How long does it take to read The Coming?
Joe Haldeman, Kevin Orton
The Coming by Joe Haldeman, Kevin Orton takes about 5 hours 17 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 17 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2000. 288 pages, about 79,200 words.
11 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 8 hours 48 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 17 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 18 minutes |
The page count is the median across 5 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
The Arrival Is Imminent Joe Haldeman's novel The Comingis a tightly constructed near future thriller which begins by recapitulating a classic science fictional motif: the moment of first contact with an alien intelligence. The story begins on October 1, 2054. Aurora (Rory) Bell, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Florida, has just made the discovery of the century. A sophisticated sensing device called a gamma ray burst detector has picked up a message from somewhere beyond the solar system. The easily decrypted message contains two unambiguous words: We're coming. Subsequent analysis reveals that the source of the message is heading directly toward Earth and is scheduled to arrive on the first day of January 2055. A media circus inevitably ensues, as the citizens of Earth attempt to prepare for a wholly unprecedented event. From this point forward, Haldeman focuses not on the alien spaceship but on the social, political, and environmental conditions of a rapidly deteriorating planet. He envisions a 21st century marked by unpredictable weather patterns and geopolitical chaos, a world in which corruption is an endemic element both of private enterprises and governmental institutions. Controversial -- i.e., gay -- sexual practices have been outlawed. The electoral process has become a joke, ushering in a new generation of leaders who are incompetent and uninformed but intensely photogenic. Most significantly, the nations of Europe are flexing their muscles once again, marshaling their forces for an inevitable -- and catastrophic -- global conflict. Haldeman's portrait of the century to come is at once familiar and strange, enlivened by a steady flow of imaginative details: automated traffic control systems, virtual reality pornography, designer drugs tailored to the individual DNA. Haldeman shows us this world from the constantly shifting perspective of a variety of characters. Included among them are Rory Bell, whose initial discovery jump-starts the…
Subjects: Life on other planets, Fiction, Human-alien encounters, Astronomy teachers, Mass media, Fiction, science fiction, general
