The Postman

Rating:
Summary: Loved the Postman
Review: I've read this book many times. It's one of the most inspiring works I've ever encountered. I'm actually avoiding seeing the movie because I'm afraid the story has been changed (a'la Dune) to suit Hollywood. If that's the case, I just hope David Brin got a LOT of money for the rights. (Keep up the good work in print, David.)

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Summary: David Brin is among the best writers, ever!
Review: The Postman is great. People think it is an unrealistic plot, but I think it is ultra-realistic. Brin has a way of describing people and creating truth-to-life character that react to events how you and I would. A reversion to feudalism is a likely event after such a war, but people would remember democracy. I think that everyone should read The Postman, especially if they have been disillusioned by the movie.

Rating:
Summary: Good. I don't need to see the movie (nor should I...)
Review: I found the book a quick and easy read. The story premise is an interesting one, and in light of the current militia and survivalist movements, it does make one think. But the book seems to run out of gas 3/4 of the way, and although the isolationist tone of the story is the focus, in the end, you wonder, "Yeah, but what happens to the rest of the country?" I can only surmise that in the end, Kevin Costner gets a hold of the postman's badge and the whole thing turns into an utter disaster...

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Summary: David Brin Rocks!!!!!
Review: I read The Postman several years ago and enjoyed it thoroughly. The casual references to the end of the world were much appreciated after reading books like lucifers hammer which intricatly describe the end. Brin does it fabulosly! I am sad after seeing the Movie version which leaves out so many interesting things like the College at Corvallis which would have made for an even more hope filled movie. Also, whose idea was it to change the Holnist leader from General Macklin to General Bethlehem. Otherwise, David Brin rocks!!!

Rating:
Summary: Top-notch
Review: Brin makes a case for being top dog in the genre. I've gotta say it...read down a few reviews...the guy from Houston completely misses the point. Go back and read it again...and again.

Rating:
Summary: very good for escapist readers, I liked it
Review: I found the story interesting. I did not miss the usual gory boring details of the holocast which preceeded the story line. I didn't agree with other reviews written here, you have to remember that this is fiction writen for entertainment. If you sought a moral then I would conclude you could find it here in the people's Hope the postman exploited and which finally they used on him.

Rating:
Summary: Enticing!
Review: I just could not put this book down! David Brin's short story-turned-novel got me wanting to read on and on- hungry for more. I finished reading within 12 hours just in time before the movie release on Christmas Day implying that a curious non-sci-fi fan can expect easy reading with technical language kept at a minimum. Certainly not Brin's best but possibly his most glamorous and profitable work thanks to Kevin Costner and (ugh)Hollywood. Nevertheless, it is an exciting and thought-provoking reading as we witness the deeply nostalgic "Postman's" inner struggle for clarity. As for the ending, I smell a sequel. It had me visualizing the final scene from "Back to the Future" which, as I recall, had the audience shouting "WHAT?!" Obviously, Brin knows book sales to have written such a annoyingly simple ending. Just make sure not to let that Huey Lewis song enter your mind after finishing this wonderful story. You won't be able to get rid of it!

Rating:
Summary: great story!
Review: one thing many people forget when reading this book is the time it is set in. not only after a cataclysmic war, but when the war happened. the reaction of the townspeoplle are very realistic when you actually apply them to small town america ten or so years ago. this book is a must read, and from what i have seen the movie adaptation will be very good.

Rating:
Summary: this one belongs in the dead-letter office
Review: David Brin sets out to create a post-apocalyptic world of the near future, a world of villages and fallen cities in the northwestern U.S. recovering from the loss of technology following an almost-all-out-war and surviving threats of political anarchism in the form of self-centered town governments and marauding bands of survivalists. The book's most interesting conceit comes in the form of the main character, Gordon Krantz, a traveling bard who is mistaken for a "postman" while dressed in official issue postal duds he stumbled upon in an old postal jeep. Unfortunately, this is Brin's best idea of the novel and he uses it to excess to carry and deliver a series of philosophical epistles centered about ideas of community, citizenship and belief in doing what's right and decent for our neighbors. The assumed "postman," Gordon Krantz, creates the fiction of a "Restored United States of America" in order to get a room and meal in a hostile and paranoid township. But the idea takes on its own life as people begin to think again of folks beyond their own town borders and ultimately Krantz finds himself being recreated and "restored" by the power of his own fiction as it catches fire across the small towns of the Oregon countryside.. The "good guys" vs. "bad guys" confrontations lack any originality and wit. The interweave of subplots are glaring in their lack of subtlety regarding outcomes. Readers will anticipate what's about to occur long before the novel does and so one starts reading faster and faster muttering, come on, come on, come on. Mix this with shallow, two-dimensional characters that you've met before in other novels and you have a disappointing work by a writer capable of much better. THE POSTMAN reads like a sci-fi novel meant to teach basic civics 101 to late adolescents. It could have made a strong short story or novella, but it cannot sustain its conceit for over 300 pages. I applaud Brin' attempt to express his own political vision for a recovery of simpler and more elegant virtues and values in a contemporary world that does indeed appear overwhelmed with the ethic of personal aggrandizement and survival. But the power of the vision is lost. The novel ends with a set up for a sequel. Perhaps the next delivery will be closer to what we hoped we would be receiving.

Rating:
Summary: Don't judge a book by its cinematic trailer!
Review: A reader of the book will see that The Postman (which is not related to the "Il Postino" movie of a few years back) illustrates the power of memes over brawn. From the indications of the advance trailer, Kevin Costner is butchering this book by turning the physically and intellectually weak protagonist of The Postman into a Mad Max hero of the Reformed USA. "Waterworld goes Postal," indeed, from the catcalls and jeering evident in the theatres where the trailer runs, the movie is set to be as well-received as Waterworld. In the book, the Postman is merely a catalyst - to turn him into a heroic leader utterly destroys the meaning of the story. Can anyone tell me if there's some wonderful story that got perverted into Waterworld?