Lucifer's Hammer

My friend Karl and I share a love for post-apocalyptic novels. The end of civilization, the destruction of our artifacts and our moral codes, humans facing their mortality. It's a powerful sort of topic. Karl has written a really great page on post apocalyptic novels.
Karl calls this a "two fisted tale", that's about right. It's an amusing book, with lots of great tales of California in chaos. Great literature it ain't. Classic post-apocalyptic novel: buildup, horrible cataclysm (a comet), regression to savagery ("throw that dead baby out the window, we aren't going to be hungry enough to eat it") followed by an attempt to recover and preserve civilization. It's about three times as long as it needs to be, but then again pulp is paid by the page.