Right Wing Bogeys in Lucifer's Hammer

Picking out conservative tropes in science fiction is an interesting sideline. Especially when they normally skip by overlooked and unnoticed in somewhat canonical works. Another case in point is Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer, their best-selling late 70s thriller about a cometary impact and its aftermath. Spoilers follow.

The book arrives in three acts. The lead up to the impact, the catastrophe itself, and the aftermath as survivors come to terms with their devastated world. The first provides background to our characters, but often these slip into observations that would rile anyone not on board with blokey American conservatism. It ranges from the puerile (a Soviet astronaut called Jackov, which is heavily underscored, and speculation about how female astronauts go to the toilet in zero gravity), to the cynical (Alim Nassor, a former Black Panther and community champion who uses both as a cover for criminality), to the gratuitously misogynistic (Fred, a convicted sex offender, keeps voyeuristic tabs on a neighbour who he sexually assaults and murders, knowing the calamity will scrub out any consequences for him). None of which bring nothing to the narrative.

The second act shows the unfolding disaster from multiple angles. The omniscient narrator dispassionately tracks the explosions and tsunamis as they scrub out millions of lives, while our characters either meet their doom or scramble to safety in the hills above Los Angeles. The silliest moment involves several dozen surfers paddling out into the bay to catch the wave to end all waves. One of them manages to ride it in, until he gets face-planted by a 30 storey building.

But it's the final act where Niven and Pournelle's prejudices are let loose. Trusting to his prepper instincts, Arthur Ellison - a Californian Senator - retreats to his ranch with supplies to see his family through the apocalypse. Safely ensconced in a valley sheltered from the worst, he and his lieutenants make a stab at organising the survivors to see out the coming winter. This means making "tough choices" in keeping others out of his community, lest their supplies won't stretch. Some are let in - technicians and engineers, bourgeois-types - but it's the road for most. Life here is harsh, as most have to work the fields for the barest rations, and are forced to give up supplies they may have hoarded on pain of banishment. But most of the action focuses on what's happening around the senator's table, as local strongmen, his special advisor, and recent arrivals debate the direction the new community should head in. It's an all-white, all-male jamboree where women are trophy daughters or the secretarial help who supply ersatz tea and coffee. A vision of Reagan's America before Reagan's America.

Meanwhile, another force is stirring in the blasted landscape outside the valley. African-American Sergeant Hooker takes over his army unit and turns cannibal to survive. They quickly absorb other forces, including the survivors of Nassor's crew, as well as linking up with culty religious fundamentalists. These are unmistakably the baddies. Black men plus extremist zealots that feast on human flesh, could they get any worse? Why, yes. One of the New Brotherhood's leaders was an ecologist, opponent of nuclear power and, worst of all, previously a labour organiser in the valley. He - along with the zealots - push for attacks on remaining industry as it was responsible for the fall. In other words, the wrong 'uns are all the bogeys that then, as now, gets the right hot under the collar.

The scene is set for the final showdown between the forces of light and dark. Naturally, the advantages lie with the New Brotherhood. As per every conservative nightmare, there's more of them as they swarm over the valley's positions. Booby traps, roadblocks, none of which slow down our ethnically diverse and politically suspect cannibals. They even have tactics that outflank and confound the goodies' strategies, which is most unsporting of them. Before long, we're in another valley. Only one ridge line and its defenders stand between chaos and white America as we appreciate it. The battle begins and the secret weapon is deployed - mustard gas! In scenes redolent of Churchill's enthusiastic advocacy of using poisonous gas to put down colonial revolts, jar after jar of the stuff is catapulted into the New Brotherhood's lines and they're immediately routed. California, at last, is made safe for Republicans.

The novel then judders to a quick finish. One moment, the Valley leadership are debating whether they should send forces to defend the remaining operational nuclear power plant from attack by the remnant New Brotherhood, and then it's the epilogue where the threat was seen off, industrial civilisation is reviving, and Cosmonaut Jackov - who earlier splashed down in neighbouring territory - runs his own gulag populated by prisoners of war from the Brotherhood. It's a restatement of conservative America, a victory over the dread trends unleashed during the 60s and 70s - feminism, anti-racism, environmentalism - where those meant to rule rule, and minority ethnicities eke out a pastoral existence behind watch towers and barbed wire.

As apocalyptic novels go, Lucifer's Hammer makes for a pacey page turner in the airport mode. The catastrophe wrought by the impact is well done, and the debates had about surviving the coming winter and building something that can last are interesting and do a good job at setting out the stakes. But this is inseparable from the inflection of Niven and Pournelle's conservative dispositions. Lumping everything they detested about 70s America into their bad guys was a crass move, but one that is not immediately obvious - like, say, the frequent snarks at "women's lib". It speaks to the subtlety of how regressive views acquire a free pass by framing prejudices in naturalistic or matter-of-fact ways that don't invite comment. Hammer is entertaining, but it's entertainment in the service of an agenda that was out of sorts then, never mind now.