Cradle of Saturn - James P. Hogan Unheeded warnings from the colony on Saturn leave Earth unprepared when a giant comet erupts from Jupiter and goes careening around the solar system. In addition to novel physical phenomena in play that upends a lot of planetary theory, history hints that Earth had close calls 5000 years before with what has become the planet Venus. Even with evidence showing that catastrophism fits the facts, the prophets of gradualism still deny reality. Then the comet's orbit changes...
I really like Hogan's stories. He has a good mix of hard science and character interplay that make him enjoyable to read. The germ of this story is from a theory proposed by Immanuel Velikovsky in the 1950's that successfully predicted Venus's hydrocarbon atmosphere and hellish surface temperature when the mainstream believed the surface of Venus would be a water rich jungle. Based on historical evidence that he interpreted as close encounters between the comet Venus and Earth he also successfully predicted the locations of a number of undiscovered oil fields. I read Velikovsky's main book, Worlds in Collision about 30 years ago and was interested to see Hogan's take on the theory.
The book was interesting and worth reading but I have recently read Exit Earth by Martin Caidin. I also kept seeing scenes from the movies 2012 and Armageddon. There are enough similarities in plot and scope that I'm having a hard time evaluating this book on its own. Not a keeper for me. At least I wasn't asking "If they have that... then why wouldn't they..." repeatedly like I did with the other stories.
