghold are mentioned.

Tsunamis ravage every conceivable inch of exposed ocean coastline and upstream for miles along major rivers such as the Mississippi. Yes its the Earth but he builds a fictional reality in the current time that is completely believable and you live it along with the characters, who you get to know really well through all 600+ pages.

The remainder of the story takes place in California, where survivors in the San Joaquin valley go about preparing for the coming ice age and trying to rebuild what little civilization they can. In print, Niven and Pournelle provide a "program" at the front of their books so you can easily refer back and identify characters in the early going until you have them straight.It's like they figured, "If they've read this far, they're not going to stop now, so we can go all out and pull no punches with what we really think. Randall and Hamner separately reach the valley and are allowed in (unlike almost all other refugees).

As the small details of survival go on, the book becomes very similar to Pat Frank's 1959 'Alas Babylon,' in the way it focuses on a small group in an isolated rural location, and the ins-and-outs of how they keep alive.In Policeman, narration is provided first person, and although many of the projected responses to impact are exactly the same in both books, experiencing it through one man’s journey is far more profound and moving. And it might've been even worse if the US military hadn't gotten the clarification that the Soviet Union was nuking China instead of the US. In deep space a little smudge appears near Neptune, amateur astronomer Timothy Hammer a millionaire playboy he's rather a timid philanderer sees the object. Maureen's lover is Air Force Colonel Johnny Baker, an astronaut who laments the end of the Apollo program and holds out hope that Maureen and her father can pass funding for a manned mission to study the comet as it passes near Earth.