The premise of The Hammer of God is an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. While this isn't the most shocking premise--yes there have been several novels exploring the same idea, and other movies with the same idea, and even Clarke's explored it before, I find the question of 'what are you going to do when something horrific and cataclysmic happens?' The writing overall is clear, even when the characters were pretty dry, which is a feature of Clarke's clinical writing style. The edition that I read also had an afterword where the author talks about the theories that helped support his ideas which was also super cool.

Interesting enough. But not well written. At all.

3.5 - It was good, though I usually expect something that "blows my mind" in a Clarke book, and this one didn't quite deliver that for me.

The perspective on a giant asteroid heading for Earth is intriguing, and the concept of SPACEGUARD is interesting, although it was introduced earlier in Rendezvous with Rama.

At the end of the book, there's a blurb from Clarke discussing the references and inspirations behind this work, which is definitely worth reading. I would re-reading it.

Not one of Clarke's best. I can see why they changed everything when they made the movie.

Even when the idea is not so exiciting as his other work, Clarke use of sparse style to detail scicence is unparalleled and makes for brisk reading.