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ginnikin's review against another edition
Arg! I don't care about any of these people. Also, casual misogyny for the lose. You try to tell me this is a future on limited resources, but she has plants watered?! And orange juice from Oregon brought to her in Texas?! Give me a break.
mjfmjfmjf's review against another edition
4.0
Reread. But kind of exhausting. Too many ideas and in the end kind of fell over. But it had some details that stayed with me me for years. Looking for a rock in Kansas. Editing 80s sf movies to be 15 minutes long. The gnomes of zurich kind of. A black hole at the center of the Earth? And using [b:Shuttle Down|549127|Shuttle Down|G. Harry Stine|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1263175870s/549127.jpg|1917291] as a detail. And something about a manifestation of Gaia in some manner. And a floating country of environmental refugees. That's a lot for me to have remembered and rightly so. I also recalled being impressed at Brin's version of a worldwide computer network. And reading this now, he really didn't do all that badly. The details were just thin enough that it still worked in 2018 which is remarkable for something published only a year or so after www was invented. But the book also had too much fluff. The scientific dump also was too much. And too much characters. But it did have a real ending. A mixed bag but a pretty good one.
reasie's review against another edition
2.0
Not my cup of tea.
It's well-written, certainly. David Brin's no slouch. But I found it a story lacking STORY. It's an idea-book, filled with lots of pontification and thought-experimentation, and no real human interest.
It felt rather like a series of non-fiction essays, and terribly opinionated ones at that.
It's well-written, certainly. David Brin's no slouch. But I found it a story lacking STORY. It's an idea-book, filled with lots of pontification and thought-experimentation, and no real human interest.
It felt rather like a series of non-fiction essays, and terribly opinionated ones at that.
craftingrama's review against another edition
2.0
It was a bit better then his other 2 I listened to but not much
spencercross's review against another edition
4.0
Earth is almost frighteningly prescient. In fact, for all of the accolades heaped upon Gibson's Neuromancer, this is a far more accurate and real prediction of where we're headed. Next time you're wasting time customizing your Google home page or My Yahoo!, stop and think for just a second that Brin predicted exactly what you'd be doing almost 20 years ago. Even more interesting (or, possibly, unsettling) is that the more time passes the more eerily accurate Earth's vision of the future, and it's attendant global climate crisis, becomes.
kundor's review against another edition
3.0
Stands up well, for near-future science fiction, 30 years later...but large sections are kind of boring.
onceandfuturelaura's review against another edition
4.0
This book was revelatory for me in college. It synthesized so much about the world; environmental collapse, failed states, science as destroyer, science as savior, reporters as heroes, reporters as exploiters, blah blah blah. Reading it was exhilarating and exhausting.
Reading it 20 years later, I’m more aware of its flaws. A Jack Kirbyesque level of exclamation points. Prose that is all too often intrusive. More characters than I can keep track of. A whole lot of them could have been combined to good effect.
This is a book that needed a few more edits. I’m no book-reading slouch, but I kept having to flip back to the beginning to figure out which nerdy scientist, which brilliant matriarch, which Midwestern white-boy gangster, which renegade whatever the hell I was reading about.
But hey, there are rogue black holes with rudimentary consciousness, death rays, an abandoned space shuttle that flies again, gravity waves, and, maybe, Gaea herself waking up. A great and ambitious book, with forgivable flaws.
Reading it 20 years later, I’m more aware of its flaws. A Jack Kirbyesque level of exclamation points. Prose that is all too often intrusive. More characters than I can keep track of. A whole lot of them could have been combined to good effect.
This is a book that needed a few more edits. I’m no book-reading slouch, but I kept having to flip back to the beginning to figure out which nerdy scientist, which brilliant matriarch, which Midwestern white-boy gangster, which renegade whatever the hell I was reading about.
But hey, there are rogue black holes with rudimentary consciousness, death rays, an abandoned space shuttle that flies again, gravity waves, and, maybe, Gaea herself waking up. A great and ambitious book, with forgivable flaws.
canspice's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5