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July 9, 2006 During my last semester of college, I read Lucifer’s Hammer, a novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle about the impact of cometary debris on the Earth and the people left behind to rebuild the shattered world. After reading over six hundred pages of small type and reaching the end of the saga, I came to a satisfying and worthwhile conclusion. Lucifer’s Hammer stinks. I thought it was so bad, in fact, that I was inspired to write my own cosmic disaster novel. It would be much more engaging, more dynamic, and not in legal-fine-print type. And so, I set about the task with determination and zeal. My extensive research included procuring a copy of The Spaceguard Survey, NASA’s blockbuster report on the cosmic-impact threat; collecting periodicals like Astronomy and Sky and Telescope; and getting some much-needed guidance from an astronomer well versed in the effects of asteroid and comet impacts. Fourteen years later, the novel isn’t quite done. The dedication and the epilogue are pretty much set in stone; it’s the matter of writing the story itself. (And now you know why doing NaNoWriMo is a breeze.) But all that research over the years has yielded a pretty neat collection of material. It’s all in a plastic tub I call the Rock Box. It is a treasure trove of science fact and science fiction, and it is one of the most important things that I own. Among the many nuggets of information in the Rock Box: • A collector’s edition of TV Guide, from February, 1997. Kaycee Nilson would want it because it has Dale Earnhardt, Sr. on the cover, in full NASCAR driving regalia. But it’s what’s inside that’s the true treasure—print advertisements and commentary on the made-for-TV movie Asteroid, which ran as a two-part, four-hour mini-series on February 16 and 17. • A copy of Project Icarus, the MIT report that became the inspiration for the box-office bomb Meteor. For the record, watching Meteor 50 times would be the equivalent of reading Lucifer’s Hammer once. • VHS copies of Meteor and Deep Impact. • A copy of Lucifer’s Hammer. Even if it isn’t all that good, it’s still an important piece of my collection. After all, what good would it all be without the inspiration? I’ve made some new additions to the Rock Box recently. There were two books I had been wanting for some time that finally came up on eBay, and I snapped them up. There have also been a couple magazines detailing the threat, yet again, so you know I had to get them. And then there’s the letter that the astronomer sent back to me with all his notes. Whenever I finish the novel, the astronomer gets a copy gratis. It may be every bit as bad as Lucifer’s Hammer. It may never get published. But it will get written. And at least one copy will go into the Rock Box. I mean, where else could it possibly go? ------------ About the author: Claxton Graham has written over 100 articles for Useless Knowledge. He has also written the unpublished novels The Writer's Nightmare and Santa's Sleigh Is Missing. He works as a business analyst. Email: scifiwriter8502@email.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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