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Fiction. Literature. Science Fiction. HTML:Here is multiple-award winning author David Brin's most important, most ambitious, and most universal novel to dateâ??a blockbuster epic that transcends his already distinguished body of work in scope and importance. A microscopic black hole has accidentally fallen into the Earth's core, threatening to destroy the entire planet within two years. Some scientists are frantically searching for ways to prevent the disaster. But others argue that the way to save the Earth is to let its human inhabitants become extinct: to let the evolutionary clock rewind and start over again. Earth is an edge-of-the-seat thriller, a kaleidoscopic novel peopled with extraordinary characters and challenging new visions of an incredibly real future: global computer networks that put limitless information at everyone's fingertips, and environment ravaged by the greenhouse effect, a quiet revolution by the politically powerful elderly. More than a compelling,… (more)
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In this setting, a physicist â experimenting with microscopic black holes â discovers an unusual singularity deep inside the planet that is voraciously consuming its mass. He enlists the help of his mentor and a billionaire geologist to figure out a way to dislodge it, and in so doing, discovers that the tiny black hole can be used to focus a beam of gravity that can either be a destructive, unstoppable weapon or a very useful means of lifting things off the planet and moving them through space. As their activities become apparent, they are joined by a relentless investigative journalist and a former Space Shuttle pilot who witnessed the destruction of a space station and death of her husband as a result of one of these âgazers.â The group is frantically trying to control the singularity, but others â governments, clandestine groups, a lone environmental warrior with extreme ideas â have other plans for how to use its power.
I reread Earth because of my renewed interest in global warming and the efforts of groups like Worldchanging, where I believe Brin is a contributor. Also, I wanted to see if any of Brinâs future predictions were coming true, now 17 years after the book was published. I do think technology and the Net are becoming as pervasive and as critical to our global society as he predicted. The eroding of privacy and other civil rights in favor of safety has definitely become a threat as cameras and similar technologies become more ubiquitous and wearable. But I feel we are still firmly entrenched in âTwenCenâ mode, unwilling to give up even a little luxury to preserve what really is our only home (although the optimist in me says the tide is turning on that issue, too).
Brin offers hope â in the ingenuity of human thinking, especially under crisis situations; in the discovery of unimagined technologies that are as likely to save us as destroy us; and in the tenaciousness of our species. Let just hope that this part of his vision is one that comes true.
In a near future the earth is wracked with ecological damange and
SF. This was a brilliant book 15 years ago and it still is today. It's hardly dated and is being discussed on [Beyond_Reality] this month. David Brin will comment.
But, again, I must admit the comparison is still unfair. Earth not really trying to do the same thing as Zanzibar. There is a different story being told. Rather than focusing on humanityâs efforts to destroy itself, there is a bigger disaster waiting - a black hole circling inside the earth. But ecological disaster and the other aspects of our attempts to eradicate ourselves are still important (if not primarily central) to the story. Brin brings it all to the story - governmental disaster, ecological disaster, zoological disaster, botanical disaster, monetary disaster - and that damnable black hole that is there ready to bludgeon the final nail in our coffin.
You see, notwithstanding all the negative comparisons to Zanzibar, this is still a good book. The intertwined stories are well told (stretched a few times, but, heyâŚ) And the concepts are intriguing. The fact that there is a black hole in the earth is only the beginning of the physics tricks pulled. Plus, Brin is an excellent writer and the 100 or so pages that really build to the climax are well-crafted - they move to their conclusion at a faster and faster pace while still catching us up on each individual we have grown to know. So, with all that in mind, this is ultimately the stuff of good science fiction - intriguing technology, interesting people, imminent disaster, and (without really providing a spoiler) solutions that are unexpected but fit within the framework of the story. And, good writing.
No, this is not Stand on Zanzibar (although it has sent me back to reread that classic and, if you havenât read it, you really should.) But it still stands above some of the other work out there. And it can stand on its own quite nicely, thank you.
The subject matter of this story, and it's structure with multiple threads, including articles by Net commentators and extracts from books, reminded me of "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner which is one of my favourite books. I wasn't sure that I liked "Earth" to start with, and it's a while since I've read a 700+ page book and it's length was a bit daunting, but it became more and more fascinating as I went on.
I did find it gripping but also demanding. Some characters we follow are just meat for the story's vast grinder. The plot layers on heaping portions of
By the end I was dazzled, culture-shocked, and felt like I'd travelled a very long way. I enjoyed it but I think it is impossible to be outstanding (5 stars rating, to me) in such an epic story. I'm not saying Brin did a bad job, just that the job is too much for one book.
Certain threads tickled me greatly. I loved the Helvetican war as a historical backdrop. I loved the Settler/Ra-Boy future gangs and their surveillance society. I enjoyed the contrast between Maori myth and modern science though it felt a bit clumsy, like we were beaten over the head with it. A touch more subtlety would have been appreciated.
I felt let down, just a little, by the family of Daisy, her daughter, and dad. The plotting around them was critical to the story but didn't hang together as well as other threads. I'm not objecting to Daisy's inhumanity. We see that in too many people around us today. Something about the family's interactions felt tacked on. And the extended family (the hidden wealthy villains) was kept too well hidden from the reader. The people behind the other gravity sites were far too faceless.
Four solid stars from me. A lengthy read but worth it.
I liked this novel for one reason: Brinâs skill at building and portraying a world fifty years in the future. I agree with Brinâs Afterword statement that this is one of the hardest types of sf to write. Fifty years is just long
The best part of this novel is Brinâs portrayal of the Net. Brin postulates many uses for hypermedia, world-sprawling grid of cheap information from special interest groups, fanzines, data gathering, political actions, religious junk mail (a Buddhistic group asking if youâre a reincarnated bodhisativa) to sabotage programs that force people to the dreaded Emily Post program before they again send their words out on the Net.
I liked his Helvetian War. He explains his reason for creating it in the Afterword: to have a conflict that echoes in his charactersâ minds like World War II and Vietnam do in previous generations and gives some plausible reasons why the world would decide to beat up on innocuous Switzerland.
While most of the characters in this novel didnât elicit any strong reactions from me one way or another, I really liked the disaffected youths of Bloomington: Remi, Roland, and Crat. In the year 2038, I'll be one of those old guys they're angry at. But, unfortunately, Brin doesnât do much with their characters. They seem to serve primarily as symbols. After meeting Joseph Moyers who causes them to examine the direction of their lives, they each take symbolic paths. Remi, ultimatley disaffected, goes out in a blaze of glory in a gangfight; Roland learns the meaning of courage, sacrifice, and heroism when he gives his life in a UN raid on a dealer in animal product contraband; Crat becomes our symbol of the despair of the dispossessed of Sea State and the hope of the novelâs end. (Brin, in the Afterword, admits he exaggerated the probable extent of seal level rise due to the Greenhouse Effect).
I also appreciated Daisy McClennon, the eco-fascist. Some may find her character extreme, but she seems all too realistic to me. I also liked Glen Spivey not turning out to be the evil military figure so many, especially Teresa Tikhana (who I found rather annoying), thought him to be.
I liked Brin taking to task those who see Western culture and science as to blame for the environmental crisis. For Brin, wise technology is a way to solve problems. He acknowledges that todayâs technological solutions sometimes becomes tomorrowâs problem but argues, in the Afterword, that that should not stop us from seeking solutions. And Brin rightly points out that the future creeps in day by day to become giant changes only noticeable in hindsight.
But there were many things I didnât like in the novel. I didnât mind the super science plot of singularity building and gravity beams, but I thought the end bit with it being used as cheap space dirve to save Earth was predictable. As was Daisy McClennon being swept away in a Mississippi that broke through its confining levee. As was a mothballed Atlantis that reaches space again (and where exactly did Atlantis get enough memory space in its computer to run the program that directs the grazer?). The literal incarnation of Gaia was annoying too.
And what was really annoying was the final, vaguely explained battle of surrogate champions -- Jenny Wollingâs tiger and Daisy McClennonâs dragon -- for Gaia and manâs fate. This smacked of the same plot flaw that ruined Brinâs excellent The Postman with its end battle with the souped-up commando. Perhaps Brin frequently resorts to the battle of champion-ending habitually. I guess what I object to is the âeverything but the kitchen sinkâ ending of this novel culminating with the possibility that reporter Pedro Manella is an alien. I realize that Brin thematically tied up everything -- the nature of consciousness, the ultimate value of technology to the environment and manâs place in it, the dichotomy and chaotic relationship of cooperation and competition, the nature of Gaia -- but the ending seemed jarring, contrived -- especially the tiger-dragon fight.
Given the fact that the book was published in 1990 and takes place in 2038, it's interesting to read it in 2012, roughly the half-way point. In some things, Brin was quite prescient, e.g. his portrayal of the Earth suffering from climate change, and especially his take on the pervasive presence of the Internet (which he calls the World Net). In other cases, the story is filled with anachronisms: the space shuttle program is still active, and people are still wondering in 2038 whether there is water on Mars. But the anachronisms could have simply been considered quaint and charming if the approach to the story had been better.
There is one exceptional scene in the first 374 pages, where disaster befalls those tending a space station. I wasn't prepared an additional 200 pages to find out whether there was another. The book became too much of a slog. I gave up.
Finest moment was newly sentient planet singing 'I AM I AM I AM' and hearing the universe saying 'SO WHAT'. Planet stops and contemplates the meaning of existence in a sarcastic universe.