History YMMV / LucifersHammer

* ValuesDissonance: While it has a load of UnfortunateImplications to a 21st century reader, the book was written in [[TheSeventies 1977]], when both the United States and the world looked quite different. Partial list:

* FairForItsDay: While it has a load of UnfortunateImplications to a 21st century reader, the book was written in [[TheSeventies 1977]], when both the United States and the world looked quite different. Partial list:

* HarsherInHindsight: at the very end; the heroes successfully defend the last operational nuclear power plant in the world from the cannibal environmentalist fundies (at the cost of their GadgeteerGenius - he was diabetic, but chose to make mustard gas to kill the cannibals instead of insulin), but it would only take one lucky mortar shot to destroy the plant, and the only way to keep that from happening is to hunt down the fundies and either take all their weapons or kill them all. To save civilization, they have to fight UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, and be willing to commit ''genocide'' if their enemies refuse to surrender.

* FairForItsDay: While it has a load of UnfortunateImplications to a modern (2016) reader, the book was written in [[TheSeventies 1977]], when both the United States and the world looked quite different. Partial list:

* FairForItsDay / UnintentionalPeriodPiece: While it has a load of UnfortunateImplications to a modern (2016) reader, the book was written in [[TheSeventies 1977]], when both the United States and the world looked quite different. Partial list:

* ScienceMarchesOn: The novel in general holds up well due to painstaking research and work on the physics. However, the otherwise exhaustive discussion of comet impact consequences is missing a nasty feature that only was identified with modern supercomputers. In addition to enormous amounts of vaporized water, large comet impacts are now believed to throw enormous amounts of vaporized ''rock'' into the atmosphere, which then reenter in an atmospheric heating firestorm.
** Another recently theorized effect is the wake radiation from the massive quantity of ionized material in a large impactor (and impact) could create a strong EMP effect, which would render the focus on the nuclear plant rather moot.
** The tsunami depiction as a giant (surfable!) wave, is debatable. On the one hand, the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami or 2011 Fukushima Tsunami did not look like that. On the other, this event is magnitudes more energetic than even a 9.0 earthquake (~ 475 megatons versus probably millions for the bigger Hammer pieces) and distributed differently.
** The comet journey is begun by a version of what became the Nemesis hypothesis in 1984. This idea has taken a number of hits over the years and probably isn't correct.
** In a remarkable aversion, the depiction of the comet strike as many smaller bodies is exactly what was seen with Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter, and what a reanalysis of 1883 observations implies the Earth very narrowly avoided.

* HarsherInHindsight: at the very end; the heroes successfully defend the last operational nuclear power plant in the world from the cannibal environmentalist fundies (at the cost of their GadgeteerGenius - he was diabetic, but chose to make mustard gas to kill the cannibals instead of insulin), but it would only take one lucky mortar shot to destroy the plant, and the only way to keep that from happening is to hunt down the fundies and either take all their weapons or kill them all. To save civilization, they have to fight TheWarOnTerror, and be willing to commit ''genocide'' if their enemies refuse to surrender.

* HarsherInHindsight: at the very end; the heroes successfully defend the last operational nuclear power plant in the world from the cannibal environmentalist fundies(at the cost of their GadgeteerGenius - he was diabetic, but chose to make mustard gas to kill the cannibals instead of insulin), but it would only take one lucky mortar shot to destroy the plant, and the only way to keep that from happening is to hunt down the fundies and either take all their weapons or kill them all. To save civilization, they have to fight TheWarOnTerror, and be willing to commit ''genocide'' if their enemies refuse to surrender.

* FairForItsDay / UnintentionalPeriodPiece: While it has a load of UnfortunateImplications to a modern (2015) reader, the book was written in [[TheSeventies 1977]], when both the United States and the world looked quite different. Partial list:

* FairForItsDay / UnintentionalPeriodPiece: While it has a load of UnfortunateImplications to a modern (2015) reader, the book was written four decades ago when both the United States and the world looked quite different. Partial list:

* FairForItsDay / UnintentionalPeriodPiece: While it has a load of UnfortunateImplications to a modern reader, the book was written four decades ago when both the United States and the world looked quite different. Partial list:

** With the exception of a (very big deal in-universe) black astronaut, most African-American characters talk JiveTurkey, are bad guys, and are overtly racist. US racial politics and urban crime in the 1970s weren't exactly good...

** With the exception of a (very big deal in-universe) black astronaut, most African-American characters talk JiveTurkey and are rather racist themselves. US racial politics and urban crime in the 1970s weren't exactly good...

** The California is a Republican post-Vietnam California (historically 67% white, voted for Reagan over Carter 52-36). Hence the rock-ribbed conservative Senator Jellison and more focus on hippies than the Latino population.
** China is an afterthought that winds up being nuked by both the USSR and United States after an unprovoked nuclear attack on the former. The People's Republic of China was only ''diplomatically recognized'' by the US in 1979.

* FairForItsDay/UnintentionalPeriodPiece: While it has a load of UnfortunateImplications to a modern reader, the book was written four decades ago when both the United States and the world looked quite different. Partial list:

* UnfortunateImplications: To quote Wiki/RationalWiki, this is a novel where "a group led by a former U.S. senator who set up a particularly hardline form of government are the good guys, trying to keep at bay the roaming bands of hippies, black nationalists and cannibals." Another page on the same wiki criticises the book as viciously misogynistic, mentioning a gleeful passage about "the death of feminism".
** It may be seen as saying that feminism (along with racial equality, literacy and universal human rights) is a luxury afforded by technological society, which quickly dies in a natural environment. Still a FamilyUnfriendlyAesop, but a defensible one.

* HarsherInHindsight: at the very end; the heroes successfully defend the last operational nuclear power plant in the world from the cannibal environmentalist fundies(at the cost of their GadgeteerGenius - he was diabetic, but chose to make mustard gas to kill the cannibals instead of insulin), but say that to rebuild civilization, they have to hunt down the fundies and either take all their weapons or kill them all because it would only take one lucky mortar shot to destroy the plant. To save civilization, they have to fight TheWarOnTerror, and be willing to commit ''genocide'' if their enemies refuse to surrender.

* UnfortunateImplications: To quote Wiki/RationalWiki, this is a novel where "a group led by a former U.S. senator who set up a particularly hardline form of government are the good guys, trying to keep at bay the roaming bands of hippies, black nationalists and cannibals." Another page on the same wiki criticises the book as viciously misogynistic, mentioning a gleeful passage about "the death of feminism".

* UnfortunateImplications: To quote RationalWiki, this is a novel where "a group led by a former U.S. senator who set up a particularly hardline form of government are the good guys, trying to keep at bay the roaming bands of hippies, black nationalists and cannibals." Another page on the same wiki criticises the book as viciously misogynistic, mentioning a gleeful passage about "the death of feminism".

* UnfortunateImplications: To quote RationalWiki: This is a novel where "a group led by a former U.S. senator who set up a particularly hardline form of government are the good guys, trying to keep at bay the roaming bands of hippies, black nationalists and cannibals."

* HarsherInHindsight: at the very end; the heroes successfully defend the last operational nuclear power plant in the world from the cannibal environmentalist fundies(at the cost of their GadgeteerGenius - he was diabetic, but chose to make mustard gas to kill the cannibals instead of insulin), but say that to rebuild civilization, they have to hunt down the fundies and either take all their weapons or kill them all because it would only take one lucky mortar shot to destroy the plant. To save civilization, they have to fight TheWarOnTerror, and be willing to commit ''genocide'' if their enemies refuse to surrender.