Book details of 'The Trigger'

Title	The Trigger
Author(s)	Arthur C. Clarke, Michael P. Kube-McDowell
ISBN	0553576208
Language	English
Published	September 2000
Publisher	Bantam Books

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Reviewer amazon.com wrote:
The early 21st century ushers in a revolution in unified field theory, and free-thinking physicist Jeffrey Horton and his team are pushing the cutting edge. Sequestered on a maximum-security research campus, the scientists are testing "Baby," a device they hope will create "a laser for gravity," a tractor beam. But during an early run, every gun in the area (and even a secret stash of fireworks) simultaneously explodes. Follow-up tests soon prove their device was responsible--that it can in fact neutralize every conventional gun, bomb, and explosive--and that's when Baby becomes the "Trigger." This speculative novel by sci-fi legend Arthur C. Clarke and genre workman Michael Kube-McDowell follows the vast sea changes such an invention would bring, reading as part thriller, part social tract. Horton and his Trigger follow a course not unlike that of Einstein and the A-bomb, but ratcheted up by an order of magnitude--idealistic scientists, overwhelmed politicians, rabid lobbyists, and entrenched generals must deal with the device's deployment and consequences, both political and social, in a gun-rich, gun-dependent culture. A well-researched, plausible plot line keeps The Trigger not just readable but downright engrossing, despite its sometimes distracting lack of subtlety. All in all, a worthwhile, entertaining meditation on how technological progress always proves as unpredictable as it is inevitable. --Paul Hughes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
It sometimes seems as if the recent spate of Clarke Collaborations is an attempt to do in science fiction what Paul Erdos did in mathematical literature (see reviews). The eponymous "trigger" is a device that will explode (or, later, render impotent) any gunpowder or explosives. The book is an attempt to explore the complex social ramifications of such a technology. The book is not simplistic in examining the issues, but is ultimately quite limited. The major conflict deals with the proponents of the use of the technology against a collection of gun advocates, the least irrational of which is a thinly disguised National Rifle Association. Therefore, the main discussions in the novel will make little sense for those who are not thoroughly familiar with the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Absent some minor discussions of the chemistry and formulation of explosives, and a completely unexplained foray into optical wave dynamics, there is no real technology involved in this book. The trigger technology never does develop a theoretical basis. Indeed, in the only attempt to do so, the narrative seems to imply that the trigger is the long-fabled philosopher's stone--and then blithely abandons that intriguing possibility. More than plot potential is discarded in this work. Characters, loose ends, Futurians, red herrings, tests, villains, suppositions, and voyages to other planets are left hanging throughout the book like half of a shoe store's stock waiting to drop. However sympathetic the personae populating the story it is difficult, in the end, to really care about any of them: how do you know whether it is going to be worth the effort of working up any emotional contact with someone who may disappear, never to be heard from again, on the next page? The book winds up with a rather ironic contradiction of itself. Towards the end we find a speech that is should affect us deeply. (It is clear that we are to be stirred by this address: we are told so in the book.) It addresses the lamentable tendency of a creatively bankrupt entertainment industry to turn, when all else fails, to murders and mayhem that are completely at odds with with reality. Why then, in a last ditch attempt to introduce tension to a book notably lacking in force, do we finish up with kidnapping, torture, and murder? copyright Robert M. Slade, 2002
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Book description:

From Arthur C. Clarke, bestselling author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Creator Of The Rama Series, and Michael Kube-Mcdowell comes a breathtaking new novel of bold scientific speculation and edge-of-your-seat suspense: a riveting thriller in which the fate of humanity depends on whose finger is on...The TriggerIt is the ultimate antiweapon. A device that can render guns and bombs virtually harmless. At least that is how Dr. Jeffrey Horton, the brilliant young physicist who developed the Trigger, hopes his discovery will be used. Yet, like the scientists who first believed nuclear weapons would be the ultimate deterrent to war, could Horton and his colleagues be wrong? Will this new technology bring peace, or chaos? Will it be used to protect people, or control them? Will it mean the end of war, or a whole new kind of war? Not even Horton could have foreseen the fierce power struggle emerging for control of the Trigger. Soon it becomes clear that no one can be trusted. Not even those closest to him. Someone has already betrayed the project. Others will do anything to stop it--or co-opt it for their own ends. And the greatest enemy may be those with the best intentions.