The Trigger - Softcover

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

What would happen if someone invented a device that could render guns and bombs virtually harmless? What would be the effect on crime, on terrorism, on international relations? Would it mean the end of war--or a whole new kind of war?

Here is a breathtaking new novel by the legendary Arthur C. Clarke, bestselling author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and creator of the Rama series, that is equal parts real-life scientific speculation and edge-of-your-seat thriller. In collaboration with Michael Kube-McDowell, Clarke tells a riveting, heart-stopping tale in which the fate of humankind depends on whose finger is on...The Trigger.

They dubbed it the Trigger, and in a world where violence had reached epidemic proportions it offered the one true promise for a civilized peace. For the first time it would be possible to take the guns out of the hands of armies, dictators, and thugs. Yet, like those who once believed that nuclear weapons would be the ultimate deterrent to war, could the scientists who invented the Trigger also be mistaken? Would this new technology bring peace, or chaos?

It was a question that haunted Dr. Jeffrey Horton, the brilliant young physicist responsible for the Trigger's development. His was a discovery with the potential to transform the world, but the road to a better future was anything but clear. Who should control this technology? How could its potential be realized? Horton and his team understood the danger of letting the American government know about the Trigger--as well as the danger of trying to keep it from them.

But not even Horton could foresee the fierce struggle that would erupt among Washington's power elite both to possess and to destroy the Trigger. Before long it becomes clear that science is being held hostage to politics and that no one can be trusted--not even Horton's own dedicated colleagues nor his long-time hero and mentor, the brilliant Nobel Prize-winning physicist Dr. Karl Brohier. Someone has already betrayed the project. Others will do anything to stop it--or co-opt it for their own ends. Too many people have a stake in the business of violence to give peace a chance. And the greatest enemy of all may be those with the best intentions.