Review: The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke

Blurb:

From one of the bestselling science fiction authors of all time comes this heart-stopping far future novel of an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
 
A century into the future, technology has solved most of the problems that have plagued our time. However, a new problem is on the horizon—one greater than humanity has ever faced. A massive asteroid is racing toward Earth, and its impact could destroy all life on the planet.
 
Immediately after the asteroid—named “Kali” after the Hindu goddess of chaos and destruction—is discovered, the world’s greatest scientists begin researching a way to prevent the disaster. In the meantime, Cpt. Robert Singh, aboard the starship Goliath, may be the only person who can stop the asteroid. But this heroic role may demand the ultimate sacrifice.

Review:

With another of his novels under my belt, Arthur C. Clarke continues to be one of my favorite authors. As with Childhood’s End and Rendezvous with Rama before it, I absolutely ripped through Clarke’s The Hammer of God, a novel about an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. 

The premise is, of course, not all that original in the grand scheme of science-fiction stories, and isn’t even original in Clarke’s own body of work! Twenty years prior to the publication of The Hammer of God was Rendezvous with Rama, in which the inciting incident of that whole story is an asteroid impact on Earth! However, that is not to say that this is a bad book by any stretch. In fact it is quite remarkable how compelling Clarke makes this story, given how common its underlying premise is within the genre. 

As with Rendezvous with Rama, Clarke presents the story of The Hammer of God in an almost documentary-like fashion, peeling off from the main story now and then in Crichton-esque fashion to regale us with some historic account of mankind’s myriad encounters with asteroids or to deliver important exposition that wouldn’t otherwise neatly tie-in to the main thread of the narrative—a storytelling method future sci-fi authors like Andy Weir and Chris Hadfield would use in novels like The Martian and The Apollo Murders to slowly tease out important foreshadowing and build dramatic tension (if you know, you know). The Hammer of God even begins, before even the table of contents, with the ominous preface:

All the events set in the past happened at the times and places stated: all those set in the future are possible.

Clarke is a no-nonsense author. No space is wasted in his text. And it is this relative brevity that I think sets his works apart from much of the sci-fi that preceded him as well as much of the sci-fi that would come after. While the sci-fi of the 60s, 70s, and 80s often took on a very cerebral flair (which Clarke certainly wasn’t opposed to doing himself, see: Childhood’s End), and the sci-fi of the modern era tends towards thick, worldbuilding-rich tomes so vast in scope that we’ve dubbed them “operas” (The Hammer of God paperback is barely more than 200 pages, compared to something like Leviathan Wakes sitting at a hot 561—I love The Expanse, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes you just want a tight-90 novel to give you that shot of sci-fi your brain desperately needs), the more grounded volumes of Clarke’s work are almost skeletally bare by comparison at least as far as the A to B of the plot is concerned—there is certainly a whole lot packed into these stories, which is Clarke’s other divinely inspired skill. As Rendezvous with Rama is a fairly simple tale of the exploration of a seemingly derelict, alien spacecraft, so is The Hammer of God the simple tale of the crew of the Goliath attempting to steer the rogue asteroid Kali from impacting the Earth. That’s it. That’s the whole story. An asteroid is on the way, and humanity needs to get it off the way. But Clarke somehow turns that premise into a story that I devoured in two sittings, in spite of knowing that there is only so much that you can do with a story like this! If you’ve seen Armageddon or Deep Impact, you’ll be able to guess how parts of the story unfold; but Clarke has so much more in store. 

And for enthusiasts of the burgeoning #incensepunk genre, there is some interesting textural flavor to discover here. The title The Hammer of God should have perhaps tipped me off to the notion that Clarke might have some interesting speculations about the future of modern religion, but if the idea of a future in which a hybridized offshoot of Christianity and Islam has a sacred canon of VR experiences, and a radical, Heaven’s Gate-style cult is trying to transmit human consciousness to Sirius because that’s where they think God is interests you; get your hands on The Hammer of God. Clarke doesn’t explore these ideas too deeply—they mostly act as catalyzing agents for main story beats, but it’s certainly interesting genre fare. 

So should you read this book? Absolutely! This one is primarily for the space nerds like me who already know what Shoemaker-Levy 9 and the Tunguska Event are, but if those words mean nothing to you, Clarke will help to explain the latter (the former is for you to discover yourself, as it occurs in the possible future of Clarke’s preface). Arthur C. Clarke hasn’t let me down yet, and I’m unendingly excited to keep diving into his work. I’ve finally gotten my hands on a paperback copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey, so maybe you’ll be seeing a review of that soon…