Lucifer's hammer.

I knew that this would be a book about a comet hitting the Earth, but aside from that, I didn't know what to expect. This book is absolutely amazing! The authors must have consulted with farmers, engineers, and others - they really thought everything through. The story really heats up around 75% or so. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but the end of the book is so interesting and exciting that I couldn't put it down.

I bought the book from Baen's website, since I really like their marketing strategy of giving away free Ebooks to let people get to know the authors and try a series before they buy. I really wanted to support them, so I was pleasantly surprised to see Lucifer's Hammer available of their site (Jerry Pournelle had just been talking about the book on a podcast shortly beforehand).

I really don't want to give any spoilers, so I'm afraid of writing too much. I do recommend that you read this, though! it is very accessible, even though it was written in the late 70s (the Monty Python reference is just as recognizable now, though! You'll know what I'm talking about when you read it). There is a large cast of characters, and sometimes I had to refer to the list of characters at the beginning to jog my memory. The book is nearly 600 pages (on my Ebook reader, anyway), but it is not a dry read at all. As I said, you will probably have to blast through the last quarter of the book all in one go since it is so action packed, so it won't seem like such a long book.