Gregory Benford & William RotslerShiva DescendingMonika says:
A new edition of SHIVA DESCENDING was brought on the market 1998 in time to coincide with the release of the movies DEEP IMPACT and ARMAGEDDON. Its story follows the pattern of a disaster movie and has little new to offer if you've seen the movies I mentioned. It is more like DEEP IMPACT in that it focuses on the preparations people take for the coming impact and what governments do to prevent it, unlike Nivens and Pournelles' book LUCIFER'S HAMMER that deals with the situation after a comet hit Earth. An asteroid aiming for Earth is discovered in the depths of space. Calculations show that humanity has one year to take measures that either deflect or destroy it. The size of the rock gives reason to suspect that an impact would end human civilization, therefore it is named Shiva, the Destroyer. As I said before Benford und Rotsler stick to the pattern of a disaster movie and spend about half of the 600-page book introducing a number of characters. In spite of all their efforts the protagonists lack color and the plot seems needlessly drawn out without much actually happening. The first part is primarily about political intrigues and waiting for the arrival of the asteroid in our solar system strains the reader's patience. The second half is more interesting as the events gear up towards the climax and a somewhat satisfactory solution is reached. The long phase of virtual inertia bothered me most about SHIVA DESCENDING. Physics not being my field of expertise I kept asking myself whether it wouldn't have made more sense to throw the asteroid off its course as long as it was still way out in space. Activity begins only just before the impending collision, which was probably necessary to create suspense. I guess many a frustrated reader will have put the book away long before things pick up. Another reason may be that mankind in the book didn't have the technology to go beyond our moon. The timeframe isn't exactly stated, but the technology (Xerox copies, data storage on magnetic tape) implies an early 80ies setting. Or since the ending of the book – the encounter with Shiva – suggests a higher developed technology it is to be assumed that the authors simply lacked the imagination to come up with solutions for such trivial things. SHIVA DESCENDING leaves you with mixed feelings. It was rather entertaining, at least the second half, but doesn't meet my expectations of a thrilling disaster novel. It's a book for die-hard fans of the genre. |
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Last changes: 27-04-03 Copyright 2000 Christina Gross & Monika Hübner |
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