Comets in fiction: Difference between revisions

Comets have appeared in works of fiction since at least the 1830s. In keeping with their traditional cultural associations as omens, they often threaten destruction to Earth. This commonly comes in the form of looming impact events, and occasionally through more novel means such as affecting Earth's atmosphere in different ways. In other stories, humans seek out and visit comets for purposes of research or resource extraction. Comets are inhabited by various forms of life ranging from microbes to vampires in different depictions, and are themselves living beings in some stories.

Comets have been regarded as harbingers of doom since antiquity, which has influenced their depiction in fiction.^[2][3][4] Besides their traditional role as omens in works of fantasy such as E. R. Eddison's 1922 novel The Worm Ouroboros and the 1998 novel A Clash of Kings in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, they also wreak havoc directly in many works of science fiction.^[5] An early science fiction example is Edgar Allan Poe's 1839 short story "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion", wherein the Earth's atmosphere is lost to a comet, with catastrophic results.^[1][2][3]

Throughout the 1800s, the threat of impact events appeared in works ranging from Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.'s c. 1833 poem "The Comet" to Chauncey Thomas [Wikidata]'s 1891 utopian novel The Crystal Button; Or Adventures of Paul Prognosis in the Forty-Ninth Century.^[1][2][3] In Robert Duncan Milne's 1882 short story duology "Into the Sun" and "Plucked from the Burning", society collapses when Earth undergoes a global heat wave as a result of a comet striking the Sun.^[1][2][3][6] In Camille Flammarion's 1894 novel Omega: The Last Days of the World, scientists speculate on the various ways a comet impact could lead to humanity's extinction, though the event itself turns out to be survivable;^[2][3][7] a loose film adaptation by Abel Gance called End of the World was released in 1931.^[2][8] In George Griffith's 1897 short story "The Great Crellin Comet" (later expanded into the 1907 novel The World Peril of 1910), humanity constructs cannons to fire at a comet heading for Earth in order to avert disaster.^[3][9]

In the 1900s, a successive shift occurred wherein comets were largely replaced by other objects such as asteroids in threatening harm to Earth.^[3] Cometary impact events nevertheless continued to appear in works like Jack Bechdolt's 1920 novel The Torch, where one such event forms part of the backstory for the post-apocalyptic setting.^[2][3] Conversely, Dennis Wheatley's 1939 novel Sixty Days to Live depicts the lead-up to an expected catastrophic collision by a comet with Earth.^[1][2][3] In Tove Jansson's 1946 Moomin novel Comet in Moominland, a predicted impact instead turns out a near miss, but heat from the comet nevertheless results in a drought.^[10] The 1977 novel Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle revolves around a highly destructive impact event and its aftermath;^[1][2][5] astronomer Andrew Fraknoi describes it as being "among the first of the scientifically reasonable impact stories".^[11] In the 1988 novel Land's End by Jack Williamson and Frederik Pohl, a comet strike destroys the Earth's ozone layer, rendering the surface of the planet uninhabitable for humanity and forcing a migration beneath the oceans.^[1][2][12] Stephen Baxter's 2002 novel Evolution portrays the extinction of the dinosaurs as the result of a comet impact creating the Chicxulub crater.^[2] Outside of literature, the theme of averting disaster by intercepting an approaching comet has appeared in the 1990 video game Damocles, the 1998 film Deep Impact, and the 2021 film Don't Look Up—the last of which uses it as a vehicle for satire, where humanity's inept handling of the situation serves as an allegory for real-world efforts to combat climate change.^[2][13]

Besides striking the Earth directly, comets pose threats to humanity by colliding with the Moon in Jack McDevitt's 1998 novel Moonfall, where the impact shatters the Moon;^[3] and Susan Beth Pfeffer's 2010 novel This World We Live In, where it alters the Moon's orbit, resulting in weather patterns on Earth being disrupted.^[2][14] Other mechanisms by which comets cause calamities appear in works like W. E. B. Du Bois's 1920 short story "The Comet", where toxic gases from the comet leave a black man and a white woman in New York City as the only survivors;^[1] George Weston [Wikidata]'s 1934 novel His First Million Women, where all men except one are rendered infertile;^[2] Robert S. Richardson's 1946 short story "The Blindness", where the passage of Halley's Comet disrupts the ozone layer (Stephen L. Gillett [Wikidata], writing in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, comments that this may be the first time its disruption was used as a major plot point);^[4][11] and Max Gunther's 1986 novel Doom Wind, where a close encounter with a comet creates immensely powerful winds.^[2] Conversely, H. G. Wells's 1906 novel In the Days of the Comet provides a rare example of positive effects arising from Earth encountering a comet: the gases in the comet's tail alter the atmosphere in a way that transforms human character for the better.^[1][2][3]

Besides comets coming to Earth, they are also visited by humans in some stories.^[1][2][4] These concepts are combined in Jules Verne's 1877 novel Hector Servadac (English title: Off on a Comet), where a cometary encounter with Earth results in a number of humans traversing the Solar System with the comet.^[1][2] More intentional visits to comets appear in Arthur C. Clarke's 1960 short story "Into the Comet", where humans exploring a comet end up stranded there as a result of a technological malfunction;^[1][4] Hal Clement's 1960 short story "Sunspot", where a comet is repurposed as a space station for studying the Sun at close range;^[3][4] and the 1971 short story "West Wind, Falling" by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund, where a comet is used as a means of transportation.^[3][15] Ray Bradbury's 1968 radio play Leviathan 99 adapts the story of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick to space, with a comet standing in for the chased whale.^[1][2] In Duncan Lunan's 1972 short story "The Comet, the Cairn, and the Capsule", an expedition to a comet discovers that there are space probes on it that have been left by aliens.^[4]

Several stories depict the extraction of resources, mainly water, from comets.^[1] Such cometary water is used for terraforming Mars in Frederik Pohl's 1992 novel Mining the Oort;^{[1][2][4][11][16]} Pohl had earlier touched upon the comet mining theme in the 1980 novel Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (part of his Heechee series), where intelligent aliens systematically harvest the CHON elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen) necessary for life from comets.^[2][4] The terraforming concept is combined with the impact motif in the 1984 novel Double Planet by Marcus Chown and John Gribbin, where a comet heading for Earth is diverted to instead strike the Moon and thus create a rudimentary lunar atmosphere,^{[2][3][4][11][17]} and the 1989 anime film Venus Wars, where a comet strike on Venus makes for a thinner atmosphere and a higher level of humidity, providing the necessary conditions for further terraforming of the planet.^[18]

Comets inhabited by various kinds of lifeforms appear in several stories published in science fiction magazines during the pulp era of science fiction: the titular creatures in Festus Pragnell [Wikidata]'s 1933 short story "Men of the Dark Comet" are sentient plants, Archibald Low's 1934 novel Adrift in the Stratosphere features telepathic humans on a comet with Earth-like conditions, and Jack Williamson's 1936 novel The Cometeers depicts an invasion of the Solar System by invisible vampiric energy-based organisms who arrive by comet.^{[1][19][20][21]} The vampire motif was reused decades later in the 1985 film Lifeforce, this time with psychic powers.^[2] The 1986 novel Heart of the Comet by Gregory Benford and David Brin depicts an expedition to Halley's Comet that discovers a complex ecosphere including microbial life there.^{[1][2][4][11][22]} Stephen Baxter's 1993 short story "The Sun-People" features an exotic cometary lifeform that incorporates liquid helium into its biology in the remote reaches of the Kuiper belt.^[3][11] When not home to native lifeforms, comets may also be settled, as in Poul Anderson's 1994 novel The Stars Are Also Fire.^[3]

Comets themselves are alive in some works.^[1][4][16] Halley's Comet receives this treatment in several works: it appears in anthropomorphized thinking form in Robert S. Richardson's 1946 short story "The Blindness" and Fred Hoyle's 1985 novel Comet Halley,^[4][11][23] and in Diana Wynne Jones' 2007 novel The Game it is outright personified.^[2] Besides being applied to Halley, the concept also appears in Richardson's 1967 short story "The Red Euphoric Bands".^[4] In Arthur C. Clarke's 1975 novel Imperial Earth, a character speculates that comets may be the remains of deceased exotic lifeforms, while Ken MacLeod's 2000 short story "The Oort Crowd" reveals that they are in fact deities.^[1][16]

• Asteroids in fiction
• Comets (anthology)

• Hampton, Steven (Summer 2000). Lee, Tony (ed.). "Momentos of Creation: Asteroids & Comets in SF". The Planets Project: A Science Fictional Tour of the Solar System. The Zone. No. 9. pp. 6–8. ISSN 1351-5217.
• Karam, P. Andrew (2017). "Comets in Literature and Popular Culture". Comets: Nature and Culture. Reaktion Books. pp. 106–136. ISBN 978-1-78023-858-6.