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Summary: Exellent piece of fiction
Review: I read this book over and over, loving it more each time. It gives the reader alot to think about because even though it's ficitonal, it is still possible. It is about a man who goes up into the mountains for some time, gets bitten by a snake and becomes very ill. He rests in his mountain cabin for several days, coming close to death, but eventualy regaining his strength. When he left the mountains and headed back home, he noticed the town was dead...literally. Very well written. I bought a new copy because mine was falling apart. Buy this book.
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Summary: The Best Ever? Certainly My Favorite
Review: Despite its age and archaic language, Stewart's practical knowledge of nature makes this one of the best epoch-ending books ever written. Other stories reveal this knowledge but unfortunately, are out of print (Storm and Fire). You've probably read enough reviews to know what the story is about, but be prepared for some radical thinking compared to today's social standards. This was written when many words were compounded by hyphens. When you read of the tail-gate on the station-wagon, don't be shocked. We really wrote that way back in the late forties and fifties. His story reflects the way things were then, not now, so you'll likely find this story as alien as many future fiction stories. We really have evolved that much. Enjoy one of the great SF stories of all time. It certainly is my favorite.
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Summary: Apocalypse? What Apocalypse?
Review: Despite the quality of Stewart's writing, which is elegaic at its best and readable at its worst, this is a very creaky and dated work. Certainly, you have to make some allowances for the culture and time in which books are written, but like John Wyndham, Stewart seems handicapped by an assumption of the rightness of bourgeois values, especially when it comes to women. The book does address this, and in some ways is all about the struggle to maintain these values in a world where they are making less and less sense. But, you get the feeling that, in terms of sociopolitical change (as opposed to the obvious physical change - the old infrastructure has been destroyed), it's a case of 'apocalypse? what apocalypse?'. Stewart's characters are like Hollywood western stereotypes - the men are either upright patriachs or shifty loners; the women are wives and daughters who appear strong but are really just there for breeding and cooking. There are works which do tackle the obvious questions of the use of social roles in a society totally different from that which created them, most notably the vastly under-rated New Zealand film, The Quiet Earth (if I've remembered the name right). Read Stewart by all means: it isn't a bad book, but it isn't the classic it's built up to be.
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Summary: Best EOC book I've ever read
Review: I read this book in '75. Since then I've been pretty much obsessed by it and other eoc novels (End Of Civilisation). I've looked for a book that had similar 'feel' to it. Unfortuntaly 'The Stand', 'Alas, Babylon' or 'Swan Song' don't capture the same magic. The closest I've come to simulate the read experience that was 'Earth Abides' is Alfred Coppel's 'Dark December' or Brian Hodge' 'Dark Advent'.Out of all 300+ eoc novels I've picked up over the last 25 years, 'Earth Abides' STILL ranks as the best. It's probably my all time favorite novel...I think I'm going to go read it again...
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Summary: Of particular personal interest
Review: I recently re-read this book after twenty five years. The story drives with a unique force as the naturally detached observer-protagonist Isherwood witnesses the Earth and Mankind's remnants slowly re-establish a new balance. This reacquaintence also served as a reflection on myself. As a teenager, I was drawn to Ish's character, much like my own at the time: quiet, reflective, socially uncomfortable. I took great delight in identifying that the book took place in my own neighborhood: The rock where they carved the years is a perfect description of Indian Rock in Berkeley, where I climbed countless times as a kid. For years after, wherever I went I liked to see how unkept gardens took over their yards, how abandoned houses returned slowly to Nature's way, how unused roads returned to the soil at a relentless if geologic pace. As a man in my 40s I find the tale retains its fascinating hold. I still like to see how Man's works change in their own way when left alone, just as any other object in nature. Much of Stewart's description of that change rings true and is well visualized. But most striking to me was that the nature of the characters had changed in my mind. No longer were they just people like myself, making the best out of this extraordinary circumstance. The second time around, the characters were very unsatisfying. Ish is the only one with any ambition at all, and he is unable to make anything of it. This is due entirely to his personal failings: the social stiffness he never outgrew, his lack of focus, his increasingly insular view of his place in the surrounding world. I was particularly offended by a scene of "crime" and punishment. Yet these are not failings of the author nor of the book. Stewart was simply taking the opportunity to show that, barring the survival of some remarkably talented and organized people, civilization is not by any means guaranteed to carry on. Though "The Stand" is more entertaining, "Earth Abides" remains much more satisfying.
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Summary: Earth Abides
Review: A must read for fans of apocalyptic fiction. Even though it was published in 1949 nothing about the book seems dated. It deserves its ranking (by David Pringle) as one of the 100 best Sci Fi novels of all time.
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Summary: This book should be on everyon'e reading list
Review: I first read this book in the 8th grade when a teacher handed it to me and suggested I read it. I couldn't put it down, and ended up reading it three times that year because I found the story so captivating. Aside from being set here in my home area (the San Francisco bay area), I thought that the book was interesting because I could see it being a prediction of how our world will end up as a result of diseases such as cancer and HIV. Despite being written before I was even born, this book is timeless, and every few years I get it off my shelf and re-read it, each time finding new aspects of the book that I hadn't gotten before.
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Summary: A classic in the genre
Review: Though it feels a little dated having been written over four decades ago, "Earth Abides" deserves its place with great 1950s era end-of-the world books like "On the Beach" and "Day of the Triffids." The scenario is similar to the one Stephen King used in "The Stand" though the plague wipes out a much larger number of people and there is little spiritualism here. What affected me most was the latter part which shows the years passing in the life of the main survisor. I rarely get emotional while reading, but this story did it to me.
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Summary: classic book for the genre
Review: This book is a "must read" for those of us living in Northern and Central California. His descripitons bring the story home. I have assigned this book to students for extra reading. I believe it should be assigned reading in our local high schools.
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Summary: A Flat Earth
Review: Having loved this story 20 years ago as a teenager, it pains me now to find that it is surely the worst novel on my bookshelves. All the characters are two-dimensional. The dialogue is uniformly stiff and amateurish. The story's hero is arrogant, aloof and dismissive of anyone he perceives as inferior. Since he actually perceives *everyone* as inferior, the book quickly becomes very tiresome. Perhaps the saddest aspect of "Earth Abides" is that the story is clearly and shockingly the fantasy of someone who dreamed of existing in a world without people, or at most with just a thin sprinkling of simple folks over whom he could rule as their intellectual master. "Earth Abides" is a truly awful book.
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