No sooner had Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets (Wiley, 拢16.99 ISBN O 471 30824 2) landed on our shelves than the arrival of Comet Hale-Bopp apparently made it out of date. Prematurely billed by the tabloids as the 鈥渒iller comet鈥� about to strike Earth, Hale-Bopp is fortunately not on a collision course with us. So Duncan Steele鈥檚 book with its heartstopping subtitle 鈥淭he search for the million megaton menace that threatens life on Earth鈥� does have some shelf life after all.
Steele looks at the evidence for past impacts and near misses, and attempts to spot them in the future. But more than anything the book is a plea for governments and individuals to take comet threats seriously.