ASTEROID

AN APOCALYPTIC JOURNEY

by Robert Steimke ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Steimke’s end-of-days thriller follows the course of an unlikely farmer-turned-astronomer.

The narrative begins, somewhat jarringly, with a retelling of the dawn of man and the original sin. Though the author plumbs no new depths here, the parable does set readers up for the scale of the story he wishes to tell—only the Bible could serve as a fitting tone-setter. After the theological interlude, the action begins as readers meet John Johansen sitting beneath the North Dakota stars; he’s a widower and farmer with a serious astronomy hobby. While looking to the skies for peace in the aftermath of his wife’s death, John spies what he believes to be a previously unrecorded object and reports it to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A scientist at the Minor Planet Center named Lloyd Phillips (or is it Lloyd Patterson? The text switches surnames—a distressing indication of a lack of proofreading) does some digging and confirms that what John spotted is an asteroid—and one that is troublingly close to Earth. Meanwhile, in New York City, Ryan, a financier, is putting the finishing touches a career, flaming out thanks to the corporate grind and a raging cocaine habit in a plot thread that feels wholly unrelated to the major narrative until much later. News of the asteroid reaches Dr. Ted Shipley, a scientific advisor to the president. Shipley rejoices in the career-making moment he’s been waiting for: “Now he had something! He looked up at the ceiling and said, ‘Oh, thank you Lord.’” (This enthusiasm seems misplaced, as the space rock is due to collide with Earth in five scant days.) From here, a classic setup for a doomsday story is established: There are the average citizens who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances, the egotistical master-of-the-universe types facing a comeuppance, and the government scientists fighting with the bureaucrats and the president. All scramble to save humanity (or in some cases just themselves) before the asteroid wipes out life on Earth as we know it.

Though one might expect some intrigue brewing among such a large cast—it continues to grow far beyond what is described above—John Johansen is likely to be the only character who sticks in readers’ imaginations. The novel has the scope of an expansive thriller with global implications, but between the stilted prose and text that is formatted in such a way that often makes it difficult to read, the end result feels inescapably amateurish. The basic components for a compelling, action-driven story are in place, but the characters—the surprisingly brilliant farmer mourning his wife, the financier who can’t stop burning his considerable wealth on cocaine, government lackeys with ulterior motives—are cliches, and their background details feel unimaginative and somewhat shoehorned into the text, as when Ryan tells himself it is time to get serious about quitting cocaine: “Once when [he and his father] were in an all-too-common argument, his father had called him ‘weak.’ This ‘label’ had stuck in his gut and bothered him ever since.” Readers may find such well-worn tropes sticking in their craws, too.

A doomsday novel lacking the characters or literary chops to distinguish itself in a crowded field.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2024

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

SCIENCE FICTION | THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE