Lucifer's Hammer
by Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jerry Pournelle, Larry NivenEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1985-05-12
ISBN: 0449208133
Number of pages: 640
Publisher: Del Rey
Book Reviews of Lucifer's Hammer
Book Review: Lowest common denominator style of read
Summary: 2 Stars
I had read several of the reviews here on Amazon before picking up this volume to read. After all, Lucifer's Hammer is also listed widely as one of the seminal works of the "doomsday" style of science fiction.
I am so very surprised that so many people loved this book and completely ignored (or were completely unaware of) how badly it was written. Don't the poorly crafted sentences and the absolutely abominable dialog offend anybody? Have we really fallen that far in educational awareness that nobody even notices how bad this particular piece of writing is? This is truly one of the most clumsy and juvenile attempts at story construction that I have ever waded through.
Interestingly, I have just read Brin's "The Postman" which was also a poorly written work and, ironically, another of the giants in the doomsday genre. And after getting through that I didn't think science fiction writing could be worse. But folks, here it is.
I can cite so many examples, but I will throw out just a few as a warning to those of you who appreciate erudite writing and therefore may wish to avoid this exercise in grammar school prose.
First and foremost, the overbearing insistence by the authors to show their familiarity with the Los Angeles area and its denizens is trite, hokey and downright embarrassing. I can't really explain this further as it is a fuzzy concept to convey. But trust me, it gets really old, really fast hearing about how this particular street curves into this other particular street, how one main character lives on Beverly Glen just north of Cielo Drive where Charles Manson committed his heinous crime (was this reference necessary?), and how the main character randomly runs into a "local celebrity from Toluca Lake who had a ski-nose". The reference should have been "ski slope nose", by the way (Bob Hope, for those of you who need the hint). Etcetera ad infinitum. It's tiresome!
I can overlook all of the dated references, chauvinistic viewpoints and racial stereotypes based on the era that the story was written. However, a skilled and forward thinking author could have sidestepped a lot of this malarky and not had to contend with such critical comments as those presented here by me. There are thousands and thousands of other fictional works from that era that still read as fresh today as they did then. Or at least not so overtly dated as this work. Pursuant to the aforementioned, it was difficult for me to get past the author's barely cognoscente knowledge of the television production business. I believe that if an author is going to portray an aspect of something in their writing that they are not intimately familiar with, then they need to go spend a few months in somebody else's shoes so that they know what they are talking about; the proper lingo, the appropriate equipment utilized, etc. Tom Wolfe is good at this. Even Dan Brown is good at this for god's sake (a sad comparison, but by design). Pournelle and Niven haven't a clue about television production -- even 1970's era production. And yes, before you get all excited, I live, breath and work in the Los Angeles television business. I am as good an expert as any in this judgement.
The dialog throughout is just atrocious to the extreme. Nobody talks like this. Nobody even talked like this in the seventies. And furthermore, if I ever again have to read the word, "Say" as the word at the beginning of a dialog sentence, I will throw the book out the window. I can't remember the exact passage that tic'd me off, but here is a made-up example: "Say, would you be available for a date tonight?" Nobody uses the word "Say" like that, except in Bogart movies. This book is full of similar annoyances that I can't directly recall at the moment. But this made up assumption of how people talk in the real world by two authors who apparently didn't get out of their writing dens very often becomes so jarring after awhile that I actually got angry. The dialog is miserable with three exclamation points.
All that being said, I had the same overall feeling that I had when I read The Postman. I liked the general plot idea. I just wish that someone else had authored it and made it readable.
And my final observation. I now know that my ten year-old son can have a career as a best selling author right now based on the acceptance level of all of these apparently illiterate reviewers. Three cheers to J.K. Rowling who apparently realized this as well. You just don't have to be able to write anymore in order to get published and make lots of money.
This book is a trite piece of writing, folks. Believe it.
Summary of Lucifer's Hammer
The gigantic comet had slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam. It was the beginning of a new Ice Age and the end of civilization. But for the terrified men and women chance had saved, it was also the dawn of a new struggle for survival--a struggle more dangerous and challenging than any they had ever known...."Massively entertaining."
CLEVELAND PLAIN-DEALER
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