The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino, George Zebrowski
The Apocalypse occurs nine days prior to America's Tri-Centennial celebration - when relativistic bombs launched by an unknown alien civilization finally reach their destinations. One man sees them approaching - but by then, it is already too late. And in a brief, incomprehensible instant, every inhabited planetary surface in the solar system is wiped clean. Life has ceased to exist. Now all that is left of humanity is a handful of survivors hiding between the planets in mobile space research facilities and experimental habitats - a small, terrified remnant of civilization struggling to make some sense of the catastrophe that has obliterated their past and future...while searching desperately for a means of escape before the Intruders' doomsday technology can detect and destroy them.
Astonishingly, on a dead and sterile Earth, two people remain alive - a Jesuit and a pilot aboard the deep-diving submersible, Alvin, protected from the devastation by the cold, enveloping waters. An historian and a scientist, it is they whom destiny has chosen to wander the surreal, empty wastes of a terrifying ghost planet - to battle fear, loneliness and encroaching madness...and to await the inevitable arrival of the annihilators from the stars.
All in all an interesting concept, especially with the humor of cultural icons thrown in, though one being the reason for the destruction was something of a stretch. One TV program saying everything there is to say about the human psyche? I think not. And wiping out every living thing on the planet seems a bit of overkill, especially once the true face of the killing alien is revealed.
Where the book loses another point is that two of the plot lines are left hanging, as the story comes to an abrupt ending. I thought at first that there was a sequel waiting in the wings, but nope, that’s it.
Going by the book’s afterward, I got the impression that the authors were “trying to tell us something,” as in preaching that maybe we shouldn’t be broadcasting? If so, it turns out that, since the signals are being transmitted outward in a sphere, it falls under the inverse square law. The strength of the signal decreases over distance, and would be almost non-existent within a few light years.
Was this figured out after the book was written? Maybe, maybe not, but I would have thought that the law would have been known in 1995.
Mount TBR 2022 Book Links
Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.
1. The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
2. The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig
3. The Autumn Throne (Eleanor of Aquitaine #3) by Elizabeth Chadwick
4. Grant's Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant's Heroic Last Year by Charles Bracelen Flood
5. Doctor Sleep (The Shining #2) by Stephen King
6. The High House by Jessie Greengrass
7. Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
8. Nightmare Country by Marlys Millhiser
9. The End of the Ocean by Maja Lunde, Diane Oatley (translator)
10. 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
11. The Bear (The Grizzly King: A Romance of the Wild) by James Oliver Curwood
12. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
13. The Wrong End of Time by John Brunner
14. The Hidden Child by Louise Fein
15. The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel
16. The Virtues of War by Stephen Pressfield
17. Our Oldest Companions: The Story of the First Dogs by Pat Shipman
18. The Man in the Moss by Phil Rickman
19. The Redemption of Wolf 302 by Rick McIntyre
20. John of Gloucester by Wendy Miall
21. Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism by Laura E. Gómez
22. The Cold Calling (The Cold Calling #1) by Phil Rickman
23. The Keep (Adversary Cycle #1) by F. Paul Wilson
24. Pines (Wayward Pines #1) by Blake Crouch
25. The Speed of Souls: A Novel for Dog Lovers by Nick Pirog
26. The Yorkists: The History of a Dynasty by Anne Crawford
27. With Face Aflame by A.E. Walnofer
28. The Gypsy Morph by Terry Brooks
29. Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton
30. Wardenclyffe (The Secret History of the World) by F. Paul Wilson
31. Goblin by Josh Malerman
32. The Queen Who Never Was by Maureen Peters
33. The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell's 1984 by Dorian Lynskey
34. Richard III’s Books by Anne F. Sutton & Livia Visser-Fuchs
35. Gwendy's Final Task (The Button Box #3) by Stephen King, Richard Chizmar
36. Malorie (Bird Box #2) by Josh Malerman
37. Where We Come From by Oscar Cásares
38. The Unconquered Sun by Ralph Dulin
39. The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman
40. The God Eaters by Jesse Hajicek
41. The X Factor by Andre Norton
42. The Last Wild Horses (Climate Quartet #3) by Maja Lunde, Diane Oatley (Translator)
43. The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner
44. Double Threat by F. Paul Wilson
45. Wayward (Wayward Pines #2) by Blake Crouch
46. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
47. Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan
48. Mean Spirit (The Cold Calling #2) by Phil Rickman
49. The Killing of Richard the Third (Henry Morane #1) by Robert Farrington
50. The Curious Case of H. P. Lovecraft by Paul Roland
51. Daughters of Sparta by Claire Heywood
52. The Great God Pan and Other Classic Horror Stories by Arthur Machen
53. He Who Types Between the Rows: A Decade of Horror Drive-In by Mark Sieber
54. Night After Night (The Cold Calling #03) by Phil Rickman
55. The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird
56. Biloxi by Mary Miller
57. Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System by Ian Angus
58. The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, Philip Gabriel (Translator)
59. The Visitant by Kathleen O'Neal Gear, W. Michael Gear
60. Lovell our Dogge: The Life of Viscount Lovell, Closest Friend of Richard III and Failed Regicide by Michele Schindler
61. Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters by Serhii Plokhy
62. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
63. Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes
64. Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
65. Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition by Buddy Levy
66. The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino, George Zebrowski
