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.
Rating: 
Summary: A Disappointment from a Grand Master
Review: This book is really four novelettes retrofitted around "The Ultimate Earth," a novelette which (inexplicably) won all sorts of awards. Like a lot of "novels" that are jury-rigged around extended short stories, this one has all the weaknesses and few of the strengths that other such novels have. (The best novel of this kind is Fred Pohl's Years of the City, a clear masterpiece.) I found the only good section of this book to be the first. It sets up a remarkable premise and sets about unfolding it rather well. But by the time the book ends, you really don't know who is who and the far future earth seems more like modern-day Africa. Not a single imaginative trope in sight. This would be an excellent first book, however. Unfortunately, it isn't. The five star ratings this book has received clearly are given to the man and not the work. This isn't a good place to start with one's reading of Jack Williamson.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but nothing new
Review: This is a fairly entertaining book. However the plot is very similar to the plot in Stephen Baxter's "Space". The basis for the plot is, however, so much more solid in Baxter's book.
The ending of the book is very abrupt. It seems like Williamson runs out of ideas, and hurrily tries to gather his stuff and leave.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but nothing new
Review: This is a fairly entertaining book. However the plot is very similar to the plot in Stephen Baxter's "Space". The basis for the plot is, however, so much more solid in Baxter's book.
The ending of the book is very abrupt. It seems like Williamson runs out of ideas, and hurrily tries to gather his stuff and leave.
Rating: 
Summary: Great, BUT .....
Review: This was a wonderful and fast read. But there were a few minor problems that I had with it. Granted that the main characters are clones who are repeatedly "brought back" to life, but you'd think that after a few generations there'd be ample room for some major identity crisises. Instead, we're treated to the same narrator, Duncan Yare, through several of his cloned incarnations. Each incarnation is somehow the same, yet somehow, creepily, different. However, apparently not different enough. Going back to the identity crisis bit, you'd think that there would be at least some major differences in personality from clone generation to clone generation, maybe as so far as to have one generation disagree sharply with the choices a previous one made. But no, Arne remains the paranoid, pompus "alpha male," and Casey remains eternally, permanently fixiated on his Mona. The clone generations seem very resigned and accepting, fatalistic even, about the nature of their eventual replacements/successors. For example, if Arne entertained such paranoid fantasies that he'd go so far as to enslave his companions in the Tycho base, why didn't any of those companions rebel and attempt to destroy any future attempts at creating another generation of Arnes? (Arne is stated as to having assumed this "alpha male" status in at least two different generations.) The author, Jack Williamson, cleverly never actually states how much time has passed between awakenings of the numerous clone generations. The most specific he ever gets is that it might be a thousand years later, or a million. In a way, he seems to imply that the passage of time is and, simultaneously, is not important to the narrative of his book (as contradictory as that statement seems, it's true). In short, this book is great for those who just want to waste an afternoon, and those who want to think, "Hey, what if an asteroid really DID hit us?"
Rating: 
Summary: A quick, easy read (and not too filling!)
Review: Two things prompted me to check out this book: (1) The cool cover -- I'm a sucker for good sci-fi artwork. (2) The jacket notes -- I'm also a sucker for post-apocalyptic sci-fi. Anyway, I must admit that the only thing by Williamson I've read before this book was "The Moon Children" back in the early 70s, so I really can't make too many comparisons. But like "The Moon Children," "Terraforming Earth" seems somewhat geared to a younger audience. It's easy reading, and most readers could probably finish it in a day or three. I found the story to be a bit tenuous at times, there were some events and circumstances that the author left insufficiently explained, and the ending (involving the transcendence of our physical forms as human beings) has been done better elsewhere. But the book kept my attention, and I'm glad I read it, so THREE STARS. If you know any older teens who enjoy visionary sci-fi, "Terraforming Earth" would make a nice gift.
Rating:
Summary: Something lost in the cloning process
Review: Williamson's characters seem incapable of judgment, generation after generation. I found their lack of common sense utterly frustrating. Led by the author's drive to embroil them in poetic and melancholy disaster, they are never allowed to exercise a maturity beyond the level of impetuous children. Despite his agile prose, imaginative flair, and high concept, his book fails utterly at the one crucial place where a story should connect with its reader - at the human level: Do we relate to these people, are they like us? In their place, what would we do? What does each say about us all? Over the thousands of years and multiple iterations of the same characters, stupidity seems to be a mathematical constant: every spaceflight turns to disaster for want of fuel, every safari ends in what appears a wasteful and pathetic death, every first contact in enslavement, and always due to a lack of preparation an planning easily evident to a reasonable person. Essentially, his puppet characters simplify his narrative task by remaining incapable of using their reason, holding their tongues, and exercising a free will that would exercise caution when faced with risk. This allows Mr. Williamson to follow his muse: Their foolishness propels the narrative and opens vistas, but rings false. Has wisdom, thought and will been bred out of these carousel horses, or does Mr. Williamson simply not care about them?
Rating:
Summary: Something lost in the cloning process
Review: Williamson's characters seem incapable of judgment, generation after generation. I found their lack of common sense utterly frustrating. Led by the author's drive to embroil them in poetic and melancholy disaster, they are never allowed to exercise a maturity beyond the level of impetuous children. Despite his agile prose, imaginative flair, and high concept, his book fails utterly at the one crucial place where a story should connect with its reader - at the human level: Do we relate to these people, are they like us? In their place, what would we do? What does each say about us all? Over the thousands of years and multiple iterations of the same characters, stupidity seems to be a mathematical constant: every spaceflight turns to disaster for want of fuel, every safari ends in what appears a wasteful and pathetic death, every first contact in enslavement, and always due to a lack of preparation an planning easily evident to a reasonable person. Essentially, his puppet characters simplify his narrative task by remaining incapable of using their reason, holding their tongues, and exercising a free will that would exercise caution when faced with risk. This allows Mr. Williamson to follow his muse: Their foolishness propels the narrative and opens vistas, but rings false. Has wisdom, thought and will been bred out of these carousel horses, or does Mr. Williamson simply not care about them?
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