The Hammer of God - Arthur C Clarke

It is the twenty-second century. The Moon is colonized and on Mars the pioneers live in domes while the first steps in the long process of terraforming the red planet are under way. It is on Mars that an amateur astronomer is the first to spot a previously uncharted asteroid out beyond Jupiter, heading into the solar system – and when the scientists of project SPACEGUARD compute the newcomer’s orbit, they give it a name filled with foeboding.

Kali: the Hindu goddess of destruction

Because in a terrifyingly few months Kali is going to collide with the Earth causing a catastrophe at least as great as the one which wiped out the dinosaurs.

For Captain Robert Singh Kali is the climax of his long space-going career, the job he was born to do. As Captain of the research vessel Goliath he is in charge of an operation that has been long planned but never before put into action – the immense task of pushing an asteroid off its course.

The operation has been plotted down to the finest detail. But what neither Singh nor SPACEGUARD have taken into account is the human factor…