What did you learn from Lucifer's Hammer (1977)?

[CountryGent]

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Continuing with the them of a couple other threads; if you've read Lucifer's Hammer (1977), by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, what preparedness ideas did you glean from said? Ideas on disasters, society, etc.? What did you think of the novel in general?

Thanks for sharing.

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[Longwalkhome]

Good book and worth reading, wish it was made into a movie with today's CG.

My take away is if things go down in a big way it may take generations before the things we take for granted return to everyday life.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

I liked the novel....
With that said its been awhile since I read it...so my perspective may change upon a re-read.
I did find other books by Jerry Pournelle that I liked as well , Janissaries comes to mind.
Andy

 

[GWS]

View attachment 1003735​

Continuing with the them of a couple other threads; if you've read Lucifer's Hammer (1977), by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, what preparedness ideas did you glean from said? Ideas on disasters, society, etc.? What did you think of the novel in general?

Thanks for sharing.

Lucifer's Hammer is my favorite EOTWAWKI novel. The buildup to the event was exciting and the description of the impacts was detailed and accurate. I also enjoyed the ongoing narrative of the Hammer's effects on the earth after the strike. I thought the characters were "real" people and believable. The problems of preparing for those who believed it would be the end were a good map for preppers and the ordeals of finding and getting to sanctuary were well thought out and worth consideration for one's own planning. The speed with which things broke down was dismaying and as such, a cautionary tale to think about for your own prepping plans.
My takeaways from the book, numbered but not in order of importance after number 1
Number 1: Have some sort of GTHOD plan
Number 2: Have a plan to gather friends and family, preferably before the event.
Number 3: Have a secure place to go. (This is probably the hardest thing for most folks)
Number 4: Have a useful skill set to make yourself valuable if you need to join a group.
Number 5: Have useful items for trade.
Number 6: Be prepared to fight or to be charitable
Number 7: Stock up now, before the panic/rush. That means bullets, beans and band-aids.

I'm sure I forgot something in that list but the real point is that Lucifer's Hammer is the book that really got me thinking about prepping for the first time.
IMO, Lucifer's Hammer is the EOWAWKI novel that all other books of that genre wish they were.

 

[GWS]

Good book and worth reading, wish it was made into a movie with today's CG.

My take away is if things go down in a big way it may take generations before the things we take for granted return to everyday life.

I would rather see it as a mini-series. There is way too much going on for a two hour movie.

I liked the novel....
With that said its been awhile since I read it...so my perspective may change upon a re-read.
I did find other books by Jerry Pournelle that I liked as well , Janissaries comes to mind.
Andy

Janissaries is great. I've also enjoyed "the Mercenary" series by Pournelle and nearly all of his collaborations with Larry Niven have been excellent. The Mote In God's Eye is brilliant.

 

[VinnieBoomBah]

Protect your wizard and expect whatever actually happens to not look AT ALL like what you expected and planed on happening

 

[Longwalkhome]

Err surfing might be a useful skill too.

 

[Stomper]

I learned that naming your kid Lucifer (or Sue) will cause him to get beat up in grade-school.

 

[TTSX]

I learned I don't have the attention span for a long lead up to the main event. I started reading the book and I assume Hamner's meteor/commet is supposed to hit Earth. Hadn't happened and I moved on to the one second after series

 

[308]

I learned not to hop into the car and pile up on blocked roadways with all the other lemmings. Also not to assume Plan-A is fully functional, and not to mention, he who has ammo and knows how to use it properly has a greater percentage of win in the backpack than those who are skeered of such things.

 

[albin25]

What did you learn ....

uhhh...?.... Well for ONE thing I wasn't aware Lucifer even HAD a hammer,
and for another, I suppose, if you're Lucifer's Hammer, everything looks like nails?

 

[OldBroad44]

Read book just now in response to this thread. Used to read SF but had quit by the time this book came out. Copyright 1997.

Authors have serious physics and engineering backgrounds and it shows in their portrait of impact. We've learned a lot more about mass extinctions in the past subsequently. They don't seem to know much about farming. Or biology.

They project it raining heavily every day in what used to be California while saying nothing about temperature and imagining that farmers are going to be able to grow crops at all. This while every volcano is apparently going off.

Tree ring data show that trees all over the world stopped growing in 535AD, did not grow for three years, and didn't grow normally for about 15 years. Historical records from China and elsewhere document a huge bang, and the sun being weak and giving no heat for two or three years. The volcanic ash patterns in the geological record show a volcanic explosion in Indonesia, Indonesia, possibly Krakatoa. Famines, disease epidemics, wars, population drops, and return of many populations from farming to hunting and gathering ensued. That's just one mega volcanic explosion.

Apparently the volcanic eruption called the Siberian Trappes caused the Great Dying that eliminated pretty close to everything, acidified the oceans, etc. Another one if the five mayor extinctions was associated with a similar volcanic eruption in India. The sort of massive impact that set off all all those volcanoes would likely not be survive able by humans, I'm guessing.

The farming is all off stage. Nearly all commercial farms buy their seed from elsewhere, and would have nothing to plant. The weather would be so different and unpredictable that at the least there would likely be no successful harvests for years.

To make the novel work I think we need a much less massive event than the one portrayed.

If I so imagine a survivable smaller event, I found the novel kinda boring actually. Partly personal preferences. For my taste, too many character lines for me to care much about any of them. The religious nutter army seemed a stereotype. I didn't find the senator convincing as a leader who people would actually follow as very convincing. That money would be worthless and people would take land and resources by force instead of honoring property rights appears in virtually all catastrophe novels.

 

[Stomper]

We'll make for great pets.

 

[sobo]

View attachment 1003735​

Continuing with the them of a couple other threads; if you've read Lucifer's Hammer (1977), by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, what preparedness ideas did you glean from said? Ideas on disasters, society, etc.? What did you think of the novel in general?

Thanks for sharing.

At the time I read Lucifer's Hammer, I was just a punk teenager in high school.
I wasn't even remotely thinking about prepping or TEOTWAWKI.
My firmly-held belief at that age was that I was immortal and would live forever.

Now, I'm going to pick it up again and re-read it. It's on my coffee table now, since I dug it out for the photo in your "The Day After" thread...

 

[Longwalkhome]

If I could summarize the book in as few readable words as possible it would be, men in conflict after a earth shaking disaster. Conflict is the basis for most of the better shows and movies, its life.

 

[Provincial]

I learned that Jerry Pournelle is the King of Kinetic Energy.

 

[3MTA3]

Time to re-read. Unfortunately don't remember it well enough. When I first read Pournelli, it was his Chaos Manor column in Byte. Didn't realize he was a SF writer for a long time.

 

[papersoldier]

What a great book. I really need to buy another copy if they're still in print. Mine is frayed and falling apart from being read so many times by me and people I've lent it to.

 

[44Brent]

I wish to read this book.

 

[ZeroRing]

I remember reading this back when it first came out back in the 70's and not being able to put it down. It would be worth reading again if I can find it buried in the attic somewhere because I know I've seen it up there. The fact that there really wasn't anything resembling computer technology, "internet", and the like that so many more "modern" TEOTWAWKI books seem to focus on serves as a good reminder that there is more to life than what's on our tiny screens!