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Summary: Gripping story of possible global disaster
Review: Story opens with an assassination attempt on the president of the U.S. Immediately one is drawn into the story and it's a "thrill" ride all the way. This is one of the few books I ever read that has remained in my memory - even the ending (which I often don't retain). (Psychiatrists would have a time with that one!) The story is based on fact and the scientific background is absorbing without being full of "sciencespeak." The possibility of the impending disaster is all too real. This is truly one you don't put down
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Summary: Compelling tale of global disaster based on science and fact
Review: Bigger than Asteroid or an alien invasion. A scientist fakes an assignation attempt on the president to get his story out of an impending global disaster which has occurred many times in the past, including the one that caused the end of the dinosaurs. The scientific community won't listen to the evidence. This could be the end of the human race. Based on true science and fact. Time is running out
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Summary: I own 3 copies of this book
Review: Last winter my daughter phoned me and said,"Mom, you are a member of a cult, the HAB theory cult." She gave me a Web address, I went to the Internet,and read all the pages. I had purchased my first copy of The HAB Theory in 1977, in Singapore, (I lived there from 1975 to 1982). I read the book 3 times in the first month and the 3rd time through I listed all of the historic references (for further reading). I now own three copies of the book- the U.K. edition, pubished by Sphere, I lend to friends - a U.S. paperback is for my own use, and a "like-new" hardback is the only book in my bank vault. I have always been a science buff and this book answered so many "unexplainables". I recommend this book to everyone, it changed my thinking and it may change yours.
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Summary: It's not new to me
Review: I must admit that, while I enjoyed Eckert's book, what really pee'd me off was the fact that he gave absolutely no credit to the book "Cataclysms of the Earth," by Hugh Auchinloss Brown ("HAB"). Eckert lifted every bit of scientific data in the story from that long out-of-print book, which I'd read more than a decade before Eckert wrote his.
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Summary: The Hab Theory - When is this Going to Happen?
Review: I've read this book from cover to cover. Several times I've gone back and read portions I was especially interested in. In every case, the feeling that I get is "when is this going to happen - it's way overdue now".Periodically, news events turn up which once more turn my attention to the premise of this book, and again I wonder - is now the time. This is just an exciting, riveting book, and I'm deleted to see it in reprint as I'm afraid my copy won't last much longer.
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Summary: An amazing read....
Review: I find it interesting that Amazon is pairing this for sale with Lucifer's Hammer. Both are the same genre and both have been favories of mine for YEARS. My books are taped together, they've been read and reread so much. I was online thinking about replacing the well-worn favories but never thought I would find them reprinted. Wonderful!
I highly recommend these two books. Lucifer's Hammer is more about what happens to people after a world-altering event. Tragedy brings out the good in many, and the bad in the rest. The HAB Theory is more about the events and interactions leading up to the discovery of what could be such an event. I think that's why I keep them next to each other in my bookcase. They're similar in some respects, but so different. If you can buy both books -- please do. I think you'll see why they're both excellent.
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Summary: By far the best book I've ever read
Review: Superb book. First read it in 1976 and was blown away by the scientific facts in it & recently re-read it. Better second time round and has more of an impact. Full of scientific facts that can be independently verified after reading the book. The love story is necessary to carry the book through, otherwise it might be too intense to take in, but must admit, I jumped some of that bit just to get to the science bits !! - but the way it is written makes you never want to put the book down. Must be made into a film sometime...?
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Summary: I bought this for my grandmother before she died
Review: My grandmother was a fan of this book and I bought her a copy for $100 back when they were extremely hard to find, as it was out of print. After she passed away, I borrowed it and read it, and was thoroughly entertained. Very good storytelling, and very good ideas. I won't rave about it as others have here (come on people...), but it was a very forward-thinking book. WHY are people making movies like The Day After Tomorrow when a film of the HAB Theory is waiting to be made? I see that movie rights have been sold (see a letter from the author at http://www.habtheory.com/1/index.php) but where is the movie?
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Summary: A long but rewarding read
Review: I first saw the HAB Theory in my local library when I was 15 although I didn't read it: and was pleasantly surprised to find it again 25 years later in a second-hand bookshop: (I got it for free.) This is an epic and powerful work filled with big ideas presented on a grand scale, filled with well-drawn characters all the more convincing because they are dispassionately drawn by the author.
The central premise of the HAB Theory is that the Earth undergoes periodic axial rollovers which annihilate all civilisation and that the next is due very soon. This is revealed to an engineer and researcher by decades of work, who, despairing of being taken seriously, stages a dummy assassination attempt on the President of the United States in order to draw attention to this threat to human survival. The reader is drawn in right away by high drama and intrigue, and a real sense of urgency permeates the work, accompanied by compelling science which renders the whole idea absolutely believable.
However, the work contains some weaknesses which mar its overall power, being too long at 716 pages, and with the drama of the first third of the book waning into politics and predictability. Also, the most interesting character of the work dies about a third of the way through (although this is necessary to the plot) leaving us with less likable protagonists to take us through the rest.
But if you can stick with it through all of this, there are further high points of drama and excitement, although peppered with tedious "mysterious world" science. The end of the book gives the reader a genuine reward for persevering and makes up with its other merits for the stodginess of the whole. I wouldn't recommend it for under-15's, quite honestly, but it deserves a place on the bookshelves of every reader of adventure, sci-fi and unusual literature.
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Summary: The Best Novel I Have Ever Read
Review: I first read The HAB Theory in 1977 at the age of 12. After about nine years of searching in vain, I finally found an out-of-print copy for sale on the Internet late in 2000 (this was prior to the novel's reprinting). My mission was to decide whether my favorite book could captivate me as an adult in the same way it did as a child. I was definitely not disappointed! Not only are the characters depicted in fascinatingly vivid detail, the scientific theories presented still seem plausible to me a full 23 years after my first reading. Eckert slowly weaves the reader into a web of intriguing premises that are all eventually tied into a neat little apocalyptic bow. As key characters begin to accept the possibility of a cataclysmic earth event, so too does the reader. Most of the questions the skeptic in me privately asked throughout the novel were answered in great detail later on. Some of the material is dated - cell phones or the Internet had not yet been invented at the time of the HAB Theory's writing - but what science fiction novel that takes place in the near future (15-20 years) can foresee every innovation? More to the point, the author's primary concern is with the past, not futuristic devices not central to the storyline. While it is likely a scientist could refute most of Herbert Allen Boardman's postulates, one cannot help but wonder if there is perhaps a grain of truth to his overall theory. How would our current president handle a similar situation? I, for one, do not wish to find out.
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