Author: Jack McDevitt
An asteroid is going to hit the moon...will it destroy it? break it up into pieces that fall to Earth? Right away I'm hooked on the premise because the idea of the moon breaking up or getting destroyed is huge in disaster terms. And of course the asteroid coming out of nowhere is an all-time disaster fave.
The story focuses on a number of characters, but mostly on the vice-president who is at the lunar base when all this goes down. This isn't stellar writing, but it's decent enough that I have actually read this book twice. The descriptions of the moon base and the space station, in terms of physical characteristics and what they'd be like to live in, were excellent.
There was some stupid stuff--like why do so many disaster books have to have some militia group/terrorist group mucking up the works in the aftermath of the disaster itself? This happens a lot in disaster books, and in this one it just seemed a kind of add-on that didn't really help the book much.
All in all I liked it fairly well. Not a classic but a nice read.
Author: J.R.R. Tolkein
This is the classic epic fantasy story. Whenever I re-read this, I always start with The Hobbit, to get my mind firmly transported into the world of hobbits. So much has been written about LOTR, but what I know is that this book has meant a lot to me through the years. When I'm going through a hard time, I re-read it and let the descriptions of another time and place wash over me, settling my mind in soothing words I've read hundreds of times.
My favorite lines in the book have to be when Frodo asks Gandalf why Gollum wasn't killed when they had the chance to do it. Frodo says that Gollum deserves death. Gandalf replies:
"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
This is a coming-of-age story, an adventure, a treatise on the value of friendship, and a lesson on the choices made between good and evil.
Series:
The Hobbit
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King