Search - Earth Abides

I am a fan of post-apocalyptic literature, but this one sits high on my list. EARTH ABIDES is not the punked-out, mad-ass-dash for gasoline and mutant-freak battles one might be used to with this genre.

True post-apocalyptic literature isn't as much about the disaster as it is about the people who survive the cataclysm, and more, how they live and cope. That said, EARTH ABIDES fits the bill nicely, moreso than any other I have read.

George R. Stewart looks at the survival of mankind from an ecological and sociological viewpoint. What would it take for man to survive near-destruction from plague? Should they rebuild, or reform society? Is regression preferable to progression in this brave new world? There are many such questions posed throughout, and the absolute joy of this book is that all of them aren't the answers we want.

Get this book, read it, give it to someone else. Only do it FAST.

Earth Abides is a classic post-apocalyptic tale about what might be and what might happen after humanity has been visited by a great plague, killing most of the humans. Although written in 1949 George R. Stewart knew how to implement what scientist already knew all those years ago.

He describes how young Isherwood Williams, also called Ish, survived a snake bite which might have conquered the greater disease that had fallen upon him and saved his life.
The young student soon learns that he isn't alone left in what he knew as civilization. He travels through the U. S. now and then finding survivors who were either under shock and crazy or hostile against him. Sometimes it was even him who feared them. He sees how fast nature takes but men took from it a long time ago.
Domestic animals vanish or become hostile. Whole animal species seem to vanish overnight while other thrived from what men left. Insects and rats without boundaries overrushing towns destroying what's eatable and vanishing when the resources are eaten. What's left are cans and bottles and other goods that aren't eatable.

Getting back to his hometowm he meets Emma and in an desperate attempt for love and ending the loneliness they become a couple and later a family. With the months passing more people enter the little community, bearing children who bear children.

The community grows and with it the thoughts about future and what might become of Ish's children and their children. During his whole lifespan Ish tries to teach them how to read without understanding that the new generation isn't interested in reading and knowledge but likes the careless life they life, indulging what is left of a civilization they never knew, slowly learning to adapt to the world they know.

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Sometime in the beginning of this year I saw a documentation on the history channel which was named Life After People that pretty much described with impressing pictures what happens to what's left of the civilization we know today.
Earth Abides is just one example of how things might go on if there are people left capable to go on.
A plot that can't be outdated, at least not yet, but nevertheless gives impressions and lots of thoughts.

A fantastic book about a plague that almost wipes out mankind. Set in the late 1940s early 1950s. Excellent read.

As I read this book I remembered I read it in the 70's part of the golden age of SF, I didn't exactly remember the end, but it's so well written and fully developed, I wouldn't have cared. Tho written in 1949 it is very current to today's world, and not at all dated. He has deep insight into the nature of mankind and of the average individual and how they might face such a disaster. It is refreshingly free of violence, and horror and makes the reader ponder more deeply our connection to our manmade world....One of my favorite SF books of all time, partly because the writing is of a caliber that I seldom see anymore, not an extra word or misstep in the whole book.