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Summary: The World of 2040
Review: An amazing pre-sentient work, Earth explores the world fifty years from now with astonishing accuracy and vividness. Writing before the development of the world wide web, Brin describes nearly completely what we have today, and will likely in forty years, with a world culture dependent on the web for all it's information. It is a possible future, but a very likely one. Here, there is mandatory time spent on the net, as it is too important for survival, and though one may not have enough for food in the next day, still access to the world web is free. With this and the ever presence of personal vid-cams has come the complete death of privacy. Warming has continued apace, and so Bangladesh and the Maldives are gone, with floating cities to take their place. The world has finally realized the importance of the environment- only because it is forced to- and dropping a cup in the water can get you prison time. White folks are in trouble especially from the lack of ozone layer, and new religions have arisen- Gaiaism and interestingly neo-Raism, with the recognition of the sun as a power that can destroy lives through skin cancer.I have to reduce this from five stars only because the last quarter of the book becomes more magic than science fiction or scientific realism, and the improbabilities become too great. But I would highly recommend this work for the vision of a very likely future which we should all be prepared for.
Rating: 
Summary: Fairly worthless tripe.
Review: Fairly worthless tripe. I gave this lame tome a little more than 100 pages, only because The Postman started stupid but ended well. I had no hope at all that this would also end well. Brin's view of the world of 2040 (written in 1990) is so ludicrous, you'd think it was written as an advertisement for Greenpeace. Basically, in a mere 50 years we have a world where societal norms are turned completely upside down, where ecological disaster is killing and dislocating billions (literally), where "strong, tall Soviets" are taking on refugees by the millions in the newly thawed Siberia and where (as a minor side note actually), someone has lost one or possibly two black holes in the core of the planet. With the help of a Maori(!) billionaire, the creator of one of the black holes is trying to safe the world, as well as solve the mystery of the second black hole. Anyway, Brin was trying for the epic here, with lots and lots of disparate groups who we presumably were going to follow as they reacted to the problem at hand. The only problem I had with that is each and every one of them where totally unbelievable.
Rating: 
Summary: hard book to write! great book to read
Review: This book has become a 'required reading' for environmentalists. It describes a world so close to ours.. yet so far. David Brin once said that this was the hardest book he's had to write because with only 40 years seperating the time when it wrote it to the setting, he had to make it realistic enough so that some things are familiar but different enough to account for 40 years of rapid technological changes. (Compare us to 1960!) He does a beautiful job of it... taking into account population, economic, sociological and environmental changes all linked together to make a whale of a story backdrop. He even inserts 'news clippings' between the chapters to fill in the background. I would have rated it a 4.5 since his imagination got a tad carried away at the end.. but it's a wild yet totally fascinating ride. You can enjoy each page slowly while at the same time want to get to the end to find out what happens!
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Summary: Brave New Brin
Review: Brin pays homage to Aldous Huxley in this book, which is the best near-future epic since Huxley's "Brave New World". Regardless of how you feel about environmentalism, you have to admit that Brin has extrapolated current events to logical, yet surprising continuums. A world-wide fabric of computer communication? Duh. Real time video recorders on every person? It's happening now. Arks to protect animals from ozone-depleted UV blindness? Not too much of a stretch. Energy from manufactured black holes. Okay, that may test your imagination. One thing that won't stretch your credulity though is Brin's mastry of character development. There are dozens of fully fleshed humans that are eminently believable and at the same time, unpredictable. Who is the obvious alpha male in the youth gang? Wrong. What has that annoyingly persistant reporter got planned? Wrong. Even the slightly out of pattern ending will startle you. The book really has a little bit of everything, including Brin's famous wit, understated but warming romance, and heart-stopping suspense. If you don't like this book, then you just don't like hard science fiction.
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Summary: Great Perspective!
Review: If you're looking for a tight plotline, look elsewhere. It seems no mistake that even the book's title is reminiscent of a Michener novel. However, as with Michener's historical retrospectives, this book provides a richly detailed historical and futuristic perspective of our planet as a complete, arguably biological system in which human society plays a historically small but not insignificant role. This is a cautionary tale of man's innate ability to destroy or save the earth. However, it's written in a pratical and reasoned tone rather than the alarmist tone often associated with today's environmental debates. (Even environmentalists are not always portrayed positively in this story.) It is, a wholistic look at the world's future, incorporating rich details soundly rooted in the sciences of biology, geology, astronomy, physics, and even sociology. (see the other reviews here for more details of the plot.) Extraneous plot aside, this book is an important, thought-provoking work for those interested in gaining perspective on today's environmental debates - whatever your ideological camp.
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Summary: deux ex. machina
Review: I have just a quick comment on the "Deus ex Machina" (as another reviewer referred to it) ending; i believe truly this is a book you have to read in one or two sittings. All the little side tricks (such as the quotes from the 'net at the beginning of each chapter) and discussions/thoughts of (specifically) one of the major-ish characters built a lot of tension for me. I believe a lot of those tricks, and resulting emotional impact are lost if the reader takes too long to read. I dont know how to say more without giving away anything, but I really recommend this book to anyone; I try to give it out as a present to anyone that will appreciate it. Makes me want to read Godel, Escher, Bach : an Eternal Golden Braid all over again..
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Summary: Disappointing
Review: I cannot in all conscience recommend this book. Without exception, I've liked everything that Brin wrote before Earth. This book is long, boring, and overly preachy. If you really want to read good Brin, try Startide Rising, which is far worthier of praise.
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Summary: One of the 5 best books I've ever read
Review: There are only a few stories that haunt me. This is one of them. I read this 10 years ago and am watching parts of it slowly come true. Things that were novel and futuristic when I first read it are everyday occurances now. I wonder how much more of the book will come to life...
Rating:
Summary: Waste of time
Review: Brin took a simple theme and stretched it into a long novel by constantly adding little side issues that totally distract you from the story line. I think this book was written with 'future movie' in mind from page one. It reads like a news reel. I got bored and couldn't finish it. And I hate not finishing a book that I bought myself.
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Summary: A well integrated but wrong-headed jeremiad
Review: David Brin is often touted as a Libertarian, but this book belies that. Its author's premises are undeniably and unmistakably collectivist. Buy it, because it is destined to be the bible of anti-individualists and devotees of the "New World Order" everywhere. It is the perfect antithesis of "Atlas Shrugged," and just as thorough in expounding its philosophical thesis. If you want to understand Ayn Rand, this book is a perfect example of how her fictional villains and real-world opponents think. The book is a tour de force of poisonous philosophical tenets, from its metaphysics of pop-mysticism and its epistemology of the "multiple-personality mind" to its group-identity ethics, "third-way" authoritarian socialist politics, and thinly veiled irrational and nihilistic view of reality. If it does nothing else, this book should be hailed for exposing the "Whole Earth Movement" for the borg-like collectivism that it is. It is a breathtakingly disturbing read for the rational individualist reader, but priceless for understanding the collectivist worldview.
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