Have you ever wished upon a shooting star?  Turned your gaze skyward, hoping for a celestial miracle, crossed your fingers and whispered your heart’s desire into the heavens?  Well, what you are pinning your hopes and dreams upon is actually not a star at all, but a meteor, which itself is simply the path of a meteoroid that becomes visible as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.  Once it impacts upon the earth, what is left – if anything – is known as a metereorite.

 

It all begins with a meteor…

 

Abbey Straw attempts to slip out of the house quietly, but her adopted father manages to catch her in the act, carrying the $700 telescope which she bought with her own money, waitressing.  This wasn’t the life he had envisioned for his brilliant daughter who had at one time gone to Princeton.  But he reluctantly lets her leave, and she meets her friend Jackie, as they excitedly set up the telescope and prepare to watch and photograph the night sky.  What they aren’t prepared for is the blinding flash of light which briefly illuminates the harbor into a daytime brilliance, followed by a tremendous roar, before it drops from sight, behind Louds Island, rousing the inhabitants of Round Pond, Maine, in the process.  When Jackie complains that the light has ruined Abbey’s picture, her reply is, “Are you kidding?  It made the picture!”

 

 

The next morning, Abbey presents what she feels is proof to her friend that the meteor did not fall into the ocean, as the article in the New York Times says, but has landed on one of a number of small islands off the coast of Maine, and thanks to her extrapolation of certain data, she has narrowed the choice of which islands down to five.  What else is a girl to do but steal her father’s lobster boat and head off to search for a great scientific discovery, which will undoubtedly be worth a great deal of money as well?   Meanwhile, investigator Wyman Ford (whom fans of Preston’s may remember from Tyrannosaur Canyon, and Blasphemy), is being offered an unusual assignment by Stanton Lockwood, science advisor to the President of the United States.  There are a number of unusual stones which have appeared on the Bankgkok wholesale market recently, going for big money – they are known as ‘honeys’.  These stones are not only beautiful, they are potentially deadly, being laced with Americium-241, which is radioactive.  The potential for disaster is great, and the source of these stones must be located.  Ford decides to take the job – for a lot of money, of course.  Mark Corso is finally getting ahead.  Things have been crazy where he works, at NPF(National Propulsion Facility) – his old professor/mentor having been murdered by a homeless person during a home invasion/robbery – sadly, he is the one who had brought Mark into the Mars mission at NPF.  And  now Mark is to take his place, continue his colleague’s research.  But the morning’s mail brings with it more than mere bills – there is a package there from Professor Freeman, postmarked before his death, and when Mark opens it he finds, to his amazement, a stolen hard drive from NPF and a strange message from Freeman, warning him to trust no one, tell no one, and he will be in touch.  Which obviously can’t happen now. Dismayed at the implications of what he has in his hands, Mark’s first thoughts are to do the right thing and return the hard drive to the proper authorities.  But is the right thing necessarily the smartthing?  And isn’t he even a little curious to see what is contained on the hard drive, and figure out why Freeman sent it to him? These veritable strangers have just embarked upon a fateful course which is destined to connect them forever, one which will come to affect the entire world, whose fate will hang in the balance as they hasten toward their destiny.

 

As Abbey and Jackie, aboard the “borrowed” Marea (a loose term to denote property which one only means to use on a temporary basis, albeit without the owner’s permission), search the five islands indicated by Abbey’s research, they begin to fear that they are on a wild goosechase, until they find themselves the object of interest of a meth-addicted idiot, who unfortunately believes their cover story of searching for treasure.  Meanwhile, Mark, having been unable to refrain from looking into the contents of the hard drive, finds all of Professor Freeman’s research concerning Mars –  and gamma rays.  The excited young man presents his findings to his superior, only to be told not to waste his time, to stick to the SHARAD data instead.  A confused Mark digs further, and discusses something odd on Deimos, one of Mars’ two moons.  And what Wyman discovers in Cambodia isn’t what he has been led to believe it was – it’s a horrible mine, whose radiation is killing the enslaved people who are forced to work in it, among them children!  He can’t let this situation remain like it is….

 

 

What do Mars, and honey stones, and lobster boats, and meteors, hard drives, ambitions, and hopes all have in common?  They can all be found in the latest techno-thriller from Douglas Preston, Impact.  The action flows from Maine to Cambodia to California, and various points in between, with the ultimate focus being on something strange that may or may not be going on in outer space.  Something which may mean an end to life as we know it.  Can the clues be put together in time to prevent global catastrophe?  And will knowing what the problem is guarantee that there is a solution which can be acted upon in time?  It’s hard to know who to trust in this fast-paced adventure, which moves through the pages at the speed of light, propelling us forward with all the momentum of an object hurtling through space.  Impact makes the Fast and the Furious look like the Slow and the Irate, in comparison.

 

Impact is not just a technological thrill-ride – although it certainly is that – it is a character driven mystery which will have you on the edge of your seat, wondering what will happen next.  And just when you’ve second-guessed the answer, you’ll find out that you were wrong!  It isn’t even necessary to understand all the technological aspects to get what’s going on, and to care about the characters who are so determined to prevent this approaching disaster.  The ending completely blew me away, to be honest!  I am a long-standing fan of Preston’s work, either solo, or in tandem with writing partner Lincoln Child, with whom he has co-authored the wonderful Pendergast series, and once again, he doesn’t disappoint.  If you’re looking for something that will hold your interest, and keep you guessing, as well as entertain you,  Impact is the perfect solution.  How does it end?  I’ll never tell!

 

ComicsOnline gives Impact 4.5 out of 5 stolen hard drives.