The Hammer of God

Clarke's first major solo novel in years--a national bestseller--tells the compelling story of the race to protect Earth from imminent destruction. An asteroid is on a collision course with Earth, and while a starship tries to redirect it, religious fanatics engage in sabotage to ensure that their predicted Apocalypse will come.

In the year 2110 technology has cured  most of our worries. But even as humankind enters  a new golden age, an amateur astronomer points  his telescope at just the right corner of the night  sky and sees disaster hurtling toward Earth: a  chunk of rock that could annihilate civilization.  While a few fanatics welcome the apocalyptic  destruction as a sign from God, the greatest  scientific minds of Earth desperately search for a way to  avoid the inevitable. On board the starship  Goliath Captain Robert Singh and his crew must race  against time to redirect the meteor form its deadly  collision course. Suddenly they find themselves  on the most important mission in human history—a  mission whose success may require the ultimate  sacrifice.

Publishers Weekly

Clarke's SF novel concerns an asteroid on a collision course with 22nd-century earth. (Nov.)

Arthur C. Clarke has long been considered the greatest science fiction writer of all time. He was an international treasure in many other ways, including the fact that a 1945 article by him led to the invention of satellite technology. Books by Clarke -- both fiction and nonfiction -- have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. He died in 2008.