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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Generally regarded as the classic tale of life struggling on after a global disaster, Earth Abides (1949) was George R. Stewart's only venture into SF. Before the first page the human race has been almost completely wiped out by plague. Our hero Isherwood "Ish" Williams discovers a female survivor and fumblingly tries to bring up a new civilization in the ruins of California. It's an elegiac story of loss as humanity makes it through the crisis, at the cost of our race's painfully gathered knowledge--which seems irrelevant to the new generations as they develop a hunter-gatherer society reminiscent of the old Amerindian tribes, and see no practicality in the fabulous tales of the old days told them by Ish. His nickname is deliberately reminiscent of Ishi, the once famous Californian Indian who was also the last of his tribe and became a misfit in a new world, in his case early 20th-century America. Annoyingly for fans of survivalist SF who reckon civilization can be rebuilt in about a month with a Swiss army knife, Earth Abides proposes that the cycle of regrowth will take significant time ... but there is always time. Stewart's title and epigraph echo the Book of Ecclesiastes: "Men go and come, but Earth abides." One of the sadder, gentler Millennium SF Masterworks reissues. --David Langford
Product Description
In this profound ecological fable, a mysterious plague has destroyed the vast majority of the human race. Isherwood Williams, one of the few survivors, returns from a wilderness field trip to discover that civilization has vanished during his absence. Eventually he returns to San Francisco and encounters a female survivor who becomes his wife. Around them and their children a small community develops, living like their pioneer ancestors, but rebuilding civilization is beyond their resources, and gradually they return to a simpler way of life.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
44 of 46 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I first read Earth Abides as a teenager and was greatly impressed with it then. I have now just read it again at the age of 53 after finding it through Amazon. This is clearly one of the greatest's texts I have read and I don't say that lightly. I was deeply moved as I re-read the chronicling of the passing of an era and the great deep wisdom of Ish, the main character. Even more poignant in these difficult days. It has given me great pleasure to to record these words of appreciation. I wonder why it has never been made into a film, but am also pleased as the dignity of the message of this book remains untarnished. If you want to read a profound story on the fragile nature of our civilisation and the great strength of human beings read this.
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have always enjoyed post-apocalypse stories and approached 'Earth Abides' as another of those, if a somewhat more subtle one. But it is not another one of those. Stewart had an uncanny perception of the natural world and this permeates every page. He describes a seductive, idyllic existence where humans and nature are inseparable. One criticism is that of the 'cosy catastrophe'. The first sixty pages or so are slow, but stick with it because it contains the most moving and heartbreaking death scene in literature ever. It is difficult to believe that it was written a half-century ago, so little has it dated.
This is a quiet book and attracts little attention to itself even within sf. It has yet to receive the wider praise I am sure it will one day attain. If one book ever deserved to escape the constraints of genre fiction and find favour amongst the mainstream this is it. If everyone in the world read it, it is hard to see how the world would not be a better place.
There are downsides though. 'Earth Abides' may well become the bench mark by which every book you read after it will be compared to and your friends will probably get fed up of you talking about it.
Only shut up when they've read it too.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book must be one of the most memorable SF books I have ever read. Well written and thought provoking. Virtually no science involved, just a cracking story with well drawn characters. Like the best SF, it is well written fiction as well as being highly imaginative.
It will stay in your imagination forever.
It will stay in your imagination forever.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A classic
A early example of the now very popular post-plague survival sub-genre of the post-apocalypse genre. An early version of Stephen King's epic The Stand, and well worth reading. Read more
Published 3 days ago by Richard Richards
A short sighted product of its time.
I am a fan of 1950s sci fi and have a particular fondness for post apocalyptic novels. Earth Abides, despite being lauded as a classic of the genre, was something of a... Read more
Published 14 days ago by Azure Aurora
Haunting....
I first read this book when I was in my early twenties, and it stuck stubbornly in my mind for the next decade, until I read it again. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Essex Girl
"Things are as they are......"
The book explores many interesting themes and provokes thought in a number of ways. Principally, how communication and man made systems are much more fragile than we would believe. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Brendan1982
Brilliant
Definitely in my top three books ever written. I love post apocalyptic fiction, but I hate the way so much of it paints such a depressing and bleak picture of what life after such... Read more
Published 8 months ago by W. Warby
Vanitas - a literary still-life
A year or so ago New Scientist magazine had a feature on "forgotten SF masterpieces", and this was listed. Read more
Published 8 months ago by DB
Good start but the story then dragged and became too improbable
I love 'suppose an apocalypse happened, how do you cope afterwards' stories and wanted to enjoy this one, about a plague which destroys most of humanity in the late 1940s. Read more
Published 9 months ago by D. M. Evans
Mediocre to begin with, aged badly
I'm fascinated by post-holocaust literature, but it has to have a modicum of quality. This has not.
Almost by definition, there are only two elements that can add to a... Read more
Almost by definition, there are only two elements that can add to a... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Yooden
Melancholy Science Fiction Classic
Isherwood Williams is away in the mountains pursuing his graduate field studies in geology. In our iPhone, instant connectivity world it is hard to imagine the isolation this kind... Read more
Published 12 months ago by John M. Ford
A classic of post-apocalyptic science fiction
I have a morbid fascination with post-apocalyptic sf, and am not quite sure why it's taken me so long to get round to reading this undoubted classic of the genre. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Sarah A. Brown
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