I got this slightly battered 1979 hardcover at a local Savers thrift shop. It's the novelization of the 1979 film about a meteor that threatens the Earth during the height of the Cold War, and features a section of stills from the movie.

Scientists on both sides attempt to collaborate by uniting their countries' "nuclear deterrent" orbital missiles to divert the meteor, with resistance from mistrustful military - but, luckily for the planet, diplomacy and science win the day. The plot includes the love-interest between an American scientist (played by Sean Connery in the film) and the Russian scientist's aide/translator (played by Natalie Wood), and also has a number of smaller-but-pretty-awful disasters resulting from not-as-huge-as-the-main-meteor fragments - including one that strikes New York City, leaving our heroes to struggle through smashed ruins and flooded tunnels to find out whether their work saved the planet or not. It was... an OK movie, though often veering wildly away from science. The book, as a novelization, is pretty close to the film, with a few characters/scenes that didn't make the cut.

Some jarring moments included the destruction of the in-story manned space-probe Challenger, demolished by a smaller asteroid while attempting to gather information about the big one; just reading the bits about "the Challenger disaster" made me think of the real-world one rather than the fictional one.

[There's a TV Tropes page on the film, with some entertaining tidbits.]

I left this book in the Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

** Released for the 2023 Allergic to A challenge. **

** Released for the 2023 Science Fiction challenge. **

** Released for the 2023 Movie challenge. **