- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: St Martin's Press; First edition (29 Jan 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312864930
- ISBN-13: 978-0312864934
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.2 x 3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,665,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
"This is live-wire, hard science fiction, thoroughly thought through, well imagined, with no false props and easy answers. If you haven't caught on to Stableford, this is a great place to start." --Gregory Benford
"Tough, gritty, and ultimately hopeful, you can't do much better than "Inherit the Earth."" --David Brin
"Stableford has created in this novel a totally believable world, and wrapped it around a series of mysterious events, surprise revelations, double crosses, confused motivations, rumors, lies, plots, and counterplots....Tightly controlled and suspenseful throughout." --"Science Fiction Chronicle"
"Tough, gritty, and ultimately hopeful, you can't do much better than "Inherit the Earth."" --David Brin
"Stableford has created in this novel a totally believable world, and wrapped it around a series of mysterious events, surprise revelations, double crosses, confused motivations, rumors, lies, plots, and counterplots....Tightly controlled and suspenseful throughout." --"Science Fiction Chronicle"
Product Description
In the twenty-second century, biomedical nanotechnology has given everyone in the world long life and robust health. It is the New Utopia, and all live in the expectation that true immortality will soon be realized. But the achievement of paradise was not without cost. The Plague Wars of the previous century have left the entire world much reduced in population, and all sterile. Humanity would have died out in a generation if not for Conrad Helier's invention of the artificial womb. Now in the new world of the twenty-second century, Helier's son Damon, would rather forget his famous father and get on with his own life as a virtual-reality artist. But a shadowy terrorist group known as the Eliminators forces Damon to confront his heritage. The Eliminators have kidnapped one of Conrad's colleagues still alive, to expose Helier's role in the germination of the Plague Wars. Thus begins a cat-and-mouse game pitting Damon against Interpol and the enormous corporate entities who control the biotechnology of the future, upon which everyone's life depends.
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First Sentence
Silas Arnett stood on the bedroom balcony, a wineglass in his hand, bathing in the ruddy light of the evening sun. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Silas Arnett stood on the bedroom balcony, a wineglass in his hand, bathing in the ruddy light of the evening sun. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
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5 reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Immortality or emortality in the 22nd Century
12 Nov 1998
Format:Hardcover
If you have read any of Brian Stableford's previous works, you know that he creates wonderfully drawn characters and has a highly inventive mind. He proves himself again in this 22nd century science fiction tale of mankinds fate after a century or two of nanotechnology and biotechnology being driving sociological and monetary components of society. Artificial (virtual) reality and computer interfacing are de rigeur, and there are plots within plots, and conspiracies galore.
The plot is nicely developed, but the conspiracies get a bit thick and hard to follow. Unfortunately the themes of immortality and *emortality* are discussed ad nauseum and leave the storyline a bit flat.
Overall a very good read, but I'd advise you supplement your reading of this novel with James Halperin's "The First Immortal", which discusses similar issues through it's storyline.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Taut bioengineering/nanotech hard-SF thriller. 4.5 stars.
20 Jan 2004
Format:Mass Market Paperback
______________________________________________
Set in the bioengineered nanotech future of Les Fleurs du Mal and
the eponymous novella, Inherit the Earth is a taut and well-drawn
thriller. Life-extension internal technology (IT) is good enough that
the people who put the world back together after the Crash and
Plague Wars some 75 years before still rule the world, albeit behind
the scenes. Stableford is exploring a familiar sfnal question:
If rich, powerful people get life-extension first -- as they will -- how
do you ever get shed of them?
Set in the bioengineered nanotech future of Les Fleurs du Mal and
the eponymous novella, Inherit the Earth is a taut and well-drawn
thriller. Life-extension internal technology (IT) is good enough that
the people who put the world back together after the Crash and
Plague Wars some 75 years before still rule the world, albeit behind
the scenes. Stableford is exploring a familiar sfnal question:
If rich, powerful people get life-extension first -- as they will -- how
do you ever get shed of them?
Stableford's writing and characters, at their best, are as good as
anyone's in the business. Here's Silas Arnett, a hundred-twenty-
something, entertaining his young lover Cathy:
'She was wearing nothing but a huge white towel, wrapped twice
about her slender frame. The thickness of the towel accentuated
her slimness -- another product of authentic youth. Nanotech had
conquered obesity, but it couldn't restore the full muscle tone....
"It must be strange," she said, insinuating her slender and naked
arm around his waist, "to look out on the sea and the sky with eyes
that know them so well...."
She smiled at him, as innocently as a newly-hatched sphinx.'
Stableford acknowledges his editor, David Hartwell, for "suggesting
that I rewrite the final section so drastically as to obliterate any
lingering similarity to the ending of the earlier version..." Perhaps
Stableford should have stuck to his guns -- the last couple of chapters may
remind you of Asimov or Heinlein at their most dialogorrheous.
Skim. The path from novella to novel is fraught with peril... To be
fair, the actual *ending* is crisp and satisfying.
And while I'm nitpicking -- the American characters do sound
veddy British...
...but don't let me put you off from reading the book, which is well-
worth your while. Even if the plots, conspiracies, treacheries and
wheels-within wheels do get confusing...
Note: the attractive cover art SFAICT has nothing to do with the contents.
review copyright 1998 by Peter D. Tillman
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Potentially good plot, poor writing and execution
5 Aug 2000
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book because it seemed like it might have a good hard sci-fi plot and an interesting hard sci-fi society, but it was extremely difficult to read. I finally gave up even though I had only 2 or 3 chapters to finish it - by that time it was obvious the plot was going to fail. The writing was sometimes unbearable to read - the dialogs were incredibly unrealistic; people saying stuff like, "As you know, in 2180 the Fertility Wars lead to the death of 100 million people, until Conrad Helter's invention saved the day." Like, that should be narrative, not dialog, and it also shouldn't be repeated over and over again. The only reason I stuck with this book as long as I did was because, despite the bad writing, the plot was at least somewhat suspenseful, but as I got near the end, it was obvious the main questions the plot raised weren't going to be answered. This is one of those books that might be good if the author re-wrote it.
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