Rating: 
Summary: A Definitive Post-Nuke Book
Review: Before SF novelist David Brin became known as one of the "Killer Bs" of 80s and 90s SF, he penned a serial novel called "The Postman," a post-apocalyptic romp through the Williamette Valley in Oregon. Set in an area dominated by militias, survivalists, and the kinds of folks who like to blame Jewish people and blacks for America's troubles, Brin lampooned the typical, gutsy, survival-of-the-fittest attitude in post-apocalyptic (PA) fiction, creating a unique blend of adventure story and important moral lesson. In an interview, Brin said that most PA fiction revels in the downfall of civilization, creating a kind of macho paradise which would be great if you were a gun-toting conservative white male. For everyone else, it would be hell, and that is exactly what "The Postman" tackles.Fifteen years after the Doomwar, a combination nuclear, biological, and chemical exchange between the US and an unknown enemy, Gordon roams the landscape looking for a cause to follow. The largest organization in this atmosphere are a loosely-organized militia-army, who follow the teachings of the deceased Nathan Holn, a racist whose beliefs about life and freedom were a mix of Ayn Rand, David Duke, and a badly warped Charles Darwin. Gordon, a college-educated thinking man, wants nothing to do with the militias, but is inadvertantly forced into acting when bandits steal his clothes and he is forced to dress as a postman and invent a story about the Restored United States to get some food. On his way, Gordon meets towns wallowing in drugs and violence, paranoid people so scared by oppression they trust no one, and an organization seemingly controlled by a computer artificial intelligence. When the militias begin attacking the Williamette Valley in far greater fervor, Gordon begins to organize the resistance, aided in part by George Powhatan, an organizer who has begun to rebuild civilization in his own way. "The Postman" makes clear that the downfall of civilization would not be a good thing, especially if you happened to be a woman, or black, or anything else not conforming to the WASP-militia stereotypes. Aside from a good adventure story, Brin's book bucks convention and treads new groud, providing an obvious stepping stone for later SF novels in the genre like "The New Madrid Run" and "The Rift." The prose can be rocky, but given "Postman" was published serially (and wasn't necessarily aspiring to high literature), this can be overlooked for the far more positive points of its content. Final Grade: B-
Rating:
Summary: An entertaining look at post-apocolyptic America
Review: This was a pretty entertaining book. A movie based on it came out around Christmas, but I've had this book for years and decided to read it before seeing the movie. It's about a post-apocolyptic America and centers around a protagonist who was in college when World War III broke out. Though things got a bid cheasy toward the end (I won't say how), it was nonetheless a very entertaining read. The story tracks this reluctant hero's treck through Oregon in a bleak landscape of fudile villages and city rubble. His chance finding of a dead postman changes him and is the catalyst behind much of what happens throughout the novel. By the way, the movie, which is now the butt of jokes on Leno almost every night, deserves the jokes - it is a insufferably long, slow movie, terribly acted, with painfully contrived sentimental moments. It's too bad that the book now has this associated with it...
Rating: 
Summary: So much potential...
Review: ...wasted. It's hard to say how good a book this could have been based on the concept, but the execution was just, well, terrible. One of the best (worst?) examples I can think of where an incompetent protagonist survives much longer than he/she has any right to, or than a reader can believe. Goofy plot elements abound along with the introduction of incredible (as in not credible, not as in "wow!") characters to create even more dire challenges, when mere bad guys were would have fit the existing storyline better. What's really frustrating are the glimpses of Brin's obvious skills. These keep you going until the end, but just barely. Now about the movie...
Rating: 
Summary: One of The Best Books Ever Written!
Review: From the opening pages alone, you can tell that this book is going to be something special. It tells the epic tale(although the book is not epic-sized) of a post-apocalyptic drifter by the name of Gordon Krantz. In the unforgettable opening scene, Gordon is set upon by a roving pack of bandits, who take all his valuable possesions, including his tent. While attempting to head them off and get his belongings back, Gordon becomes lost and darkness falls. While wandering in the certain-death circumstances of freezing temperatures and rain, Gordon finds an abandoned postal jeep. In it he finds hope for a new beginning. Thus starts an incredible novel. David Brin has done an extraordinarily great job of making the settings and characters of Gordon's world believable to a person in our day and age. College campuses, shopping districts, and decaying highways all come alive in Gordon's words. I have read this book many times and each time I re-read it I pick up something new which seems to further spark my imagination. Unlike the other "disaster" novels, this one has a fair abundance of people and towns. But these people have lost hope in the world and although they are perhaps ten miles away from other towns, there is no contact between these isolated hamlets. This book really drew me in and made me seem a part of it's world. I love the way that it makes each setting and backdrop seem real and accessible to our modern day minds. Trust me, The Postman is one book that will stay on your shelf long after it is completed.
Rating:
Summary: Like a western Sci-fi!
Review: I was hesistant in buying this book due to my unfavorable impressions to the horrible trailers that I saw for the movie, The Postman. The story intrigued me, but I had passed over the book 4 different times in various bookstores. Well finally on my 5th lookover, I decided to buy it and I'm sure happy I did. I took it home and read the book in two sittings. Couldn't get enough of the book and was sad to see it end. It was a fast read, and I liked the fast plotting of the book. I wanted to see how each new town that Gordon, the "Postman", traveled to would react to him. Great read. Although labeled as a Sci Fi book, I tend to see some Western aspects of the books. There aren't cities anymore, but towns. Plus Gordon is traveling in the wilderness like a frontiersman, trying to rediscover the west. I find the western sci-fi/fantasy genre to be a very unexplored genre. Some books I recommend would be Devil's Tower, and Devil's Engine by Mark Sumner. A nice mix of traditional western with Fantasy. Brin, I sure hope you write a sequel. Gordon still has more of the west to explore!
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary Story with Decent Writing
Review: The postman never believed he was one until he stood back and saw the effects of his lie. He was a wanderer, a man with no plan that had survived an unthinkable war ending the United States. His calling came on accident and then a lie, but it gave hope to all he spoke with and all those people spoke with. He accidentally started a fight to bring back the United States. This story is truly amazing and makes the book a must read, though it isn't written all that well and is not considered David Brin's best writing. The idea will keep the reader intrigued and is a must read for anyone that likes an adventure incorporating love and hope.
Rating: 
Summary: Post-apocalyptic genre fiction at its most average
Review: Brin's tale of a loner's midlife journey in a world devastated by warfare, climate change, and disease is exactly what genre-bound science fiction readers expect. The protagonist, Gordon, is an intellectual male whose resourcefulness has helped him adapt to a world whose institutions have collapsed and whose people live in tiny, scrabbling communities. He traverses the (former) Northwestern United States in vague search of something hope for - but accidentally, by way of a postman's uniform he finds in a moment of desperation, brings hope to everyone he encounters. Ultimately he must reconcile himself to the world as it has become and decide what is truly worth fighting for. "The Postman" fancies itself an ideological novel, and Brin lays it on thick. Gordon's search for meaning is unceasing, and unceasingly discussed. While his crusade is at first sympathetic, it quickly wears thin under the novel's weight as, instead of developing Gordon's character, Brin attributes his every decision to the increasingly desctructive cause. More than just lazily written, "The Postman" can be frustratingly immature. The protagonist's - and the book's - tone toward technology is plausible for the young college student Gordon once was, but inappropriate for a middle-aged man whose life and country have been destroyed by a machine society. Brin's version of feminism seems designed to win bonus points with female fans, but its heavy-handedness and condescension are no less alienating than outright sexism. These flaws, combined with Brin's broad-stroked, barely-serviceable prose, undermine any serious reader's enjoyment. But "The Postman" is appealing nonetheless. It's easy to get into, and the action sequences are freqent and page-turning. The plot meanders pleasantly, making the book seem longer and meatier than it actually is, and although the ending is both sudden and predictable, it's not unsatisfying. And ultimately, Brin offers what many sci-fi readers are looking for: a world in which things are different, a new set of rules and a history that comments on our own. This is not great literature, but it's a fairly good book.
Rating:
Summary: A postapocalyptic novel with hope.
Review: In David Brin's postapocalyptic novel, The Postman, the civilized world has been destroyed by a brief nuclear war and the ensuing nuclear winter, diseases, and barbarism. Set in what used to be Oregon, remnants of civilization exist in small independent towns inhabited by survivors and their offspring eking out a living through agriculture and trades. Gordon Krantz is a lone wanderer, surviving by moving from village to village as a storyteller and minstrel. He finds a dead postal worker's skeleton in the woods and co-opts his clothing to stay warm. With the bag of postage, he hits upon a scam of representing himself as a postal inspector of the "Restored United States," sent to establish post offices in each town and re-establish mail service. He is surprisingly embraced everywhere he travels because of people's thirst for community and communication... and hope. He unwittingly becomes a victim of his own scam and is reluctantly thrust into a leadership role in reuniting Oregon, and by implication the rest of the nation in the future. Along the way, he discovers the way each town coped with the aftermath of the war, makes various friendships, falls in love, and leads the war against the rogue survivalists from the south. I quite enjoyed this novel and found it uplifting in the message of a regular man who had greatness thrust upon him and came to realize that he had to take responsibility. The movie, starring Kevin Costner, is also good but diverges a good bit from the book, especially in the second half. As is often the case, the book is better.
Rating:
Summary: Wow, good read
Review: Having not seen the movie, I was not sure to expect. It is a very well written book and keeps your interest from beginning to end. SMOOTH WRITING CONTRUCTS THE WORLD:
This being my second David Brin book, my first was Kiln People, I amazed at his writing. As a sci-fi buff so often the description of the "world" the novel takes place in is cumbersome. There are explanations of the situation, technology and social structure that weigh down most sci-fi stories. David Brin has a wonderful way of weaving this into his stories so they are part of the dialogue or the unfolding scene. Trust me, this makes reading his books effortless. I found this to be true in Kiln people as well. A TALE OF A DRIFTER:
The story takes place after society is recovering from a major war and social upheaval. Gordon the main character is a drifter moving West to find a better place to live. He is a older survivor, so he knows of the times before the big war and society fell apart. He is accosted by some locals in his travels and while planning to retrieve some of his belongings happens upon an old mail truck. Here he realizes that the world fell apart a bit differently than he supposed and in acquiring the wardrobe of the hapless dead postman, he has taken on the mantle of that title. HOW HOPE CAN BE GROWN:
The rest of the story is how Gordon continues his travels from town to town and the saga of the postman is begun. Some of it is driven by its own momentum. Some of it is driven by Gordon's imagination. Mostly it is interesting how a theory can help hope form and become self perpetuating. Here the Postman becomes the icon of a world that is gone. Maybe just maybe, it can be rebuilt. IT IS ALL SO PLAUSIBLE:
Ironically, when you read of how the world fell, you can see where we have this potential. It is all so plausible. We have the elements in today's society to create this very same mess.
David Brin does a nice job working from that and from the hopes that could rebuild that.
Rating:
Summary: And I thought the movie was good!
Review: I can't believe I never read this book after seeing and kinda liking the movie itself.
Of course, the book is far superior in just about all ways as far as characters and storyline.
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