Moonfall

Racing neck and neck with doomsday, this breathless near-future thriller pits young, single and politically hopeful U.S. V.P. Charlie Haskell and a gigantic international cast of heroic helpers against an interstellar comet that blows the Moon to lethal smithereens and threatens to wipe out life on Earth. Just before the comet is spotted, cancer-riddled President Kolladner dispatches Charlie to the ceremonial opening of the U.S.-led commercial Moonbase, setting Charlie up for a spacewalk into destiny. Loaded with flaming action and fortified with characters from today's headlines, the novel hurtles cinematically from one point of view to another so rapidly that the characters, except for Charlie, tend to blur into one another. After McDevitt explodes the Moon midway through the novel, fearsome tsunamis wreak havoc on both American coasts. With a murderous gang of rocket-hating backwoods militants thrown in for a whisker too much good measure, U.S. know-how and rough-riding true American grit save the day on the ground. In space, Charlie faces more perils than Pauline did--and loses some of his credibility as a result. Overall, though, McDevitt's scrupulous research and ability to bring the arcane intricacies of space engineering within the grasp of the earthbound make this a fine-tuned disaster to remember. (Apr.)