Rating: 
Summary: A perfect book...
Review: A friend of mine gave me this book as a gift. Being a sequel I figured it might be good. With over 400 pages, there had to be something interesting within. I was wrong. It wasn't good, it was perfect.
The characters of Giraut and Margaret are painfully real, the science fiction is interesting, the ideas are beautiful, the story itself can't help but hook you and the two cultures really give the book many flavors. The ending has a COUPLE of surprises, some of which you MAY of seen coming, but I doubt it. With hindsight I can say, 'Oh..OK..', but the end was enjoyable, thoughtful and powerful.
I can't wait to get the FIRST book 'A Million Open Doors'. I can't believe this is the same author who wrote 'Washington's Dirigible'.
Rating:
Summary: A perfect book...
Review: A friend of mine gave me this book as a gift. Being a sequel I figured it might be good. With over 400 pages, there had to be something interesting within. I was wrong. It wasn't good, it was perfect.
The characters of Giraut and Margaret are painfully real, the science fiction is interesting, the ideas are beautiful, the story itself can't help but hook you and the two cultures really give the book many flavors. The ending has a COUPLE of surprises, some of which you MAY of seen coming, but I doubt it. With hindsight I can say, 'Oh..OK..', but the end was enjoyable, thoughtful and powerful.
I can't wait to get the FIRST book 'A Million Open Doors'. I can't believe this is the same author who wrote 'Washington's Dirigible'.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As much as I enjoyed "A Million Open Doors" Barnes' latest offering left a little to be desired. Like the previous reviewer, I enjoyed the fact that Barnes avoided the easy answers regarding the marital troubles of Giraut and Margaret, however it was as plain as day from early on that Margaret was riding the hobby horse with Kapilar.I wold have enjoyed seeing more storyline dedicated to the artifacts that the council of humanity keeps finding. I trust that Barnes will take us there in his next installment. Overall, the book wasn't bad, but could have been better, if it hadn't been so transparent.
Rating:
Summary: Mayans are from Mars, Tamils are from Venus?
Review: Barnes tries to do a lot of things in this book and I found it essentially engrossing. It got better and better as it went along. A welcome change from a lot of fare. I have not read _A Million Open Doors_ , and therefore was not familiar with Giraut and Margaret's personalities. Like another reader I found Margaret very irritating for more than half the book. That reviewer called her a "revenge" character and I agree. Poor, without-a-clue Giraut. Of course her affair with the Tamil assistant was obvious. Even the other characters found Giraut's obtuseness disgusting. Barnes finally does give us some more believable explanations for Margaret's behavior. I found the Ix character to be a bit too conveniently Christlike. As for the woman he ruins his Messiah mission for, well she did everything but take center stage and sing, "I don't know how to love him." Barnes' description and interplay of the two societies in conflict is the single riveting aspect of the book for me even though the Israeli/Palestinian parallels were pretty obvious. I admit I could not fathom welcoming ceremonies held outdoors in such a climate, plus that architecture must have been made from something amazing to remain like new under centuries of constant solar inferno and savage weathering. I had recently read _The Doomsday Book_ and _In the Garden of Iden_. Although those were based on real historical periods, I still found parallels. _Earth Made of Glass_ also has this hugely superior human group essentially viewing the studied cultures as primitive in outlook and ultimately expendable. At the same time the tiny number of "visitors" who actually interact with the individuals in these "lesser" societies form inevitable attachments, and acquire valuable insight despite their condescension. There are small hints that somewhere in the series(?), Barnes' will have his Council of Humanity at least explore the idea that a totally homogenized human society isn't necessarily the stronger entity they see as better prepared to face a superior alien culture. There might just be some essential knowledge, skill, or zest-for-life they are eradicating with their methods. Like another reviewer, I look forward to Barnes exploring the discovered alien sites, or encountering the aliens themselves, (preferably before Barnes' creativity runs out of steam). I suspect we are at least going to visit that group of societies on the rim who have also refused a Springer.
Rating: 
Summary: Isosemiotic Epistemes
Review: Even though some of us SF fans (myself included) believe the genre is coming into its own as a true literary form, I think most of us mainly read the stuff because it's our favorite escape literature, and we think it's the best. That's why it's somewhat peculiar (and somewhat funny) that *Earth Made of Glass* sent me to the dictionary to look up "isosemiotic episteme." Sounds too much like WORK! It takes effort just to say isosemiotic episteme three times in a row. Repeat after me... Barnes says, "In that era of formalization and intensification, it had been thought that all cultures would want to develop separately, each in its own isosemiotic episteme." Well "isosemiotic" is not in the dictionary, but the "iso" prefix refers to isolation (duh!) "semiotic" pertains to the study of signs and symbols (or symptoms of diseases), and "episteme" is a piece of knowledge - a piece of valid information. So, um, I guess that means tending toward an isolationist collection of the memes of culture and getting stuck in the amber of rigid thought forms. Some of those memes are totally bogus for both the Tamils and Mayas since both were "created" cultures sent out from Earth (not the originals). The new Maya prophet, Ix, gives them both three principles, namely, stop taking your sacred texts literally and hurting other people over them; secondly, "...exclude nothing, bring all things in" and thirdly "set a boundary now and forever between what is true everywhere and for everyone, and what is true for our time and place," i.e. they are to give up their strangle hold on their isosemiotic epistemes. I like a lot of things about this book. I liked it that in Ix, we get a whiff of the true prophets down through the ages. He's a maverick, a wild card. They all are. Everybody knows that Jesus wouldn't be considered "respectable" around here. I like it that Giraut's wife, Margaret, is extremely unattractive, yet he loves her. He marries her. (I kept expecting Margaret to get a workover, but she never did.) Nowhere have I ever heard of a female protagonist who is altogether ugly, yet beloved. This has got to be a first. I like the way the author switches voices from narrative to dialogue. Very smooth. I like it that he describes what a different planet looks and feels like. The blinding dot of their sun "was ringed by a circle of blue that quickly faded into the uniform deep indigo." The black sky created deep shadows and sharper contrasts. I love to picture stuff like this, and there's quite a bit of it here. Real science fiction. I like the little cultural anthropological pointers scattered throughout the novel, such as "...you had to learn a culture until you knew whether the person on the other side of the table was following a cultural norm different from yours, or just an asshole." And I like it that Barnes reminds me of Chad Oliver, an old timey SF writer who dealt with anthropological/archeological themes. Wasn't really disappointed with the ending - merely surprised - which is in itself food for thought. Absolutely the only thing I didn't like (other than Margaret's non-makeover and not understanding the title) was the author's grammatical gaffs, such as, "...things that don't matter at all to you or I" instead of "you or me." The first reviewer on this site noticed it, so I'm not the lone ranger. A good copyeditor would have picked that up in a hot New York second. These two books cry out to be a trilogy. We want to know about the ancient aliens who left archeological traces of themselves all over the galaxy and produced a high technology but no books. And how about a makeover for Margaret? pamhan99@aol.com
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing
Review: Huh, was I the only reader who didn't figure out about Margaret till the end? Poor Giraut. This book, strangely, worked for me. Yeah, M is annoying, and the genocidal cultures are depressing, but through it all John Barnes tells the story with compassion, beautiful description, and interesting observations of art and life. I couldn't wish it any different.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing, unpleasant book
Review: I have enjoyed many of John Barnes' other books (Orbital Resonance, Mother of Storms, the Timeline Wars line, Kaleidoscope Century, etc.), and I highly recommend them. However, this one left me cold. Earth Made of Glass is one of only two or three books in my life that I have abandoned mid-read. Although doing his usual fine job at painting a vivid picture of a world and culture, John Barnes has made his main characters so depressing and unpleasant that it's hard to care about them. And, after all, it's the characters that drive a novel. Once you don't give a darn what happens to the main characters, there's no reason to keep reading.
I suspect that John Barnes had recently gone through a divorce or other unpleasant event in his life, because his main character Margaret has all the brushmarks of a "revenge" character. She is whiny, incoherent, unreasonable, and thoroughly unpleasant. She bursts into tears for no reason, punishes her husband because he is not the youth he was 20 years ago, and irritatingly, constantly bemoans the state of her own middle-aged body. I somewhat remember acting this way when I was 13 and deep in the throes of adolescence. But I grew out of it darn quick. I kept wanting to shake her and tell her "Deal with it!" And Giraut's response is hurt confusion and a tendency to run away from the problem. Pack your bags and leave, buddy!
Being a middle-aged woman who has been with my husband for 25 years, I know well the stress of not having your life turn out the way you planned it but, I swear, if I am ever as unpleasant to my husband as Margaret is to hers, I give my husband full permission to drop a bucket of ice water on my head.
I suppose it is a testament to the book that I became so emotionally involved with the characters to the point that I wanted to kick them in the kiester, but this book is just too depressing and irritating to take a place in my library.
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to John Barnes' usual standard
Review: I have enjoyed many of John Barnes' other books (Orbital Resonance, Mother of Storms, the Timeline Wars line, Kaleidoscope Century, etc.), and I highly recommend them. However, this one left me cold. Earth Made of Glass is one of only two or three books in my life that I have abandoned mid-read. Although doing his usual fine job at painting a vivid picture of a world and culture, John Barnes has made his main characters so depressing and unpleasant that it's hard to care about them. And, after all, it's the characters that drive a novel. Once you don't give a darn what happens to the main characters, there's no reason to keep reading. I suspect that John Barnes has recently gone through a divorce or other unpleasant event in his life, because his main character Margaret has all the brushmarks of a "revenge" character. She is whiny, incoherent, unreasonable, and thoroughly unpleasant. She bursts into tears for no reason, punishes her husband because he is not the youth he was 20 years ago, and irritatingly, constantly bemoans the state of her own middle-aged body. I somewhat remember acting this way 30 years ago, when I was 13 and deep in the throes of adolescence. But I grew out of it darn quick. I kept wanting to shake her and tell her "Deal with it!" And Giraut's response is hurt confusion and a tendency to run away from the problem. Pack your bags and leave, buddy! Being a middle-aged woman who has been with my husband for 20 years, I know too well the stress of not having your life turn out the way you planned it but, I swear, if I am ever as unpleasant to my husband as Margaret is to hers, I give my husband full permission to drop a bucket of ice water on my head. I suppose it is a testament to the book that I became so emotionally involved with the characters to the point that I wanted to kick them in the butt, but this book is just too depressing and irritating to take a place in my library.
Rating:
Summary: Mouth Full of Glass
Review: I have to say, after reading "A Million Open Doors," I had high hopes for this sequel. And sorry to say, I was disappointed. Maybe I'd just read too many of Barnes's book in a row (this was about the fifth), but I just wanted Giraut & Co. to get on with it--and I just couldn't believe he was so dense about his relationship with his wife. The cultural stuff was interesting, and more to the point, convincing, but the story dragged a lot. But I'm still a fan of the author, no doubt about it. When it comes to re-reading books, this one isn't likely to make it on my list.
Rating:
Summary: Mouth Full of Glass
Review: I have to say, after reading "A Million Open Doors," I had high hopes for this sequel. And sorry to say, I was disappointed. Maybe I'd just read too many of Barnes's book in a row (this was about the fifth), but I just wanted Giraut & Co. to get on with it--and I just couldn't believe he was so dense about his relationship with his wife. The cultural stuff was interesting, and more to the point, convincing, but the story dragged a lot. But I'm still a fan of the author, no doubt about it. When it comes to re-reading books, this one isn't likely to make it on my list.
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