A Thief in the Night

The target audience would be, I would think, mainly males but perhaps females into science fiction. The book would I think make quite an interesting film as it has quite a lot of different parts and situations that come to make up the whole story as per the following synopsis. A comet is discovered by accident by a retired couple who are interested in astronomy. The comet is small and on a very long orbit and never seen before, probably its last orbit before eventually disappearing into the sun. This means it passes close by the sun and it’s a toss up between it hitting the earth, the sun or the moon sun. Eventually it impacts on the moon and disintegrates, being mainly water ice it vaporises and the ice crystals eventually form a light reflecting cloud around the entire globe, this causes cooling of the oceans and some icing up and planet disruption but the main problem being the water vapour eventually drifts to earth and is inhaled by all breathing creatures . It contains a simple pathogen which given time scientists would have created an antidote for the disease but as every one without some immunity are affected by it is too late so the world population is greatly reduced. The story thus centres around a flawed elderly central character who basically is determined to survive .He served in Vietnam and his story as a eventually a sniper and helicopter pilot is told in a series of flashbacks from a recurring dream that eventually shows how he became what he was. The effects on the planet as a whole and the efforts to retrieve the crew of a space laboratory. The efforts of the Australian Parliamentary to ensure that a democratic system survives and the eventual isolation of all the different States and the withdrawal into a system of small communities all surviving as best they can whilst remaining civilised. The death of his wife and her funeral. The drawing together of a Justice Enforcement group who secure all available weapons and who at one time have to serve justice on a small gang who rape a women. The eventual destruction of much of Melbourne and by extension all other large cities by uncontrolled fires with fires starting by accident or design and fanned by winds until over time little remains and from this the fencing of communal areas to avoid predation by the animal population which is no longer controlled. There is his efforts to form his own secure area, the issues about material survival ,the death of his wife and disintegration of the social structure, the effect on the remaining population and the formation of a justice system. Contained within this overall story are the effects on people and himself of his efforts, his propensity to kill to gain his own ends , murder and displacement. His search for his son and his new partners daughter overseas in America and England and how he learns to fly a C17 with the range to reach these various places. Running through the story is a fanatical vicar who he eventually murders along with his acolytes. The ending is deliberately ambiguous