Rating: 
Summary: stokes my imagination!
Review: Far, far in the future, long after the catastrophic impact of a huge meteor, the cloned children of humanity's last people who had escaped by establishing a safe harbor on the Moon, undertake the enormous task of restoring life to a barren planet.We start in the near future & move into the very far future & along the way he keeps the theme of hope, innovation & adaptability that our species has survived on for the past 2 million years. A Jack Williamson book is always about the triumph of the human species. I like the twist that he's given the debate on cloning. One more questioning voice added to this timely controversy. His writing makes you conjure up scenarios that otherwise might be unspeakable in our current PC world. My imagination is always stoked when I read Jack Williamson. Read this book & consider its implications! Good stuff!
Rating: 
Summary: none
Review: I honestly believe that in the not-too-distant future science fiction will be defined by just one name: Jack Williamson, "Terraforming Earth" is a fantastic, engaging, thought-provoking and haunting book of speculation and wonder, and shows why Williamson, after nearly 7 decades in the business, can still intrigue his readers and still lead the way for the rest of the SF field to follow...Gary S. Potter Author/Poet
Rating: 
Summary: A real page turner...
Review: I read this book in one sitting. Sadly, not because it was so good, but because I read page after page hoping the book would live up to the promise of the topic and of the author's name. It didn't. Had the book come from any "lesser" author, I would have settled for 3 stars. But coming from Williamson it was such a let-down I can only give it 1 star. The characters were unlikeable, indecisive caricatures. - The perky Hispanic pilot/engineer stereotype who drops some Spanish exclamation more often than Scotty saying "the engines cannae tek it, cap'n". Asexual it seems, or such a sideshow token that the author doesn't care whether he has a love life or not. - The domineering bully Teuton/Norse who really is a coward - and yet always attracts the girls and becomes the alpha-male. Being German myself this pathetic cartoon really grated. - The intelligent can-do Asian scientist woman who just can't help herself falling for the Germanic guy above. Or declaring her love for the narrator, but still jumping into bed with alpha-hombre (no not the Hispanic guy) - The dreamy librarian girl, unattractive and caring only for her books. But she often as not ends up in a menage a troi with the previous two. - The Asian-African-American who forces himself on to the crew to escape the original Armageddon with his girlfriend. Probably the most likeable of the unlikeable bunch, though his obsession with his girlfriend takes on "Jungian archetype" elements in the way he nearly deifies her. (and the books ending doesn't help that one bit). - His girlfriend, the goddess-whore stereotype. Saint Mary Magdalene. Nuff said. - And finally, our narrator, who never seems to DO anything. Not because he a coward, like Herr Wotan above, but because I just felt like kicking him in the behind half the time and get him to do *anything* but fret. When everybody else goes nanotech Nirvana he stays behind, writes his memoirs and ... frets. There was no feeling of the vast expanses of time that had passed (something Theodore Sturgeon excelled in). As far as I'm concerned the way the passing of time was described, it covered a few months, with it's extremely brief snapshots of events that the characters partake in. Yes, then you get some brief "eons pass"-kind of filler sentence, but blink while reading and you miss it. Very easy to blink, while trying to stay awake... On top of it all, no explanation on how the heck the moon base stays operative for millions upon millions of years. Just some handwaving "fusion power with water from the moon caps", "nanotechnology keeping it all repaired" and "robots as nurses and teachers".
One thing the book suceeded in, was to evoke that "what would I do" feeling. For me it was: wipe out the bloody gene bank as Earth and the universe would be better off not being replenished every few million years by this bunch of losers.
Rating:
Summary: A Grand Master Shows He Still Has What It Takes
Review: In 1942, Jack Williamson coined the term "terraforming" to describe the process of altering another planet to make it more Earth-like and thus habitable for humans. Now, in his 73rd year of being a published writer, Williamson turns the table. An eccentric millionaire, Calvin DeFort, builds a robot-run base on the Moon stocked with tissue samples from hundreds of critical animal and plant species, plus from a small but select group of people. His goal is to create a safety net for Earth, to preserve Earth's ecology in case of a catastrophic event. He doesn't get it quite done before Earth is struck by a huge asteroid and the surface is scoured clean of life. The story then tracks the lives of the clones created from the tissue samples of the original occupants of the Moon base. Whenever the robots and the master computer believe that the Earth is ready for an attempt at re-habitation, clones are made, raised, and trained to re-terraform Earth. Several failures occur due to unforeseeable events (an alien invasion, subsequent asteroid strikes, world wars), but the clones keep coming back to try again. The group is always drawn from the same, small cache of human tissue samples, and the genetic similarities are clear, but each group also develops its own set of somewhat distinct personalities (the cast of the story is small, but also large). Williamson shows us again why he was one of the early Grand Masters of science fiction. The writing flows rapidly and coherently, the characters ring true and real, and the story is engrossing. There is also a wistfulness, bordering on the melancholy, to this story. It is clear from the tone of the book that it was written by a man looking back at his long life and wondering about the (and his) future. It is almost poetic and dream-like at times. I don't know if Mr. Williamson plans another novel, but this would be hard to top, and is also very fitting as a Grand Finale for a Grand Master. Of course, if someone COULD top "Terraforming Earth", who better than Jack Williamson?
Rating:
Summary: Exciting sf thriller
Review: In one catastrophic hit, four billion years of evolution and growth are erased. A century has passed since the asteroid crashed into earth eradicating just about every living creature on the planet. The only human survivors are clones from long dead parents who live in Tycho Station, a dome with tunnels on the moon. Each subsequent lunar generation understands the prime goal is to return to the homeland by TERRAFORMING EARTH. Over the millenniums, several efforts to return have failed leaving more dead people behind. Now thousands of years later, another attempt is to begin. Is the cycle of failure going to finally be broken and if yes what happens to the moon base that has been home seemingly forever? TERRAFORMING EARTH is an exciting, action-packed, thought provoking science fiction thriller. The great Jack Williamson focuses on the aftermath of a pandemic destruction of all sentient beings. The story line leaps through the millenniums at light speed yet never loses focus as to what the author wants to say about humanity, its future, and the impact of science on evolution. The great grandmaster gets greater as Mr. Williamson, whose been writing since the parents of the boomers were children, provides another novel for the ages. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: A Disappointment from a Grand Master
Review: Terraforming Earth is a first person perspective story about what happens in the long run after a major collision with Earth. The original plot is very interesting and it keeps you turning the pages to see what will happen. The main characters each have their own personalities and every time they are reborn they follow their same path with a few different variations each time. The new characters who are added into the story later in the book help keep the story from getting boring.
Jack Williamson still has creative ideas even as he is getting older. He changes the direction of the story it seems in the middle and a few times later so that it doesn't get too repetitive. You start to really like a few of the characters and hate a few of the others. I rarely like any books that are first person perspective but this book protrayed the story as if the narrator was indifferent to what was happening. He just told it like it was instead of bogging the story down with his thoughts and emotions. It did not get a five star because some of the story seemed very pointless and the ending was kind of weird. But the story keeps you anxious to see what will happen from their actions when they are born again.
Bottom line- Good plot but a little repetitive although the repetition is what makes it interesting. Four stars.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Plot
Review: Terraforming Earth is a first person perspective story about what happens in the long run after a major collision with Earth. The original plot is very interesting and it keeps you turning the pages to see what will happen. The main characters each have their own personalities and every time they are reborn they follow their same path with a few different variations each time. The new characters who are added into the story later in the book help keep the story from getting boring.
Jack Williamson still has creative ideas even as he is getting older. He changes the direction of the story it seems in the middle and a few times later so that it doesn't get too repetitive. You start to really like a few of the characters and hate a few of the others. I rarely like any books that are first person perspective but this book protrayed the story as if the narrator was indifferent to what was happening. He just told it like it was instead of bogging the story down with his thoughts and emotions. It did not get a five star because some of the story seemed very pointless and the ending was kind of weird. But the story keeps you anxious to see what will happen from their actions when they are born again.
Bottom line- Good plot but a little repetitive although the repetition is what makes it interesting. Four stars.
Rating:
Summary: A Remarkable Read
Review: Terraforming Earth is a remarkable read. The imagination behind it is stunning in its scope. Williamson is a very generous writer. You begin with a group of children living on the Moon. They are clones and they are learning from their clone "parents what happened to the earth. The earth has been nearly destroyed by an asteroid and it will be their job and their successors to terraform the earth. After that, we're off and away to the earth. Terraforming, I should warn, only takes place offstage. Williamson is interested in the strange creatures who have evolved out of the destruction, such as the exotically beautiful girl who literally floats down out of the sky. The book is barely a novel for it's really a series of adventures separated by thousands of years. This is why I gave it four stars instead of five. Anyone of the adventures deserved to be a full novel and as a result there's an episodic feel to it plus the characters are only sketches, especially the women. That aside, it's a great, fast read. Williamson has been writing for a staggering 70 years now (published first story in 1928!). He gives a unique vision in this novel. It begins like a standard disaster Science Fiction story then veers close to fantasy and then close to space opera and at the end a rather stunning epiphany for the ultimate fate of mankind. He's a good enough writer to make it all work. I can't help feeling that his writing could be pointing the way for a new direction for science fiction writing, one that takes the best of every era. So with the one reservation that it's a bit sketchy and episodic, I highly recommend this.
Rating:
Summary: A Remarkable Read
Review: Terraforming Earth is a remarkable read. The imagination behind it is stunning in its scope. Williamson is a very generous writer. You begin with a group of children living on the Moon. They are clones and they are learning from their clone "parents what happened to the earth. The earth has been nearly destroyed by an asteroid and it will be their job and their successors to terraform the earth. After that, we're off and away to the earth. Terraforming, I should warn, only takes place offstage. Williamson is interested in the strange creatures who have evolved out of the destruction, such as the exotically beautiful girl who literally floats down out of the sky. The book is barely a novel for it's really a series of adventures separated by thousands of years. This is why I gave it four stars instead of five. Anyone of the adventures deserved to be a full novel and as a result there's an episodic feel to it plus the characters are only sketches, especially the women. That aside, it's a great, fast read. Williamson has been writing for a staggering 70 years now (published first story in 1928!). He gives a unique vision in this novel. It begins like a standard disaster Science Fiction story then veers close to fantasy and then close to space opera and at the end a rather stunning epiphany for the ultimate fate of mankind. He's a good enough writer to make it all work. I can't help feeling that his writing could be pointing the way for a new direction for science fiction writing, one that takes the best of every era. So with the one reservation that it's a bit sketchy and episodic, I highly recommend this.
Rating:
Summary: Great story by a science fiction Grand Master
Review: The basic plot: An eccentric billionaire wants to build a base on the Moon to safeguard mankind's science/culture in case of a meteor strike. Before the base is really ready, the meteor does strike. Earth's atmosphere is completely changed. All living things are extinguished. The only ones left are the few who managed to get to the moon.
Over the course of time, these people are periodically cloned from their own tissue samples. They mission is to make the Earth livable again. To terraform Earth. The story is told through the eyes of Duncan, who is the historian of the group. The children are raised on the moon and told that it is their duty to watch over Earth. Each generation of clones studies the writings and recordings of the "siblings" who have gone before to the point that these records seem like part of their own memories.
The book spans millions of years. Some groups of clones are successful, some are not. This is a story not only of the evolution of Earth, but the evolution of the species as well. This book would make a great introduction to scifi for anyone new to the genre. The plot is character-driven and unique. There's a refreshing lack of techno-speak. All in all, a very accessible work. Great for newcomers and long-time fans alike.
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