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Earth Abides (S.F. Masterworks) by: George.R. Stewart

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Rating: - Reasonably good post-apocalyptic fiction

This is a reasonable post-apocalyptic offering, I consider it superior to The Road although it does not portray as cataclysmic or end of times a scenario and it certainly is not as pessimistic.

The tale opens with the protagonist being bitten by a snake and falling ill, he takes refuge in a small building and believes that he is dying, the only possible help he encounters flees from him in dread. Recovering from this ordeal he discovers that humanity has been virtually wiped out and he has been left alone, there follows some brilliantly written adventures as he endevours to survive by himself until he meets others and forms a small community.

What's really satisfying about this is the extent to which munanities are worked out to full effect, the most taken for granted creature comforts eventually disappear, for instance water from houses and finally houses themselves as they begin to collapse on themselves through dereliction. In this respect I'd compare it to other good post-apocalyptic books such as The Postman and Ill Wind.

I was a little unconvinced by the passage of the community from maintaining, albeit half heartedly, the trappings of modernity, such as church going, only for simpler, earlier norms of believe, such as adorning relics/attributing magical power or significance to a hammer. In the end it felt like an attempt had been made to show how simpler conditions of existence automatically result in them becoming indistinguishable from Native Americans. Characterisation isnt bad, the plot isnt too bad either but the pace lets it down, somewhere about half way it takes more of an effort, although I wasnt put off from finishing the book.

Rating: - Good book

I love this book. Couldn't put it down. It was value for money and delivered quickly even though there was a postal strike.

Rating: - A New Season for Earth and Man

I think I first read this book when I was about fourteen, and it made a powerful impression on me then, so much so that I could still remember almost the entire story some forty years later. But, given that youthful impressions are sometimes not all that accurate, I decided to re-read this and see if it is really as good as my memory said. It is.

The scenario is simple: what would happen if a new virus suddenly wipes out almost everyone? And this is no ordinary disease, as the fatality rate is incredibly high, leaving (at most) perhaps one person in 100,000 alive. With this as a starting point, Stewart looks at his new world though the eyes of Isherwood Williams, who is something of a loner, intellectual in outlook, an observer, rather than a doer. This outlook stands him in good stead in the immediate aftermath of the great die-off, as it gives him a reason to live, to observe just how the Earth will react to the sudden removal of that pesky, environment-changing species called man. And reaction there is: ants, rats, dogs, cattle, cats, wheat, corn - each has its fortunes drastically impacted. Many of these changes are detailed in some interstitial material that is told from an omniscient viewpoint, very reminiscent of the similar technique Steinbeck used in The Grapes of Wrath, and perhaps these sections are just as powerful as Steinbeck's, though they don't have quite the great prose-poetry that Steinbeck had. By detailing these changes in this manner, Stewart makes his scenario both highly believable and very immediate.

But Stewart's main focus is what happens to the very few people that are left. Ish eventually finds some other survivors, most especially the lady who will become his wife, Em, and here we find some buried social commentary that probably made this book quite controversial when it was first published in 1949, as Em is not white, a point made very subtly and never directly stated, as one of the clear messages here is that race, looked at from the standpoint of long-term survivability, is of absolutely no consequence.

Another point of departure for this work from the standard disaster scenario is that there is no world-saving hero; mankind cannot get back on its feet in short order and re-establish civilization, and that the great majority of survivors would necessarily live off the leavings of the old civilization, for the simple reason that it is far easier to open a can of tomatoes than grow your own. That this same attitude of doing the minimum to survive would carry over into other aspects of post-disaster living, so that there would be little or no effort to teach children how to read or fix some of civilization's infrastructure as it slowly fails, such as electrical power or water supplies, is perhaps a debatable point, but Stewart's depiction makes this very logical and believable. Right alongside of this portrayed attitude is what do people do when there no longer is any 'law': what is right and wrong and how do people cope with actions by some that threaten the survivability of the Tribe? The answer Stewart shows to this problem may disturb some people, but it strikes at the heart of the whole concept of 'for the good of the many' and what personal moral responsibility is.

Some have commented that this book is 'dated', and there is some of this, as tube radios and phonograph turntables show just where technology was at the time of publication, but any serious reader will quickly realize that the specifics of the technology are immaterial to the thrust of this work. And perhaps somewhat ironically, there is one item detailed here that is as current as tomorrow's headlines, when Ish pulls down a book from the University shelves which details imminent climate change (keep in mind when this written!) and decides that this, too, is irrelevant to his current needs - the climate will be whatever it is, and mankind will just have to live with it.

The last section of this book paints a very powerful picture of just how gods, legends, and social mores become ingrained in a society. Perhaps it's not the prettiest picture of where mankind is headed or how well he'll deal with problems, but it is remarkably plausible and will produce strong feelings of melancholy, despair, and (perhaps) subdued pride.

A remarkable work which avoids just about all the pitfalls of typical post-apocalyptic works, and has a great deal to say about just what makes man man and what is truly relevant to the daily business of living.

---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Rating: - After the apocalypse a distinctly small-town America vision for the future

What would be your first instinctive act you if you awoke to find yourself apparently the last living human after some pestilential catastrophe? It seems that your/our reflex would be to search for someone else, some other survivors. In George R Stewart's thoughtful post-apocalyptic tale that is exactly what sole survivor Ish Williams sets out to do - by driving across America from California, via the South to New York. Along the way he encounters small pockets of individuals, none of whom he feels at ease enough to join. Of course, he does eventually find someone suitable which sets in motion a practical desire to recommence civilisation from scratch, beginning with a distinctly small-town America vision for the future. When Ish and his partner Em are joined by three other unrelated wanderers the possibility of building a community are greatly enhanced. So far, so good. But what happens if your burgeoning community lacks creative energy and prefers to live by parasitism off the remnants of the old? What do you do about education? How do you deal with a cessation of the water supply, for example, or of the arrival of unusual strangers, a crime, or an outbreak of disease? All of these impediments to smooth progress arrive in Ish's expanding community and the author deals intelligently with them all, while simultaneously reflecting on the ecological, Malthusian and genetic conundrums faced by a new population.
I would have loved this book had I read it as a teenager in the 1960s but the world has changed. It can no longer be assumed that the near extinction of the American people can be extrapolated to that of the human race in general. In addition, the old-fashioned edge to Ish's attitudes sometimes borders on unpalatable. Not only is he appallingly dismissive of the intellectual potential of his friends (he himself is an intellectual, a geographer) but even talks in terms of euthanasia when reflecting on the solitary girl in the community with learning difficulties. Overall, despite these flaws, and the writing being much too descriptive for Earth Abides to be considered in the pantheon of top literature, it is an excellent and engrossing work of imagination delivered with pleasing clarity. In the end, though, it is what it is: good quality science fiction.

Rating: - remarkable meditation on ecology and anthropology

This is a beautifully written, quietly profound book that affected me deeply as I read it and has stuck in my mind ever since. The starting point of the book is a catastrophe that all but wipes out humanity, but the real interest lies in the author's exploration of what happens to nature and to the few humans left behind in a world after human society has disappeared.

Ecological changes as the abandoned cities crumble are beautifully imagined (I was reminded of the recently published (sort-of)non-fiction The World without Us), and would on their own be reason enough to read this book. But it's the exploration of the survivors' slow descent into a more primitive way of life that makes this book so powerful. Ish, the main protagonist, is an academic who believes passionately that the accumulated knowledge of human civilisation must be preserved, and he tries to instil his passion for learning in each new generation of the tribe's children. Of course, each new generation is less interested than the last in the teachings of the 'old world', a world which they have never experienced and are unable to imagine. With no reason for anyone to learn anything that doesn't concern day-to-day survival, literacy and numeracy soon die out. This isn't quite a grim descent into primitivism - new skills and customs, more suited to the changed world, take the place of old ones, and Ish eventually comes to a resigned acceptance that when he dies the old civilisation will die with him.

There is a huge amount here besides - religion, superstition, relationships, politics, language - all are dealt with realistically and in service to the plot. Characters are so well described that you come to believe in the small proto-society of survivors, and feel every loss as they struggle to adjust to inevitable crises and setbacks. The book isn't perfect - much has been made in other reviews here of the convenient lack of corpses and empty roads in the immediate aftermath of the plague - but these are minor points. This is a beautiful elegy to human civilisation and a true literary classic.

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