Cover of Heart of the Comet

Heart of the Comet

Every seventy-six years, the lone wanderer called Halley's Comet has returned to our heavens from its long journey about the sun, stirring wonder, fear, and curiosity. Heart of the Cometis the story of Halley's next return in the middle of the twenty-first century, and of a mission to explore this ice-covered rock and to turn it into a source of life.

Exiles from a world devastated by fear and political strife, Halley's courageous multinational crew are torn apart by the prejudices and conflicts they have brought with them from their homeworld. But as a deeply buried secret blooms in the comet's long-delayed summer, the colonists must unite in a battle for their very survival.

Read more

The future of the Halley colony—and perhaps of all mankind—at last rests in the hands of three remarkable but very human people: Carl Osborn, the mission's troubled leader, whose strength must carry them through their gravest crises. Saul Lintz, a gifted biologist who undertakes a desperate gamble to save the mission. And Virginia Kaninamanu Herbert, the woman they both love, a brilliant young cybernetics expert who dares the boundaries between artificial and human intelligence.

Genre
science fictionspace operahard science fictionfantasyadventure
Themes
musictechnology
Subject
science
Audience
adult
Length
long · 479 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Heart of the Comet? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Heart of the Comet. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Anvil of Stars Shares science fiction, fiction, sci-fi fantasy
  2. Harvest of Stars Shares science fiction, sci-fi fantasy, fiction
  3. Giants' Star Shares science fiction, fiction, sci-fi fantasy
  4. Beowulf's Children Shares science fiction, fiction, sci-fi fantasy

“People who read Heart of the Comet tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Timelike Infinity
  2. Flight of the Dragonfly
  3. The Void Captain's Tale
  4. Dark Light

“If you want more of the same (science fiction about music), start with these.”

  1. Starquake
  2. Four Hundred Billion Stars
  3. Privateers
  4. Voyage from Yesteryear

“If it was the sci-fi fantasy that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Aurora
  2. The Ringworld Engineers
  3. Inherit the Stars
  4. Context (The Nulapeiron Sequence, 2)

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Asimov's Guide to Halley's Comet
  2. Comet
  3. The Shepherd Moon
  4. Children of the Comet