Moonfall - Hardcover

McDevitt, Jack

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002246902 ISBN 13: 9780002246903

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1998

Synopsis

The disaster novel to beat all disaster novels. A comet is coming and the moon’s gonna fall. On us.

The year is 2024. Not far off. Only 27 years away. They might be our last.

Out of the blindside of a total solar eclipse comes the ultimate threat to life on our planet: an interstellar comet, travelling at 400+ kilometres per
second. And it’s headed right for our Moon.

Moonbase, the NASA project at last establishing permanent human activity on the Moon, has been up and running for precisely five days. If it’s knocked out by comet-impact, it’ll be a helluva blow to the US President, Henry Kolladner, who came to office riding high on the space ticket. And it’ll be a bit of a blow to his deputy, too, Vice President Charlie Haskell, who’s actually up there, ready for the inauguration speech.

Moonbase will be obliterated, but there aren’t enough craft to get everyone off in time. Charlie Haskell is faced with the decision of a political, and personal, lifetime...

And if the comet fully impacts, there’ll be no more Moon at all. Billions of tons of moonrock will fall on the Earth.There’ll be tidal waves, earthquakes, global destruction... And if a really big chunk comes down, mankind could go the way of the dinosaurs.

It’s a tough call for the President. Does he declare a state of emergency and start evacuating the entire coastal population of America? Imagine the chaos, the looting, the riots...

Should we panic?

Wouldn’t you?

About this title

Review:

Over the last few years, Jack McDevitt has quietly been producing an outstanding collection of science fiction novels. Earlier works such as The Engines of God and Ancient Shores had a thoughtful, archaeological-exploration bent, but with Moonfall he takes off the gloves to create a splashy, near-future science fiction thriller with a big cast of characters and a do-or-die attitude. At the centre of the story is Charlie Haskell, the U.S. vice president, who in 2024--an election year--has arrived at the American Moonbase to cut the ribbon and declare it operational. But there's a problem, and it's a big one: a "sun-grazer" comet, with immense mass and speed, is on a collision course with the moon. Haskell, with an eye to his public image, puts himself at the bottom of the evacuation list. But time grows critically short, and soon more than his political future is in jeopardy--broken chunks of moon will begin exploding outwards. If they reached Earth, some of the chunks would be big enough to cause an extinction event. McDevitt pays attention to his science while revving the action, and the stakes couldn't be higher: Haskell's choices will decide who lives and who dies--if anyone survives at all. --Blaise Selby

Review:

"A full-speed-ahead tale of a comet's collision with the moon...the "Titanic" in space."-- "Booklist

"Big, bursting, medium-future, global disaster yarn...another solidly engrossing entry from the dependable McDevitt."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

Breathlesss...a fine-tuned disaster to remember."-- "Publishers Weekly

"The Heir to Asimov"-- Michael Swanwick

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0002246902
• ISBN 13: 9780002246903
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464