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Moonfall: A Spellbinding Science Fiction Thriller of Heroism, Hope, and Apocalyptic Survival
It's the 21st century, and all is right with the world. Or so it seems.
Vice President Charlie Haskell, who will travel anywhere for a photo op, is about to cut the ribbon for the just-completed American Moonbase. The first Mars voyage is about to leave high orbit, with a woman at the helm. Below, the world is marveling at a rare solar eclipse.
But all that is right is about to go disastrously wrong when an amateur astronomer discovers a new comet. Named for its discover, Tomiko is a "sun-grazer,"an interstellar wanderer with a hundred times the mass and ten times the speed of other comets. And it is headed straight for our moon.
In less than five days, if scientists' predictions are right, Tomiko will crash into the moon, shattering it into a cloud of superheated gas, dust, and huge chunks of rock that will rain down on the earth, causing chaos and killer storms, possibly tidal waves inundating entire cities...or worse: a single apocalyptic worldwide "extinction event."
In the meantime, the population of Moonbase must be evacuated by a hastily assembled fleet of shuttle rockets. There isn't room, or time enough, for everyone. And the vice president, who rashly promised to be last off ("I will lock the door and turn off the lights"), is trying to figure out how to get away without eating his words.
In Moonfall, McDevitt has created a disaster thriller of truly epic proportions, featuring a cast of unforgettable characters: the reluctant Russian rocket jockey entrusted with the lives of squabbling refugees; the woman chosen to be first on the moon; the scientist who must deflect the "possum" (POSSible IMpactors) knocked from orbit or witness the end science itself. And at the center of it all is Charlie Haskell, the career politician who discovers his own unexpected reserves of only himself and his country, but for all humankind.
Moonfall, is a spellbinding tale of heroism and hope, cowardice and passion played against the awesome spectacle of human history's darkest night.
Vice President Charlie Haskell, who will travel anywhere for a photo op, is about to cut the ribbon for the just-completed American Moonbase. The first Mars voyage is about to leave high orbit, with a woman at the helm. Below, the world is marveling at a rare solar eclipse.
But all that is right is about to go disastrously wrong when an amateur astronomer discovers a new comet. Named for its discover, Tomiko is a "sun-grazer,"an interstellar wanderer with a hundred times the mass and ten times the speed of other comets. And it is headed straight for our moon.
In less than five days, if scientists' predictions are right, Tomiko will crash into the moon, shattering it into a cloud of superheated gas, dust, and huge chunks of rock that will rain down on the earth, causing chaos and killer storms, possibly tidal waves inundating entire cities...or worse: a single apocalyptic worldwide "extinction event."
In the meantime, the population of Moonbase must be evacuated by a hastily assembled fleet of shuttle rockets. There isn't room, or time enough, for everyone. And the vice president, who rashly promised to be last off ("I will lock the door and turn off the lights"), is trying to figure out how to get away without eating his words.
In Moonfall, McDevitt has created a disaster thriller of truly epic proportions, featuring a cast of unforgettable characters: the reluctant Russian rocket jockey entrusted with the lives of squabbling refugees; the woman chosen to be first on the moon; the scientist who must deflect the "possum" (POSSible IMpactors) knocked from orbit or witness the end science itself. And at the center of it all is Charlie Haskell, the career politician who discovers his own unexpected reserves of only himself and his country, but for all humankind.
Moonfall, is a spellbinding tale of heroism and hope, cowardice and passion played against the awesome spectacle of human history's darkest night.
560 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
109 people are currently reading
1306 people want to read
About the author
Jack McDevitt
185 books1,342 followersJack McDevitt is a former English teacher, naval officer, Philadelphia taxi driver, customs officer and motivational trainer. His work has been on the final ballot for the Nebula Awards for 12 of the past 13 years. His first novel, The Hercules Text, was published in the celebrated Ace Specials series and won the Philip K. Dick Special Award. In 1991, McDevitt won the first $10,000 UPC International Prize for his novella, "Ships in the Night." The Engines of God was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and his novella, "Time Travelers Never Die," was nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards.
McDevitt lives in Georgia with his wife, Maureen, where he plays chess, reads mysteries and eats lunch regularly with his cronies.
McDevitt lives in Georgia with his wife, Maureen, where he plays chess, reads mysteries and eats lunch regularly with his cronies.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 176 reviews
January 24, 2009
I really wanted to like this book. It was recommended to me by a friend who met the author, so I feel almost disloyal not liking this book. The book isn't bad. It's just not good.
I looked up the dates, because I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading something that was supposed to be a movie (and a movie I'd seen several times). Shoemaker-Levy smacked into Jupiter in 1994. Everyone got excited about the "What if?" factor. The question constantly being asked by the news reporters was "What would happen if something that size hit Earth?" Suddenly cheap documentaries were getting cranked out with doomsday scenarios of comets and asteroids threatening the world. I remember a cheesy TV movie called Asteroid (Feb 1997), followed a year or two later by Deep Impact (May 1998) and Armageddon (Jul 1998).
Moonfall's first hard-cover printing is listed as April 1998, putting it right in the middle of that the-sky-is-falling publicity hype. If it hadn't already been done so many times, it would probably make a decent disaster movie. Unfortunately, it's a fairly dull book.
The action takes place all over the United States (with occasional reminders that the rest of the planet exists), the Moonbase, and a dozen different space vehicles. I didn't make a list, but as you're reading it you feel like there must be hundreds of different named characters to keep track of, hardly any of whom have any importance on the story yet when you re-encounter them two hundred pages later, you're expected to still remember who "Amy" is. (A movie version could have shown us vignettes into ordinary people's lives without bothering to name them or waste much time on them.) The first two hundred and fifty pages are set-up. It's a disaster "movie" book in which no one dies until around page 275. The disaster scenes that followed might have been more exciting if I'd actually read the book when it first came out before I'd seen Deep Impact and Armageddon, let alone real news footage of the deadly 2004 tsunami. As it was, even the "exciting" parts of the story felt formulaic and anti-climactic.
The real problem is that I never connected with any of the characters. Even the main characters that you encountered often enough to keep straight in your head still felt a little two-dimensional to me.
I should at least give the author credit for coming up with a slightly different scenario than the other stories. The story is set a few decades in the future instead of the present day. In Moonfall, a giant comet hits the moon, not the Earth directly, but the rocks-are-falling consequences work out the same way. (By the end, I was kind of cheering for the rocks.)
I looked up the dates, because I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading something that was supposed to be a movie (and a movie I'd seen several times). Shoemaker-Levy smacked into Jupiter in 1994. Everyone got excited about the "What if?" factor. The question constantly being asked by the news reporters was "What would happen if something that size hit Earth?" Suddenly cheap documentaries were getting cranked out with doomsday scenarios of comets and asteroids threatening the world. I remember a cheesy TV movie called Asteroid (Feb 1997), followed a year or two later by Deep Impact (May 1998) and Armageddon (Jul 1998).
Moonfall's first hard-cover printing is listed as April 1998, putting it right in the middle of that the-sky-is-falling publicity hype. If it hadn't already been done so many times, it would probably make a decent disaster movie. Unfortunately, it's a fairly dull book.
The action takes place all over the United States (with occasional reminders that the rest of the planet exists), the Moonbase, and a dozen different space vehicles. I didn't make a list, but as you're reading it you feel like there must be hundreds of different named characters to keep track of, hardly any of whom have any importance on the story yet when you re-encounter them two hundred pages later, you're expected to still remember who "Amy" is. (A movie version could have shown us vignettes into ordinary people's lives without bothering to name them or waste much time on them.) The first two hundred and fifty pages are set-up. It's a disaster "movie" book in which no one dies until around page 275. The disaster scenes that followed might have been more exciting if I'd actually read the book when it first came out before I'd seen Deep Impact and Armageddon, let alone real news footage of the deadly 2004 tsunami. As it was, even the "exciting" parts of the story felt formulaic and anti-climactic.
The real problem is that I never connected with any of the characters. Even the main characters that you encountered often enough to keep straight in your head still felt a little two-dimensional to me.
I should at least give the author credit for coming up with a slightly different scenario than the other stories. The story is set a few decades in the future instead of the present day. In Moonfall, a giant comet hits the moon, not the Earth directly, but the rocks-are-falling consequences work out the same way. (By the end, I was kind of cheering for the rocks.)
September 16, 2011
McDevitt is a niche author. He writes what is sometimes erroneously called "hard sci-fi"; what it is really is the imagination of certain plausible events and asking "what would happen next"? Moonfall is my favorite of his books and among my favorites of all books. A comet or some such is going to hit and destroy the moon, and there are people on it. That's it, that's how you start, and if you're as good as Jack McDevitt, you make an outstanding book out of it.
January 7, 2013
This book was, in a word, chaotic. And in a second word, preachy. It's actually very difficult to determine which of those two descriptors was more upsetting, as I went through the book. Around three-quarters of the way through, I had had more than enough, and I only finished reading to give the book a fair shake.
In all honesty, I rather wish I hadn't.
Let's start with how it was chaotic. This issue should be relevant to any reader, regardless of your philosophical bent.
The chaos begins with simple organization. It seems Mr. McDevitt wanted to have titled sections, but he also wanted smaller breaks within the story. His choice on how to resolve this? Ten titled "chapters" with anywhere between 3 and 13 smaller, enumerated breaks in each. Except that those enumerations restarted with each chapter. So either you had to read eighty pages at a sitting or remember both chapter number and section number, at which point, it would be easier just to dog-ear the page and stop whenever you want. This might not matter at all to some, but it's hardly conducive to a good reading experience, in my opinion. It's just a little sloppy.
But that is probably the least of McDevitt's crimes against fiction in this work. He introduces - and kills off - more characters than most movies have extras. In fact, he introduces so many that it's almost impossible to keep up with them - which is proven by the fact that McDevitt in fact does not keep up with them all. There are a few characters, introduced sporadically, which he mentions again only once or twice, or perhaps never returns to. And he kills so many characters over the course of the book that he finds himself in need of new ones about halfway through, and starts introducing more. Not only does all this make the book a crowded mass of names, places, and biographies appropriate for a dating site, but it cheapens the characters that do survive. Since anyone could die at any moment, whether they had been a narrative influence, present from the beginning of the book, or seemed integral to the story, I quickly stopped caring for anyone. The romance in the book is irrelevant and emotionless, because one or both characters could die at any moment, with neither drama nor reflection.
Tangential to that point is this one: Mr. McDevitt begins the book with a small number of characters and a setting to which he only returns twice in the entire remainder of the book, and only for a paragraph each time. Perhaps I am alone in my thinking here, but I have always believed that the first chapter, the first paragraph, the first character in a story has either a pivotal role or thematic importance. The characters in Mr. McDevitt's opening scene have neither. They are, to put it bluntly, completely irrelevant to the entire book.
Finally, let us examine the prose. For the most part, the book is in third-person omniscient - presumably so we can relate to characters who will soon be dead. But Mr. McDevitt does not appear comfortable writing death scenes, so nearly every death in the book is from an observer's perspective: "So-and-so never saw it coming," "She was dead before she knew it," "He died in the middle of a sentence." If Mr. McDevitt wanted us to care about any of these characters, he should have made their deaths more interesting. Instead, much of the book reads like a historical account of the time when the moon was destroyed by a rogue comet, and this list of people died, and this list lived, and that other list should have been executed for their religious fanaticism.
Which brings me to my second primary point: how the book was preachy. Mr. McDevitt evidently lacks the capacity to understand the mind of a person who has religious faith. For one thing, he asserts that religious people live easier lives than the non-religious, that this ignorance (as McDevitt sees it) is bliss, and that the biggest challenge a Christian must face is explaining away bad events as divine providence. Churches are ridiculous, and things which must be escaped. (See pages 330-331 for these points.)
Furthermore, there can be no intelligent religious people. McDevitt cannot imagine someone being both intelligent and religious; the two descriptors mutually exclusive in his mind. After all, the one religious character who is neither a terrorist nor laughably short-lived is Chaplain Mark Pinnacle, who became a pastor not because he had faith, but because he was rebelling against his father, and Pinnacle had plenty of doubts about the truth of religion. (See pages 160-161.)
Perhaps most telling is how Mr. McDevitt concludes this little escapade. Almost every character in the book, even staunch agnostics (which seem to be the majority of the population for his characters; there are few staunch atheists and no staunch religious protagonists, in spite of every character's concerns about what the silly, religious voters would think), was praying in the final chapter that the mission would succeed... and yet, in the end, the important thing for Charlie Haskell (probably the primary protagonist of the book) to remember is that failure in the mission would mean going back to "inventing religions to give meaning to disease-ridden, violent, pointless lives, and then becoming subjugated by the religions," going back "to refight all the battles against war and disease and superstition," when, "finally, the common effort was bearing fruit." (See page 531.) And of course, success led to the formation of a universal bond among all humankind "that transcended national and religious identities," so much that "even in Jerusalem" (that wretched hive of warmongering, according to the underlying tone), "at long last, an accommodation seemed to have been reached." (See page 544.)
And what's the basic principle of all this? That religion is, at best, backwards, barbaric, ignorant, and foolish. And at worst, it's both malicious and evil, and it seeks to destroy humanity with wars and death, and we need a "common misfortune," brought about not by any god or religious cause, not by karma or dogmatic punishment, but by chance, by Lady Luck, so that we can all come together and achieve world peace.
See? Preachy. And chaotic.
Another humorous quibble is with Mr. McDevitt's ability to predict the future. Writing this book in 1998, he was four years late on his estimation of the first African-American President, and his view of the future of the Internet and other technologies is somewhat lacking... not to mention the sad issue of NASA's defunding, pressing, not the government, but a wide range of private companies into the reaches of space. But of course, he can't be faulted for any of that. It's just fun to note.
In all honesty, I rather wish I hadn't.
Let's start with how it was chaotic. This issue should be relevant to any reader, regardless of your philosophical bent.
The chaos begins with simple organization. It seems Mr. McDevitt wanted to have titled sections, but he also wanted smaller breaks within the story. His choice on how to resolve this? Ten titled "chapters" with anywhere between 3 and 13 smaller, enumerated breaks in each. Except that those enumerations restarted with each chapter. So either you had to read eighty pages at a sitting or remember both chapter number and section number, at which point, it would be easier just to dog-ear the page and stop whenever you want. This might not matter at all to some, but it's hardly conducive to a good reading experience, in my opinion. It's just a little sloppy.
But that is probably the least of McDevitt's crimes against fiction in this work. He introduces - and kills off - more characters than most movies have extras. In fact, he introduces so many that it's almost impossible to keep up with them - which is proven by the fact that McDevitt in fact does not keep up with them all. There are a few characters, introduced sporadically, which he mentions again only once or twice, or perhaps never returns to. And he kills so many characters over the course of the book that he finds himself in need of new ones about halfway through, and starts introducing more. Not only does all this make the book a crowded mass of names, places, and biographies appropriate for a dating site, but it cheapens the characters that do survive. Since anyone could die at any moment, whether they had been a narrative influence, present from the beginning of the book, or seemed integral to the story, I quickly stopped caring for anyone. The romance in the book is irrelevant and emotionless, because one or both characters could die at any moment, with neither drama nor reflection.
Tangential to that point is this one: Mr. McDevitt begins the book with a small number of characters and a setting to which he only returns twice in the entire remainder of the book, and only for a paragraph each time. Perhaps I am alone in my thinking here, but I have always believed that the first chapter, the first paragraph, the first character in a story has either a pivotal role or thematic importance. The characters in Mr. McDevitt's opening scene have neither. They are, to put it bluntly, completely irrelevant to the entire book.
Finally, let us examine the prose. For the most part, the book is in third-person omniscient - presumably so we can relate to characters who will soon be dead. But Mr. McDevitt does not appear comfortable writing death scenes, so nearly every death in the book is from an observer's perspective: "So-and-so never saw it coming," "She was dead before she knew it," "He died in the middle of a sentence." If Mr. McDevitt wanted us to care about any of these characters, he should have made their deaths more interesting. Instead, much of the book reads like a historical account of the time when the moon was destroyed by a rogue comet, and this list of people died, and this list lived, and that other list should have been executed for their religious fanaticism.
Which brings me to my second primary point: how the book was preachy. Mr. McDevitt evidently lacks the capacity to understand the mind of a person who has religious faith. For one thing, he asserts that religious people live easier lives than the non-religious, that this ignorance (as McDevitt sees it) is bliss, and that the biggest challenge a Christian must face is explaining away bad events as divine providence. Churches are ridiculous, and things which must be escaped. (See pages 330-331 for these points.)
Furthermore, there can be no intelligent religious people. McDevitt cannot imagine someone being both intelligent and religious; the two descriptors mutually exclusive in his mind. After all, the one religious character who is neither a terrorist nor laughably short-lived is Chaplain Mark Pinnacle, who became a pastor not because he had faith, but because he was rebelling against his father, and Pinnacle had plenty of doubts about the truth of religion. (See pages 160-161.)
Perhaps most telling is how Mr. McDevitt concludes this little escapade. Almost every character in the book, even staunch agnostics (which seem to be the majority of the population for his characters; there are few staunch atheists and no staunch religious protagonists, in spite of every character's concerns about what the silly, religious voters would think), was praying in the final chapter that the mission would succeed... and yet, in the end, the important thing for Charlie Haskell (probably the primary protagonist of the book) to remember is that failure in the mission would mean going back to "inventing religions to give meaning to disease-ridden, violent, pointless lives, and then becoming subjugated by the religions," going back "to refight all the battles against war and disease and superstition," when, "finally, the common effort was bearing fruit." (See page 531.) And of course, success led to the formation of a universal bond among all humankind "that transcended national and religious identities," so much that "even in Jerusalem" (that wretched hive of warmongering, according to the underlying tone), "at long last, an accommodation seemed to have been reached." (See page 544.)
And what's the basic principle of all this? That religion is, at best, backwards, barbaric, ignorant, and foolish. And at worst, it's both malicious and evil, and it seeks to destroy humanity with wars and death, and we need a "common misfortune," brought about not by any god or religious cause, not by karma or dogmatic punishment, but by chance, by Lady Luck, so that we can all come together and achieve world peace.
See? Preachy. And chaotic.
Another humorous quibble is with Mr. McDevitt's ability to predict the future. Writing this book in 1998, he was four years late on his estimation of the first African-American President, and his view of the future of the Internet and other technologies is somewhat lacking... not to mention the sad issue of NASA's defunding, pressing, not the government, but a wide range of private companies into the reaches of space. But of course, he can't be faulted for any of that. It's just fun to note.
May 14, 2025
Ok, the story was good. There was a lot of details and characters that were dragging me down the further I got into the book but I kept reading because I was very curious how the story was going to play out.
There was soooo many characters which isn’t a problem but do I really need to learn a back story to every minor character? No, I didn’t.
Did I really need to know every detail of the ships fuel hose? No.
However, while I was reading I kept thinking this is a four to five star read because the story itself was really good. I can’t grade it that high though. Every time I got invested in the story the author would take me out by adding another minor character or endless details on something that really didn’t keep the story moving. So I checked two stars off for those two reasons. The story was really good though. I’m happy with the ending and overall storyline.
Definitely worth checking out if you’re a Jack Mcdevitt fan. For the average joe readers and working man/women looking for a casual read. I would wait for the movie. It’s just not a book people can set down and forget about and pick up where they left off days later. There are no signs of this book being made into a movie, but I can definitely see it being made in the future.
There was soooo many characters which isn’t a problem but do I really need to learn a back story to every minor character? No, I didn’t.
Did I really need to know every detail of the ships fuel hose? No.
However, while I was reading I kept thinking this is a four to five star read because the story itself was really good. I can’t grade it that high though. Every time I got invested in the story the author would take me out by adding another minor character or endless details on something that really didn’t keep the story moving. So I checked two stars off for those two reasons. The story was really good though. I’m happy with the ending and overall storyline.
Definitely worth checking out if you’re a Jack Mcdevitt fan. For the average joe readers and working man/women looking for a casual read. I would wait for the movie. It’s just not a book people can set down and forget about and pick up where they left off days later. There are no signs of this book being made into a movie, but I can definitely see it being made in the future.
June 2, 2015
Imagine if Quinn Martin were still alive and making disaster films today... that's what you'd get if someone were to make a movie of this book.
I used to just love disaster films. Such a guilty pleasure. This book feeds that love. A comet hits the moon, the moon breaks apart and Earth is bombarded. The Vice President is on the moon at the time. Crazy RWNJs take advantage of the disaster to try and make things even worse! I love it!
I used to just love disaster films. Such a guilty pleasure. This book feeds that love. A comet hits the moon, the moon breaks apart and Earth is bombarded. The Vice President is on the moon at the time. Crazy RWNJs take advantage of the disaster to try and make things even worse! I love it!
November 8, 2023
Although written in 1998, this book still stands up well in the disaster/sci-fi genre. A well-written and well-paced storyline kept me gripped and interested most of the way through. I liked McDevitt's insights into human nature, demonstrated in the range of minor characters and their varied reactions to the disaster. Disbelief, anxiety, fear and panic, right through to crazy conspiracy theories. There was also a fair share of brilliant scientific thinking and outright bravery.
At times this book reminded me of the movie 'Independence Day' but fortunately with a lot fewer cheesy moments (and no aliens). It's well worth a read for those who enjoy disaster epics. IMO, it could make an enjoyable disaster film. (And no, it's not the book of the 2022 film 'Moonfall' - that's apparently an entirely different storyline).
At times this book reminded me of the movie 'Independence Day' but fortunately with a lot fewer cheesy moments (and no aliens). It's well worth a read for those who enjoy disaster epics. IMO, it could make an enjoyable disaster film. (And no, it's not the book of the 2022 film 'Moonfall' - that's apparently an entirely different storyline).
November 2, 2011
The story is excellent, but several details spoiled the entire book for me. I didn't mind the tremendous number of around fifty character, but for even the smallest "bit" players, McDevitt provided in the text, a minimum of a paragraph, and usually three or four along with a page or two of backstory. Some got killed within the next few pages. After several of these, I skimmed every backstory. In addition, although I could see where McDevitt tried to make all the names different, after the first twenty, they all began to blur together. At least he refreshed the reader's memory until the character became well established.
His non-science and bad geography really blasted me out of the book. His explanation for the incredible speed of the incoming comet worked, or at least made the extreme speed plausible. But many I could not ignore. I'll leave what I consider the worst one for last.
Far too many passive verbs. For an action thriller, the author must use active verbs to provide dynamic action. Several of McDevitt's sentences-in-row, sometimes for a couple of paragraphs, used no active verbs, just passive "was," "were," "had", and "have" over and over again.
Tsunamis--I know he couldn't see the excellent footage of last spring's (2011) tsunami that devastated Japan because the book came out in 1998. Even so, his knowledge lacked crucial details. He had the water flood in, but it didn't wash back out right away, leaving deep water for a day or longer. Some of his waves seemed far larger than possible, but I guess chunks of the Moon falling into the ocean could generate such waves. At least, he had the speeds within acceptable ranges.
Great Central Valley of California--He called it a desert. The west side is one, but he's talking about one of the richest fruit- and vegetable-producing regions of the world. After tsunamis wash into it by going over the Coast Range of mountains, it remains a gigantic lake. No way! All the water north of the Kings River drainage would flow out through San Francisco Bay. None of the earthquakes in his book destroyed the Golden Gate or blocked it, although the waves took out the bridge.
Los Angeles--washed away and devastated. Possibly, but unlikely.
Baja California--he had waves wash over the peninsula and flood the Gulf of California and travel northward, but didn't have them go over the low rise separating the gulf from the low-lying Imperial Valley and the Salton Sea. Now that probably would remain a lake.
Sequence of a solar eclipse--McDevitt's times of the eclipse are crazy. His first viewers saw it in the eastern Pacific Ocean at 5:21 AM, (9:21 EDT) at dawn. Eclipses can occur at sunrise. The next people to see it in Mexico, watched it at 6:43 AM (8:43 EDT). Here, McDevitt says the path of totality moved generally northeast (it would move westward). Essentially, 5:41 and 6:43 are about the same time of day based on their time zones, but 9:21 EDT and 8:49 EDT are an hour different, which is wrong. From here on, McDevitt gives no times, but moves steadily eastward. The eclipse would be seen along most of the path at about the same actual time and higher in the sky as one moved eastward. None of the observers on Earth but one ever figured into the novel after their first appearance.
Were the editors sleeping when they prepared this novel for publication?
His non-science and bad geography really blasted me out of the book. His explanation for the incredible speed of the incoming comet worked, or at least made the extreme speed plausible. But many I could not ignore. I'll leave what I consider the worst one for last.
Far too many passive verbs. For an action thriller, the author must use active verbs to provide dynamic action. Several of McDevitt's sentences-in-row, sometimes for a couple of paragraphs, used no active verbs, just passive "was," "were," "had", and "have" over and over again.
Tsunamis--I know he couldn't see the excellent footage of last spring's (2011) tsunami that devastated Japan because the book came out in 1998. Even so, his knowledge lacked crucial details. He had the water flood in, but it didn't wash back out right away, leaving deep water for a day or longer. Some of his waves seemed far larger than possible, but I guess chunks of the Moon falling into the ocean could generate such waves. At least, he had the speeds within acceptable ranges.
Great Central Valley of California--He called it a desert. The west side is one, but he's talking about one of the richest fruit- and vegetable-producing regions of the world. After tsunamis wash into it by going over the Coast Range of mountains, it remains a gigantic lake. No way! All the water north of the Kings River drainage would flow out through San Francisco Bay. None of the earthquakes in his book destroyed the Golden Gate or blocked it, although the waves took out the bridge.
Los Angeles--washed away and devastated. Possibly, but unlikely.
Baja California--he had waves wash over the peninsula and flood the Gulf of California and travel northward, but didn't have them go over the low rise separating the gulf from the low-lying Imperial Valley and the Salton Sea. Now that probably would remain a lake.
Sequence of a solar eclipse--McDevitt's times of the eclipse are crazy. His first viewers saw it in the eastern Pacific Ocean at 5:21 AM, (9:21 EDT) at dawn. Eclipses can occur at sunrise. The next people to see it in Mexico, watched it at 6:43 AM (8:43 EDT). Here, McDevitt says the path of totality moved generally northeast (it would move westward). Essentially, 5:41 and 6:43 are about the same time of day based on their time zones, but 9:21 EDT and 8:49 EDT are an hour different, which is wrong. From here on, McDevitt gives no times, but moves steadily eastward. The eclipse would be seen along most of the path at about the same actual time and higher in the sky as one moved eastward. None of the observers on Earth but one ever figured into the novel after their first appearance.
Were the editors sleeping when they prepared this novel for publication?
March 2, 2010
I've read other books by McDevitt before, and while they are usually light sci/fi, and adventure, they certainly are entertaining and fun. Not this book, though. I am amazed that I even finished it. It was poorly written, boring, too many incidental characters (whose only purpose it seems is to appear in the book as a caricature of some stereottype, and then die).
The event of a comet hitting the moon and the people dealing with the aftermath could have been a very, heart-pounding and exciting story. However, Moonfall, reads like this:
First this happened.
Then this happened.
Then this happened.
Then something happened.
Then this happened.
and so on for the first half.
The second half reads like:
and then this happened and someone dies.
and then this happened and someone dies.
and then this happened and someone dies.
...
Ugh.
The event of a comet hitting the moon and the people dealing with the aftermath could have been a very, heart-pounding and exciting story. However, Moonfall, reads like this:
First this happened.
Then this happened.
Then this happened.
Then something happened.
Then this happened.
and so on for the first half.
The second half reads like:
and then this happened and someone dies.
and then this happened and someone dies.
and then this happened and someone dies.
...
Ugh.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2013
Ah, hard science fiction, how I've missed you! Your paper-cutout characters, your massive scope, your meticulously researched and detailed science! It's been far too long since I've read a good hard SF book, and Moonfall fits the bill.
If you enjoy hard SF, then you'll probably like this book. It moves a bit sluggishly at first, but once things start getting put into motion, the pace picks up dramatically until the very end. I was thoroughly entertained!
If you enjoy hard SF, then you'll probably like this book. It moves a bit sluggishly at first, but once things start getting put into motion, the pace picks up dramatically until the very end. I was thoroughly entertained!
December 2, 2019
First of all, I do have a bias towards this book as the plot itself seems quite innovative compared to other works of fiction on impact avoidance. The science holds up pretty well. Surprisingly there was no Wikipedia entry till I got to add it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonfall
One issue with the book which many other reviewers also call out is its unjustified length. It introduces many minor characters, describes their backstory etc., only to kill them off or not use them again in the plot. Sometimes, it almost seems like a parody of a pretentious novel with extraneous character development.
Some reviews allude to a sense of preachiness in the novel - against religion and capitalism. I somewhat agree with the reviews.
The Kindle version which I bought happened to have a lot of typos somehow.
I'll also add a few detailed reviews which certainly make relevant points about the book:
Detailed critique on the writing style, characters and the preachiness ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Geography ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Shoemaker-Levy connection ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Science and characters ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Too much exposition ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Deepsix is better? ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Maybe also I'll give The Hammer of God a go sometime soon. And although the wiki summary tells otherwise, some reviews refer to a strong similarity with Lucifer's Hammer.
Quotes which were somewhat interesting...
---
"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. —Theodore Roosevelt"
(Well, dealing with allergies aren't depicted often in fiction :P ...) "The only thorn in his side was a series of allergies against which he was constantly taking medication"
"How often had he listened to people argue that it is after all a Darwinian universe, cold and neutral?"
"The mountainside on which they’d camped had filled up with people who traded food, coffee, and alcohol, and generally clustered together with the kind of community spirit that only shared risk could bring."
---
One issue with the book which many other reviewers also call out is its unjustified length. It introduces many minor characters, describes their backstory etc., only to kill them off or not use them again in the plot. Sometimes, it almost seems like a parody of a pretentious novel with extraneous character development.
Some reviews allude to a sense of preachiness in the novel - against religion and capitalism. I somewhat agree with the reviews.
The Kindle version which I bought happened to have a lot of typos somehow.
I'll also add a few detailed reviews which certainly make relevant points about the book:
Detailed critique on the writing style, characters and the preachiness ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Geography ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Shoemaker-Levy connection ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Science and characters ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Too much exposition ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Deepsix is better? ... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Maybe also I'll give The Hammer of God a go sometime soon. And although the wiki summary tells otherwise, some reviews refer to a strong similarity with Lucifer's Hammer.
Quotes which were somewhat interesting...
---
"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. —Theodore Roosevelt"
(Well, dealing with allergies aren't depicted often in fiction :P ...) "The only thorn in his side was a series of allergies against which he was constantly taking medication"
"How often had he listened to people argue that it is after all a Darwinian universe, cold and neutral?"
"The mountainside on which they’d camped had filled up with people who traded food, coffee, and alcohol, and generally clustered together with the kind of community spirit that only shared risk could bring."
---
December 4, 2011
I grew up in the 1950s and 60s and was a big fan of science fiction and particularly "space operas". I loved movies like "The Forbidden Planet" that tried to speculated what it would be like to be in a spaceship in Outer Space and to visit other planets, loved TV shows like "Star Trek" and "Lost in Space". I loved books by Isaac Asimov (the Foundation trilogy) and Frank Herbert (the Dune series). Then science fiction became almost all "fantasy" - magic, make-believe worlds without any scientific basis, fairy-tale creatures (like Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series). As humanity took our first steps beyond our planet it seemed that no one wanted to write fiction that featured science and technology.
"Moonfall" is a pretty good "space opera". It is about a colony base on the Moon, space stations and preparing for the first manned flight to Mars. But then a weird comet suddenly appears and is on a collision course with the Moon (I guess this is the "magical" or "fantasy" part of the book). Now the story is more about the coming disaster than it is about science and technology (although there are still plenty of those thrown it).
While McDevitt has a very readable writing style, the format that he uses in "Moonfall" is like the TV disaster movie-of-the-week with an all-star cast! I can almost pick out which actors McDevitt had in mind for each character. He jumps from one short scene on the Moon to another short scene in an observatory on Earth to a scene at the White House to a scene in the boonies in Virginia, etc. It is very difficult to get to know the characters because the author jumps around so much from locations, characters, perspectives and concerns. The characters become one-dimensional and almost cartoonish. I found myself not caring whether a certain character died or how another character felt. It reminded me very much of the movie "The Towering Inferno". I can understand why he chose this structure for the story but it didn't allow me to connect with anyone in the book. I did not even connect with the most sympathetic character in the book, the Vice President of the U.S. who traveled to the moonbase.
I think this story is really more of the author's attempt to vent on the excesses and failures of government to act. Indeed he seemed to get most carried away by his story when he was writing about the angry militiamen plotting to overthrow the government or the pompous professor throwing the blame onto the President and his administration for the pending natural disaster.
It will hold your interest but not inflate your passion.
"Moonfall" is a pretty good "space opera". It is about a colony base on the Moon, space stations and preparing for the first manned flight to Mars. But then a weird comet suddenly appears and is on a collision course with the Moon (I guess this is the "magical" or "fantasy" part of the book). Now the story is more about the coming disaster than it is about science and technology (although there are still plenty of those thrown it).
While McDevitt has a very readable writing style, the format that he uses in "Moonfall" is like the TV disaster movie-of-the-week with an all-star cast! I can almost pick out which actors McDevitt had in mind for each character. He jumps from one short scene on the Moon to another short scene in an observatory on Earth to a scene at the White House to a scene in the boonies in Virginia, etc. It is very difficult to get to know the characters because the author jumps around so much from locations, characters, perspectives and concerns. The characters become one-dimensional and almost cartoonish. I found myself not caring whether a certain character died or how another character felt. It reminded me very much of the movie "The Towering Inferno". I can understand why he chose this structure for the story but it didn't allow me to connect with anyone in the book. I did not even connect with the most sympathetic character in the book, the Vice President of the U.S. who traveled to the moonbase.
I think this story is really more of the author's attempt to vent on the excesses and failures of government to act. Indeed he seemed to get most carried away by his story when he was writing about the angry militiamen plotting to overthrow the government or the pompous professor throwing the blame onto the President and his administration for the pending natural disaster.
It will hold your interest but not inflate your passion.
June 9, 2014
This is an excellent hard-sf novel in the cosmic-disaster niche, in the tradition of Niven & Pournelle's LUCIFER's HAMMER and Balmer & Wylie's WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE. It's quite different from most of McDevitt's other novels in that a very wide range of viewpoint characters is presented, and all of the action takes place in a very short time frame; only a week from end to end, but with a very intricate and rigorously plotted series of interwoven storylines. MOONFALL was published in 1998, the same year that DEEP IMPACT and ARMAGEDDON were released, so it may have been somewhat overlooked in the field due to the similarities; I suspect that may be why I didn't read it then. McDevitt throws out the speculation that the origin of the comet that's going to impact the moon may not have a natural origin, but then doesn't pursue the thought; as always, he opens the door on certain lines of thought and then invites the reader to draw their own conclusion. I think it would be great if it were re-released today in a slightly updated edition; I think it still holds up quite well, but there are a few brief mentions that serve to date it such as Steak & Ale restaurants, people driving station wagons, and it is mentioned that Hank Aaron still holds the home run record fifty years after breaking Ruth's record. I enjoyed it very much.
March 19, 2017
Welp, don't say I didn't give this one a chance, I gave it 350 pages before throwing in the towel. The book is insanely overlong and the prelude to the impact is way too slow, boring and over-detailed. You will read every minute of every shuttle escape, and just my lack of attention but I couldn't keep all the shuttle and base names straight. So a lot of this exposition that is painstakingly unfolding in front of me was lost on me.
Then the impact is handled in a few sentences and we're into the section of the book where, I guess, chaos reigns on Earth.
As it stands this book is a huge block of grey text. Lop off 150 pages and tighten up the narrative and you might have a very entertaining book.
Then the impact is handled in a few sentences and we're into the section of the book where, I guess, chaos reigns on Earth.
As it stands this book is a huge block of grey text. Lop off 150 pages and tighten up the narrative and you might have a very entertaining book.
December 24, 2011
This is a really good book that exceeded my expectations. Jack McDevitt has always been a talented author that does real well with academic or mystery science fiction but I've never been a fan of the "Earth Disaster" aspects of his books. He and I aren't necessarily on the same page with things like global warming and global government. But, I can enjoy his work without agreeing with him because his beliefs are background to the story, not the point.
I digress...
This book was a page-turner, a story of desperate heroism, likable characters, and ends, despite disaster, with hope for humanity.
This is a "Goodread".
I digress...
This book was a page-turner, a story of desperate heroism, likable characters, and ends, despite disaster, with hope for humanity.
This is a "Goodread".
November 14, 2019
Great concept, slightly let down by the confusing array of different vehicles, stations, hubs etc and so many characters who pop up for not much reason. This book would benefit from a simple diagram of all the various stations involved in transit to and from Earth and Moonbase and a brief outline of the various moonbuses, shuttles, space planes, micros etc as I was often unsure where characters actually were! Maybe it's just me but it got a little confusing. The plot it very good and the writing is also compelling, I found I didn't much invest in the characters though, we didn't get to know any of them. Overall a good storyline, well written but not a book I would read again.
June 5, 2013
McDevitt is a reliable writer, but here he has his science so very wrong that it could only be fiction. Problem is, that bothered me so much that it was nearly impossible to read the entire novel.
Read
February 6, 2021Another doomsday/disaster book. Yawn. I couldn’t finish it.
October 20, 2021
It's a dumpster fire. I can't recommend it. But I'm a sucker for a good cosmic apocalypse.
January 7, 2024
In general I enjoyed this story. It was a good read of a disaster book. I'm happy I've read it but I'm not sure I'll reread.
I'd say if you like disaster books, read this once. It's okay.
What it did well- ummm. Okay I like the planes and Moonbase. It's interesting how they describe how the government handles the emergency. I think it's quite feasible but a little pessimistic.
What I didn't like-
Too many characters. I couldn't keep them all straight. Also there were so many they weren't really fleshed out. He made an attempt with a few but I feel failed. His women were written like 50's and 60's housewives thrusting themselves into man spaces and jobs.
For a hard sci fi book it's missing a lot. I'm not actually sure I would qualify it. There's a lot of questions I have being a normal hard sci fi reader. Why aren't there more projections? When the comet is coming in there aren't any. That is crazy business. When compared to Lucifers Hammer written more than 10 years before they offer plenty of projections so we know it was possible in the 80's.
Also this book didn't age well at all. They set it almost 40 years in the future (2024 actually which I find funny). The author thought through what he thought space travel and flight would be like (and I think if we'd taken different turns in the last 40 years we might have been where he describes) but he didn't take other things into consideration. I like that he thought out how cars would be somewhat. And he used cell phones which were barely around. But he still commented on it being surprising when a woman didn't want a husband. He wrote his female characters as they should still be dependent on a man. That was already ending in the 80's.
Landlines and faxes are still huge in it. He also doesn't mention the Internet. If you're writing hard sci fi and using cell phones I think you should be able to see the future where landlines and faxes are mostly non-existent. And answering machines? Seriously. The Internet already existed in the 80's and there's no way you can't see that would become an information device in the future.
Finally he doesn't really try to go into specifics on stuff. Which it supposedly being a hard sci fi is something you expect. More diving into the orbital mechanics and physics. I understand writers aren't astro physicists usually... but that's what research or specialists to assist are for.
TLDR: It's not a hard sci fi book. Remove that. It's a regular disaster novel. That's okay, just don't mislabel it.
I'd say if you like disaster books, read this once. It's okay.
What it did well- ummm. Okay I like the planes and Moonbase. It's interesting how they describe how the government handles the emergency. I think it's quite feasible but a little pessimistic.
What I didn't like-
Too many characters. I couldn't keep them all straight. Also there were so many they weren't really fleshed out. He made an attempt with a few but I feel failed. His women were written like 50's and 60's housewives thrusting themselves into man spaces and jobs.
For a hard sci fi book it's missing a lot. I'm not actually sure I would qualify it. There's a lot of questions I have being a normal hard sci fi reader. Why aren't there more projections? When the comet is coming in there aren't any. That is crazy business. When compared to Lucifers Hammer written more than 10 years before they offer plenty of projections so we know it was possible in the 80's.
Also this book didn't age well at all. They set it almost 40 years in the future (2024 actually which I find funny). The author thought through what he thought space travel and flight would be like (and I think if we'd taken different turns in the last 40 years we might have been where he describes) but he didn't take other things into consideration. I like that he thought out how cars would be somewhat. And he used cell phones which were barely around. But he still commented on it being surprising when a woman didn't want a husband. He wrote his female characters as they should still be dependent on a man. That was already ending in the 80's.
Landlines and faxes are still huge in it. He also doesn't mention the Internet. If you're writing hard sci fi and using cell phones I think you should be able to see the future where landlines and faxes are mostly non-existent. And answering machines? Seriously. The Internet already existed in the 80's and there's no way you can't see that would become an information device in the future.
Finally he doesn't really try to go into specifics on stuff. Which it supposedly being a hard sci fi is something you expect. More diving into the orbital mechanics and physics. I understand writers aren't astro physicists usually... but that's what research or specialists to assist are for.
TLDR: It's not a hard sci fi book. Remove that. It's a regular disaster novel. That's okay, just don't mislabel it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 7, 2016
The drama builds up with a slow burn. The characters are portrayed and used well: dozens of characters supply vignettes of the central event in this book, and each makes the reader think about things from a new angle.
One gripe about the dramatic build-up, though, is that the events of the first third of the book () seem trivial when juxtaposed with the next third (). I feel like I wasted my anxiety on the drama of the first bit, when it becomes essentially moot in the next bit.
This book is half about space & physics, and half about politics. Both topics are done well enough that an amateur can feel like an insider, although I suspect an expert would still scoff at the simplistic presentation.
In particular, the physics seem to have some holes. E.g., the runs afoul of orbital mechanics. Applying thrust near perihelion doesn't affect the minor radius of the orbit. Although I'm hardly an expert, I'm skeptical that the would have such limited fallout on Earth. Also, I don't think the author quite appreciates how big space is (especially in comparison to, for example, the extent of Earth's atmosphere); and how far the Moon is from the Earth (in comparison to, for example, low Earth orbit).
The expert doctor character irritated me, as he revealed himself to be an expert in all of astronomy, biology (), physics, rocketry, geology, climatology and fluid dynamics (). I assume that that one character was meant to represent all of Earth's scientists, but it does perpetuate silly stereotypes about whether actual science gets done by brilliant individuals or teams.
I hated the ending. It's insulting to suggest I'd believe that of human nature.
One gripe about the dramatic build-up, though, is that the events of the first third of the book () seem trivial when juxtaposed with the next third (). I feel like I wasted my anxiety on the drama of the first bit, when it becomes essentially moot in the next bit.
This book is half about space & physics, and half about politics. Both topics are done well enough that an amateur can feel like an insider, although I suspect an expert would still scoff at the simplistic presentation.
In particular, the physics seem to have some holes. E.g., the runs afoul of orbital mechanics. Applying thrust near perihelion doesn't affect the minor radius of the orbit. Although I'm hardly an expert, I'm skeptical that the would have such limited fallout on Earth. Also, I don't think the author quite appreciates how big space is (especially in comparison to, for example, the extent of Earth's atmosphere); and how far the Moon is from the Earth (in comparison to, for example, low Earth orbit).
The expert doctor character irritated me, as he revealed himself to be an expert in all of astronomy, biology (), physics, rocketry, geology, climatology and fluid dynamics (). I assume that that one character was meant to represent all of Earth's scientists, but it does perpetuate silly stereotypes about whether actual science gets done by brilliant individuals or teams.
I hated the ending. It's insulting to suggest I'd believe that of human nature.
May 20, 2018
Asteroid collision stories usually have one of two focuses: how do we keep it from happening or what do we do after it hits. Moonfall takes a third approach—what can we do to limit the impact. It also deals not with a direct hit on the earth but the effects of a large, very high-speed hit on the moon. The book is in the tradition of Clarke, Pournelle, Niven, and Bova. Like many near future space stories, it is a bit optimistic about how far along space exploration will be in 50 years. But given the tech it posits, the story is plausible. Published exactly a year before the Twin Towers attack, it describes a political world in which the only opposition to space exploration comes from the Christian right and white militias. I wonder how the novel would have changed if it had been written one or two years later.
June 20, 2021
I get so much crap about this book, mostly because I made the mistake of giving it to a non sci fi friend but I STAND BY IT. I love this book. I love the characters, I love the way they fix what's happening, and I love that during the time I was reading it, there was a full moon and I stared up at it a bunch and kept telling it how much I would miss it if it were gone.
2021 update: the non sci fi friend and I reread this book this year. We both updated our ratings, she increased her stars and I dropped one. I still stand by this book, it’s flipping great, but 5 stars seems a little excessive, heh.
2021 update: the non sci fi friend and I reread this book this year. We both updated our ratings, she increased her stars and I dropped one. I still stand by this book, it’s flipping great, but 5 stars seems a little excessive, heh.
November 21, 2012
I just finished Moonfall and it was a terrific science fiction thriller about a pre-apocalyptic event in which a comet is hurdling through space and is expected to hit the Moon. In this future, the US has established a Moonbase which will be destroyed by the comet so the research facility needs to be evacuated. However, the question becomes what happens when the Moon is hit? How bad will the damage be? And what impact will this have for Earth? This book has a complex group of characters which I found difficult to keep track of but once I decided to just read the book and let it 'fall into place' (no pun intended), it was a very good thriller/suspense tale.
January 21, 2009
I went into this book with high expectations - I really liked McDevitt's Academy novels, but something about this just didn't click for me. Over 100 pages in, I hadn't found a character I could like, and the plot was completely unsurprising - I felt like I knew where the book was going, and didn't see much point in continuing. Moonfall doesn't have the elements of the Academy novels that grabbed me, and it felt like a rehash of Deepsix, minus those elements. I'll still give McDevitt's Alex Benedict series a try, but this one's getting traded.
September 25, 2019
One of those books written with the hope of becoming a movie. Written about the same time as "Armageddon " and "Deep Impact".
Luckily for us, Hollywood had moved on before it got to this sad piece of dreck.
Asteroid or comet or something smashes into the moon. Much destruction. Suggestion of alien interference, never elaborated upon; saving it for the sequel, I suppose. Which I won't be reading.
Luckily for us, Hollywood had moved on before it got to this sad piece of dreck.
Asteroid or comet or something smashes into the moon. Much destruction. Suggestion of alien interference, never elaborated upon; saving it for the sequel, I suppose. Which I won't be reading.
March 11, 2017
The story of a rogue comet striking our moon or Earth itself is not new. So I expected an original twist in the course of events. Unfortunately, this twist never came. After some 250 pages or so the book became really boring. A word to editors: send a manuscript with more than 500 pages back to its author and ask him/her to omit at least 200 pages.
May 4, 2013
Moonfall entertained and thrilled me for two wonderful days! Sometimes a disaster novel is just what the doctor ordered and this one, written in the late 90s, is very good indeed. I barely moved an inch while reading it. Life did indeed stop.
April 28, 2015
7/10 stars.
It's a page-turner and the cast of characters is huge (sometimes unnecessarily so), but before long the main characters take over most of the action. I just kept picturing the story unfolding on the big screen with lots of special effects.
It's a page-turner and the cast of characters is huge (sometimes unnecessarily so), but before long the main characters take over most of the action. I just kept picturing the story unfolding on the big screen with lots of special effects.
September 11, 2010
Usually I like reading McDevitt, but this one just reminded me of a written version of a Roland Emmerich film. Since I'm not a fan of those movies, I wasn't a fan of this book. Ah well.
October 15, 2020
This is a very exciting story. It kept me up at night reading.
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