Nearly twenty years before the blockbuster "Asteroid strikes Earth" movies such as "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon", Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote this much superior tale of the distruction of an asteriod impact. When a comet is first detected heading towards the sun, only the most alarmist thought that it might hit the Earth. As it moves closer the likelihood becomes greater and greater, until... A very entertaining treatment of a frequently reworked genre: the disaster novel. If you've seen either of the above movies you will be familiar with the basic premise, however, this novel goes into far more depth about life in the aftermath, something that both films failed to do. How the survivors cope with dwindling supplies and how common sense and justice go straight out of the window following the fall of the Hammer are both explored in depth.