Rating: 
Summary: Eco-science fiction
Review: At first look, this book reminded me of another book I read recently: Killing Time by Caleb Carr. Both were looks at near-future dystopias written by non-science fiction authors. However, while Carr's novel shows his inability to write sci-fi, Boyle has proven he can work comfortably in this genre.Switching back and forth between the 1990s and 2020s, A Friend of the Earth is a tale of environmental horror filled with ironic humor. Although in one sense it is an ecological gloom-and-doom story, it also mocks the far edge of the environmental movement. There is a theme that even these eco-terrorists are ineffective. By leaving a twenty-plus year gap between the two narratives, Boyle even leaves it unclear what has happened to make nature go amok; this brings into question whether the environmental disasters are even man-made. Certainly, there is an almost wrathfully intelligent version of Nature in this story; many of the characters die of strange accidents; the more the enviromentalists try to save the world, the more the world goes out of its way to make their lives miserable. Like other environmental horror novels I've read, including such classics as John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up and Harry Harrison's Make Room, Make Room, this story offers little hope to the modern reader. Unlike these other novels, which serve as warnings of a future that can be averted by wise acts, this story says that Nature is a force that we cannot control, for good or for ill. This hopelessness makes this a sometimes difficult novel to read, but the good writing and ironic humor makes it enjoyable nonetheless.
Rating: 
Summary: Author Sharing Personal Message
Review: I just finished this book this morning. It moved at a good pace and remained an interesting look into the mind of an eco-terrorist in its pages. I believe that this book was a work by the author to express his sincere feelings on the environment and I believe that this book will be look back on in future years. Some scoff at its predictions of the future but it may not be that far off. Just yesterday a study was released on a mass scale stating that the global warming may begin to do major damage in as little as 10 years.
Whatever your opinion of the politics of the book it is an enjoyable read.
Rating: 
Summary: not his best effort
Review: In this offbeat novel, T.C. Boyle brings his usual blend of sharp humor and social commentary. The chapters alternate between the present and the year 2026 when humans have killed off all the animal species, destroyed the ozone layer and vacated the earth of trees. We follow the career of Tyrone O'Shaughnessy who starts out as a committed environmentalist and ends up doing time as an eco-terrorist. Although he is the protagonist, he is overshadowed by the shadow of his daughter Sierra's story - the tree-sitter. There are some hilarious bits (although they don't appear even a bit hilarious to novel's characters) like when Ty escapes from the hospital naked from the waist down or when the last lion devours the chief animal patron. As you can see, Boyle's humor is a bit dark, but it's humor nonetheless. Although I enjoyed the novel, I am much fonder of Boyle's short stories. For some reason, his novels never seem to pack the same punch that his short stories do. Maybe it's because we don't sympathize with any of the characters. It's a bit bleak in fact. Thus, I recommend this to diehard fans, but for new Boyle converts, start with a short story collection like Without a Hero.
Rating:
Summary: Fiction--not an ecological treatise
Review: Read this book and enjoy it for its characters, its sharp prose, its wittiness, and its engrossing narrative technique. I'd recommend it quite highly. True, it's eye-opening to read about the grim possibilities of our environmental future, and it forces one to reflect upon the way we're maltreating the earth right now. It also makes one think about how we've let the consequences of such abuse creep into our lives slowly--somehow the concept of bottled water seems perfectly acceptible; no doubt we'll soon be buying bottled air. And though A Friend of the Earth is undoubtedly meant to evoke an awareness of our environmental abuse and of how little we've done to correct it, it's important to think of 2025 as the setting--not the theme. And arguing the scientific/meteorolical accuracy of such circumstances is a bit silly. Why would the author of The Road to Wellville and Water Music suddenly decide to write sociological treatises? This book is as much an ecological treatise as the former are historical textbooks. As with most good novels, it's about characters and their relationships with each other and nature in the context of the setting. Tierwater is complex and tragically flawed. It's hard to empathize with his actions--it's easy to see their futility. The statement that "A friend of the earth must be an enemy of the people" is one with which Tierwater struggles. This is not a moralistic story telling us to stop abusing the earth. For instance, many have compared the novel to books by Kurt Vonnegut--I'd agree that there's a similarity of in the way they extrapolate a current trends, environmental abuses, and technological advances and exaggerate them over time (Think Player Piano and Cat's Cradle, for instance). But also think Slaughterhouse five, as A Friend of the Earth is as much an anti-ecological novel as the former is an anti-war novel. Remember how, in his introduction, Vonnegut says that writing an anti-war novel is like writing an anti-glacier novel. It's futile. Come to think of it, another comparison with Slaughterhouse is in the non-linear mode of the narrative. Billy Pilgrim was "unstuck in time"; Tierwater (and some other 3rd person narrator--likely April Wind) flits between the crucial moments of his life. He doesn't seem to get as much consolation from it, however. The one problem I have is Boyle's style with regard to dialog. To put it simply, there's not enough of it. More specifically, statements are often interrupted by long passages of narrative, as much as a couple of paragraphs long, and then continued later. It's very easy to lose track of what the characters are responding to.
Rating:
Summary: The apocalypse according to Boyle
Review: T.C. Boyle has seen the apocalypse, it's hour come 'round at last. But it's human nature to ignore bad news, says Boyle, and that's why it's easy to sit wedged inside our modular homes and forget about the fact that global warming is marching on, the population is growing like a tumor, and the end, my friend, could be closer than we think. A Friend of the Earth is set in the year 2025 as the earth belches its last gasps and there's nothing left for dinner but catfish and sake. The tale is narrated by the reformed eco-terrorist and aging Baby Boomer Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tierwater, who's spending his last days tending to a bedraggled menagerie of now-rare animals (hyenas, lions, and the like) owned by pop icon Maclovio Pulchris. But then his ex-wife Andrea appears on the scene. She wants to write a book about Ty's daughter, the legendary tree-sitting Sierra. (She'd also like a little love.) Soon, a flood strands Boyle's cast of characters (both human and animal) in Pulchris's mansion. From this vantage point the tale unfolds, and here the reader is launched into Ty's story, told through chapters that alternate between 2025 and the '80s and '90s, his first wife's accidental death, his beginnings as a renegade member of Earth Forever!, his run from the law, and so forth. The humor is wry, the outlook hilariously dire, and the personalities brilliantly constructed. A Friend of the Earth takes a daring look at humanity's hubris and our grim global future. Only a champion storyteller like T.C. Boyle could slap us silly and make us laugh all at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: Truth or Fiction?
Review: Though the story is set in the year 2025, the details of environmental degradation which it portrays are not beyond belief. Yet this fictional romp is still a fun read with lovable characters whom we get to know through effective flashbacks to modern day. Mr. Boyle spins an engrossing tale in a Tom Robbins-like farce which seems almost prophetic at times. As we follow the life of Ty Tierwater from 'average joe' in upstate New York to budding environmentalist in the redwood forests to eco-terrorist in prison, we meet his colorful family and friends including his current employer: a Michael Jackson-like character for whom he caretakes a menagerie of almost extinct animals on a ranch in Santa Ynez, CA. Through all the silliness, the message is not lost, but delivered with sharp wit and satire missing from most writing today. I thoroughly enjoyed this work!
Rating:
Summary: Funny, Thought Provoking and Great Satire
Review: Unlike most of the previous reviewers, I had never read T.C. Boyle before I read A Friend of the Earth. I usually do not step into anything that's even remotely futuristic. But I took the plunge and I found this to be a delightfully funny, funny book. Sure, it's full of all kinds of life lessons, environmental warnings, poignant introspection and blah blah blah. But, the satire wasn't lost on me and I think it's absolutely hysterical. I enjoyed every moment of it. I haven't stopped talking about it to family and friends. I highly recommend that you try an audio version as well.
Rating:
Summary: Staying Power
Review: Very rarely when reading a book I have had this exact feeling: this might be a fine novel with lots of merits, full of good intentions, crafty storytelling, effortless juggling of time frames - but it's not for me at all. I can't remember reading a similarly depressing book in the last few years. Virtual everything is bad at the beginning and goes downhill from there. There are times you want to grab the protagonist by the collar and shake some sense into him. All that is probably very intentional. Did I enjoy it ? Not one bit. There are definitely things to recommend about this book. I've read some other novels by Boyle and would wholeheartedly recommend Riven Rock and especially Water Music, but I didn't like this one at all.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning and Weird and Funny
Review: While bleak, this book is also immensely entertaining and quite moving. Boyle is one of our all-time greatest writers and he doesn't disappoint. Here his obsession with obsessives, science, and masculinity are all wonderfully explored in a tragic and comic and ultimately beautiful novel. If you're serious about books, you won't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: A darkly comic satire with mixed messages
Review: With this work, Boyle has entered the world of what he has disparagingly called "genre fiction," although--in reality--"A Friend of the Earth" is to science fiction what "Gulliver's Travels" is to fantasy novels. His futuristic comedy is a satire on the struggle between materialism and environmentalism, each of which he skewers with equally barbed disdain. The narrative skips among three time periods. In the future (2025), global warming and mass extinctions have destabilized the entire globe: hurricane-force rainstorms saturate the California winters, the summers are fiercely hot and dry, and restaurants serve up barely edible dishes (catfish sushi, catfish enchilada, spicy catfish roll, catfish basted in salsa). In the past (late 1980s and early 1990s), Ty Tierwater, his second wife Andrea, and his teenaged daughter Sierra belong to an ecoterrorist group called Earth Forever! And, in the present (turn of the millennium), Sierra spends three years living in an old-growth redwood tree, holding an avaricious logging firm at bay. Underpinning all three sequences is a sometimes moving, often farcical family drama. While Tierwater passes his nights surreptitiously fighting the foes of the global ecology, he spends his days fighting to keep his daughter from the court system, his second wife, and--ultimately--from the very movement to which he belongs. As with any satire, how much you find comic or witty (as opposed to silly or "over the top") will depend on your own sense of humor. Although the book overall is uneven and its characters often little more than caricatures, some sections read like pages from a thriller--and there are some laugh-out-loud set pieces. Yet those who see this book as a warning against ecological destruction are missing Boyle's point. Although he depicts loggers and government officials as brutal, uncaring, and greedy, the author also treats conservationists quite harshly. (In a telling commentary, Boyle has written that "the environmentalists offer us no hope.") Tierwater becomes more violent and senseless in planning his vandalism; Andrea sells out to a bureaucracy of ecologists that is more concerned with saving itself than the world; Sierra's "martyrdom" for the cause is ultimately foolish and pointless. Tierwater himself realizes late in life that, although he may have been "right" about the coming apocalypse, none of it really matters compared to the destruction wreaked on his family by his beliefs and actions. Furthermore, several of the characters die "naturally": from a bear, a lion, a bee sting, a meteor. And, finally, the book's most quoted line is certainly its most hostile: "To be a friend of the earth, you have to be an enemy of the people.'' The problem with this approach, as with many attempts at satire, is that Boyle himself doesn't offer the reader an alternative, or even a sense of direction. Whenever there is a political, social, or global problem, it's all to easy to carp about what we shouldn't do; the hard part is subtly suggesting a better way. I imagine that Boyle--and Tierwater--might respond that the environmentalists (or at least the extremists) need to offer us "hope" rather than simply threatening us with destruction by their own hands or extinction by natural forces. Still, in spite of its "better late than never" finale, there's not much hope to be found in this book. Even though it's not meant to be more than a darkly comic satire, the novel conveys too many mixed messages; I think that's why so many readers have misunderstood it as a cautionary tale against global warming. In the end, then, Boyle's beguiling first excursion in dystopian science fiction fails to see the forest for the trees.
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