By Allan W. Eckert
We've become a race of technologically advanced imbeciles living in a world we don't understand and don't have any real desire to know anything more about than what affects us directly and individually.
Herbert Allen Boardman
I read this book a few years ago now, and while not exactly something I come back to time and again, it does have an interesting take on the disaster genre.
It's basically about an ageing, dying scientist who makes a non-lethal attempt on the U.S President's life in order to get the attention he needs for his horrifying discovery.
His theory is that, every 5,000-10,000 years or so, the Earth topples.
According to the HAB Theory, the polar caps build up dangerously high with ice, causing a wobble on the Earth's axis. This wobble gets more and more pronounced as time goes by, and more ice builds up. Eventually the wobble is so great, that the Earth tilts by about 90 degrees. In a matter of hours the polar caps would be at the new equator, and vice versa. This would cause global destruction, earth quakes, flooding etc... Most of civilisation would be wiped out. The theory also states that the next 'event' is long overdue.
The book offers lots of 'evidence' to support this theory, and while you are reading it, it seems believeable. Artifacts from previous civilsations (the theory is that there may have been hundreds of previous civilisations, each one having to start all over again each time the earth topples). Locations of previous polar and equatorial regions, equatorial animals and wildlife perfectly preserved in ice. It's all pretty well thought out.
Most of the book consists of various people trying to prove and validate to each other, and then the world, that the disaster is going to occur. It then focuses on the race against time and the attempts to preserve as much of humanity as possible. National treasures are stored on an international space station, a giant underground city is built in Africa where the least damage is set to occur.
It's not the most amazing book in the world, but it makes you think for a while, at least, it made me think. I'm sure there are people who could instantly reduce this theory to rubble.
"And then the lights went out.......All over the world."