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Summary: A must read
Review: My 12 year old daughter is reading Alas, Babylon right now and was discussing the plot with me. I immediately remembered reading Earth Abides over 10 years ago and was wondering if it could still be found. Obviously, there are lots of fans. What a compelling story about the potential future of mankind. Should be required reading in school
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Summary: Fantastic book!
Review: I read this book when I was 12 or 13 years old (more than 30 years ago) and it had a lasting impact on me. I have long since forgotten most of the "classics" I have read but this story has stayed with me through the years. Friends think I'm nuts when I say things like " as you yourself, Ish, well know!" right out of the blue. I just stumbled across it at Amazon and immediately ordered it. I can't wait to read it again!
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Summary: Excellant
Review: I first read this book about 20 years ago, it caught my eye because the opening date used in the book is my birthdate 12/22/47. Have read it many times since and it never fails to make me re evaluate my current situation and really look at what is important and what is not. This is a must read book for me at least once evey 18 months.
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Summary: My all time favorite book
Review: I read this book 10 or 20 years ago, and I still think about it nearly every week. Where would I choose to live? What would I try to save? I have even thought of making my own screenplay adaptation based on the book. If the author needs help or motivation, then please e-mail me!
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Summary: Grandfather to all the post-apocolyptic literature of today.
Review: Read this book when you're really depressed. You will realize that things are not all that bad. Earth Abides provides hope. Even if everything we hold dear, everything we assume to be permanent, everything human disappears, the dream will survive. This is not the metaphysical good v. evil crap of Stephen King, nor the bang-bang rootin' shootin' end of the world of the pulps, but a quiet look at what the world would be like if mankind silently slipped away.
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Summary: Best end of world fiction ever
Review: This book was captivating, and exciting. It makes you think abou the fragility of life, and how quick things change. This should be read at least once in your life. Stewart was 40 years ahead of his time when he wrote this and you don't want to miss out on it.
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Summary: A book which stills the soul, provoking thought.
Review: To read this book for the first time, at 10 years of age, is to enter suddenly into the reality of the fragility of the material society into which we are submerged. How could everyone really die off like that? This was MY town! MY Bay Area! MY UC Berkeley campus playground! A major metropolis! Fascinated, I couldn't put the book down. Living in Oakland, Ca. in the late 60's, I avidly looked out the windows when traveling through the East Bay, striving to see that little pony, running and running and running. It was beyond my comprehension that a thing so large as the Bay Bridge, which my grandfather had had a hand in building, could fall apart! I had thought such a thing would take ages and ages to break, not just a generation. All it takes is an earthquake, a dash of sea salt and a virulent bug.
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Summary: Ahead of it's time in predicting man/nature conflicts
Review: This book is way ahead of it's time in exploring the way mankind can be taken down by virtue of the adaptabiliy of micro-organisms exploiting the large population of world ranging individuals. This book is scary that way, not to mention the writing is incredibly good. George Steward shows a love and understanding of ecosystems and how culture can be shaken and lost by the loss of the majority of constituant members. How Isherwood Williams copes with his deminishing expectations for the next generation is realistic and shows how most of us adapt to the whims and caprice of what life can throw at us. This book could be a world shaker if given a good rewrite updating the 1940s slant. With what we know now that Steward seemed to predict would come about intuitively, this work would be very popular today. Don't let that stop you from reading this great, great book.
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Summary: Excellent end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it book
Review: I wandered in here and was suprised to see that the book was still in print, and how many people had read and loved the book. This was recommended to me about ten years ago by the author's grandson, and I agree with many other readers. It is a timeless and thought-provoking end-of-world scenario. It is a strong argument for compulsory education as well. Very enjoyable.
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Summary: Perhaps the single best end-of-world fiction ever written
Review: A half-century ago, Stewart saw too clearly a future which could, indeed may yet, come to pass. He, and only a few others, survive a world-wide plague. How he attempts to preserve his society - how he prioritizes, what agonizing choices he and his 'flock' make, the compromises they have to accept - makes for among the finest end-of-the-world books ever written. Ish, the main character, is no less uncertain, no less fascinating, than Macbeth. Ish is clearly the everyman each of us could see in him/herself after a catastrophe impossible to imagine. A long book - it could be no less - by its end, one hopes for a sequel. It is not clear whether Stewart is optimistic about this future - and that too is appropriate. For every reader will probably come to a different conclusion as to where the 'tribe' is headed based on his/her own perceptions of what Ish did correctly or otherwise and what the reader might have done differently. No modern home library is complete without Earth Abides.
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