Footfall

Watching the news tonight with the continuing coverage of the quakewave disaster brought me fresh impetus to pray.

It also brought to mind something that had occurred to me a few days ago.

The dynamic duo of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle have an excellent sci-fi novel in which they try to do a more realistic take at what an alien invasion of Earth might involve and how we might be able to realistically defend ourselves–against aliens who at first seem completely invincible.

(The idea of being able to contribute something new and different to this well-worked-over theme was a precondition of Niven being willing to participate in the project.)

The cover has a nice blurb from Tom Clancy plugging it: "Nobody does it better then Niven and Pournelle. I loved it!"

I did, too.

Good book.

Very respectful of religion (Pournelle is Catholic). Interesting tidbit (and minor spoiler): The secret American project to deal with the alien mothership is called Project Archangel and involves developing a weapon known as Michael.

Why Project Archangel? Why Michael?

Because they’re hoping that Michael will drive the alien Satan from our heavens.

But here’s the connection that put me in mind of this novel (again, a deliberately vague spoiler): At one point the aliens deploy a weapon called The Foot that does something HORRIBLY reminiscent of what just happened to Indonesia and the surrounding area, only much, MUCH worse.

After the atrocity of unimaginable proportions, when the aliens start to get scared of what we do to them in retaliation (the fate of their race is on the line), you’ll cheer as a defiant human coldly tells the panicking alien leader:

"THIS is the price of The Foot!"

YEAH!

(Now if we could just find some alien butt to kick for what happened in Indonesia.)

GET THE NOVEL

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin