Central Heat

by David Dvorkin

About this novel, the author "What would happen if the sun vanished? The idea for this book was suggested by an article I read in, I think, Scientific American, describing a simulation of just that. The surprising result, according to the simulation, was that heat in the atmosphere and existing weather patterns would persist for a remarkably long time. It made me think about who might survive the catastrophe - military personnel in buried, self-contained complexes and bases on the moon - and what would happen next. I decided to have the sun removed by extremely advanced and extremely stuffy aliens who did it to punish us for our bad manners. Haven't you ever sat next to someone on the bus who made you want to do something violent?"

Genres: Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1988

Reviews

[Patrick Scheele · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book starts off promising in the first part with some crazy aliens destroying the sun, but it loses direction after that. The protagonist of the second part lives with other people in caves deep under the ground. He tries to prove that the surface of the earth is still (or again) hot enough to sustain life, but he fails miserably. He then proceeds to climb up anyway, because... well, he FEELS he's right... ugh, the stupid is strong in that one!

Anyway, he's also a racist and obsesses over every pretty woman he meets. But that's ok, because later on it's revealed that it's all the fault of those EVIL Christians in the caves who brainwashed him or something. The writer then proceeds to randomly sing the praises of birth control in part 3. Funny, with billions of people dead and only a few survivors, you'd think children would be welcome...

In the last part, Dvorkin finally gets around to the actual story again. Our hero manages to trick the aliens into sending a ship with an ambassador. Using a few hundred soldiers and the element of surprise, he captures the aliens and their ship. Of course, aliens advanced enough to blow up the sun from thousands of light-years away would be especially trusting of their victims and not even bother to add some fool-proof defenses, which should be trivial for them. Of course our hero isn't worried about retaliation from the aliens, because he's sure human scientists can take apart the alien ship and use that knowledge to create an invasion fleet so humanity can strike back at the aliens.

After a promising start, this book turned into a pathetic mess. At least now I know to avoid the author's other books.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

A most unsatisfactory end of the world story about naughty aliens blocking the sun and causing death, destruction and other unpleasant stuff. There is the kernel of a good story here, but the author fumbles the ball with hackneyed dialogue and half baked situations. I couldn't finish it.