Mass market paperback, 318 pages
English language
Published February 1964 by Ballantine Books.
It began so quietly... So quietly that nobody except a few frightened scientists even suspected what might be happening ...
Then suddenly one day, it was there. It came without malice, an elemental force, a climactic power greater than any the Earth had ever seen in its billions of years of evolution, a phenomenon which reduced this planet to the size of an anthill pushed out of the way by a bulldozer. Men called it the Wanderer.
Yet despite its vast impersonality, to each human being on Earth the Wanderer spelled something personal — after all, death is very personal indeed. And the Wanderer meant death for millions. But for others — many, many others — it was something else again.
To millions of humans running like ants over the shifting crust of the Earth, the Wanderer came as terror, to overset the certainties of science, to wreck the world, …
It began so quietly... So quietly that nobody except a few frightened scientists even suspected what might be happening ...
Then suddenly one day, it was there. It came without malice, an elemental force, a climactic power greater than any the Earth had ever seen in its billions of years of evolution, a phenomenon which reduced this planet to the size of an anthill pushed out of the way by a bulldozer. Men called it the Wanderer.
Yet despite its vast impersonality, to each human being on Earth the Wanderer spelled something personal — after all, death is very personal indeed. And the Wanderer meant death for millions. But for others — many, many others — it was something else again.
To millions of humans running like ants over the shifting crust of the Earth, the Wanderer came as terror, to overset the certainties of science, to wreck the world, but to open up the hearts and minds of mankind.
This planetary disaster and first contact book won a Hugo, but it's not 5 star. One of the themes running through it is the recklessness of youth, from young characters to the encounter with a young species. Told from the perspective of many different characters, they don't all fit the theme. I chuckled at a few of the in-jokes contained herein.
