THE EFFORT by Claire Holroyde – Review

I received this book for free from the Author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Effort by Claire Holroyde
Published by Grand Central Publishing on January 12 2021
Genres: Adult, Science fiction
Pages: 368
Format: ARC
Source: Author
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The nitty-gritty: A thought-provoking tale of survival, The Effort raises interesting questions about life in the face of impending disaster.

The Effort is an ambitious debut about a comet that is hurtling towards Earth and the team of scientists who are tasked with stopping it. There are all sorts of directions you can take with this type of scenario, and I have to say that The Effort surprised me and did not go where I thought it was going. This isn’t a bad thing by any means, and I enjoyed Holroyde’s take on it, although there were a few negatives for me, mostly due to the story’s structure and focus. For those readers who enjoy lots of “science” in your science fiction, there are plenty of details to keep you happy, but this is mostly a high stakes, human story about the emotional effects of a possible extinction event.

The story follows several main characters in different parts of the world. One day, a “dark comet” is discovered, a rather large one, in fact, and soon scientists conclude that it will hit Earth in less than a year. The size and speed of the comet, called UD3, suggest that unless it is stopped, Earth and its billions of lifeforms will be destroyed when it hits. NASA sets up a base of operations in South America—nicknamed “the Effort”—where scientists from all over the world convene to work nonstop until a solution is found. Leading the team is Dr. Benjamin Schwartz from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. Ben arrives in South America with his girlfriend Amy, and along with hundreds of other team members, they immediately get to work building a spacecraft that will intercept the comet and destroy it. 

Halfway around the world, the Arctic icebreaker Healy is embarking on its final expedition. Jack Campbell is a photojournalist who is lucky enough to be on board, but his excitement is tempered by the news of the approaching comet. Once the ship is underway, Jack meets a woman named Maya, and they begin a romantic relationship, but what sort of future will they have if the end of the world is coming?

Love Mwangi lives in New York with her girlfriend Rivka, but she must leave Rivka behind when she’s asked to work as an interpreter for the Effort. Rivka finds herself alone and facing a terrifying future: as the months go by and panic and terror over the impending fate of the planet set in, the streets fill with gangs and looters, and food becomes scarce.

And Zhen Liu is a talented Chinese engineer with a big secret. As the days slip by and the Effort realizes they are running out of time, Zhen reveals that the answer to saving the planet could be stashed in a Chinese cargo plane, if only they can get to it.

The clock is ticking, and the future of Earth hinges on a select few with the knowledge and ability to stop the comet.

I found this to be a fascinating and thought-provoking look at a “what if” scenario: What if a massive comet were to strike the Earth? Rather than focus on the event itself, which is what I was expecting to read about, Holroyde takes a look at how people might react to the impending disaster. We get to see reactions from several different groups of people. First, the Effort team is closest to the danger, as they understand first hand just what’s happening. Most of them stop sleeping and try to work around the clock, only taking catnaps when they really need to. This starts to affect their mental health, of course, and the focused group dynamic they have starts to break down. From Rivka’s point of view, we witness what’s happening “on the ground” with civilians, as panic sets in and people’s survival instincts kick in. In a matter of months, food has virtually disappeared due to looting and food production shutdowns, and people begin dying of starvation. Even worse, gangs are roaming the streets and breaking into homes and killing people for their remaining food. It’s the type of apocalyptic scene you’d expect to see in a horror movie, but Holroyde makes it feel like a real possibility.

Then you have the crew of the Healy, who appear to be cut off from everything, and yet they are feeling the panic as well. The captain of the ship must make some tough choices that will affect everyone on the ship. There’s also a brief section that deals with the International Space Station and the crew who end up being trapped there. I won’t tell you the reasons behind their fate, but I thought this was one of the most heartbreaking sections. 

Holroyde creates an almost unbearable tension as the story progresses, a sort of slow burn that makes the reader uncomfortable for various reasons. You have the political tension of the Effort, where fraught relationships among Americans, Chinese and Russians must be carefully navigated, but because time is running out, they have to work out their differences quickly. And then there is the day-to-day survival scenario where people are starving to death and even turning to cannibalism in order to survive. These sections had more of a horror feel to them, especially when Rivka and a man from her apartment building are trying to get to Harlem from Manhattan. Finally, there are the quieter moments when people realize that they are separated from their loved ones and will probably never see them again. That horrible feeling of not knowing whether someone is alive or dead and not being able to do anything about it really struck a chord with me.

But as much as I enjoyed the thoughtfulness the author put into her story, I felt at times it was overly ambitious and crumbled in places under the weight of too many ideas and characters. I have to admit I didn’t like Ben at all—he’s almost a caricature of an over-the-top mad scientist—and this worried me because his character seems so important in the beginning. Some of the characters’ stories simply dwindle away without any resolution, which was frustrating. I especially wanted to know what happened to Rivka (she ended up being one of my favorite characters), but after an exciting scene where she’s almost killed by militia, we never really find out what happened to her. Jack and Maya are also forced to run for their lives, but again, their fate is never really stated. And I’m still not sure how I feel about the ending. Holroyde jumps ahead in the future to show the lasting effects of the comet on civilization, and although I loved this idea, I’m not sure how well it fit with the overall story. 

Ultimately, The Effort focuses on human behavior and how people come together (or don’t) in the face of a global crisis, and I think the author did a great job tackling such a big story. I found Claire Holroyde’s ideas intriguing, and she certainly gave me a lot to think about. Don’t pick this up expecting a sci-fi thriller filled with non-stop action (although don’t get me wrong, it does have its moments!), but if you are a reader who appreciates the emotional implications of the end of the world, I think you’ll enjoy this too.

Big thanks to the author for providing a review copy.