Farside Cannon

The first part of this book is spent telling the story of a scientist who is trying to prove that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs impacted in Iceland. This book was released in 1988, and the Chicxulub crater wasn't confirmed to be the actual culprit until a few years later.

But that is OK - just makes the first 20-25% of the story dated. The cool science fiction stuff is in the rest of the book anyway. The worldbuilding of the Moon setting is great - I love that stuff. It is obvious that the author did a lot of research on how to move an asteroid and how living and traveling on the Moon would work.

The plot and action are great, and the characters are, mostly, pretty well fleshed out. There are a few scenes with some political show more types that don't seem to have any bearing on the main story. The political intrigue could have been amped up a little more to add more tension. But if you like to read a book that immerses you in a great hard SF setting, I recommend this book. show less

Farside Cannon is not an overly inspiring title to me.
However, I really enjoyed this book.

Political intrigue, people screwing each other over for their own gains.
Different factions with common goals or opposite goals, miscommunications and misunderstandings.
A comedy of errors with different parties attempting to save the world and instead sabotaging each other's efforts until tragedy looks inevitable.

Couldn't put this book down towards the end. I'll have to look up some more Roger MacBride Allen in the future. Good real characters and very easy reading.