Moonfall - Hardcover

McDevitt, Jack

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061050369 ISBN 13: 9780061050367

Publisher: Harper Prism, 1998

Synopsis

Arriving on the moon to initiate the first Moonbase, Vice President Charlie Haskell must fend for his life when the comet Tomiko heads straight for the moon, and after stating that he will be the last person to evacuate the moonbase, he desperately tries to find a means of escape before it is too late.

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: Harper Prism
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0061050369
• ISBN 13: 9780061050367
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464