Evan Leach's Reviews > Earth Abides

Earth Abides, written in 1949, has a reputation as a landmark science fiction novel. It made Locus Magazine’s list of Best All Time Science Fiction and was a major inspiration for The Stand. I know a number of people who really enjoyed this book, and my dislike for it certainly puts me in the minority. However, I was very disappointed by this one and found it to be a real slog.

In Earth Abides, a super virus nearly wipes out the human race in the late 1940s. Only a handful of survivors remain across the globe. One of these is Isherwood Williams, the story’s protagonist. Ish spends the first part of the book meandering around on his own, before mercifully finding another significant character to talk to: a woman named Em. This is good for Ish, but not so good for Em because my first problem with this book is that -

#1: Ish is Insufferable

Isherwood Williams is not an easy guy to like. There are two central storylines in Earth Abides: the earth’s reversion to a natural state after the human population disappears, and the effect this disappearance has on the remaining humans. Once Ish and Em hook up with some other survivors, Ish quickly realizes he is the last person on Earth with a college degree and spends the rest of the book making sure we don’t forget it. George R. Stewart was a professor, and at times this book reads like an advertisement for the University of California. Ish’s fellow (non-collegiate) survivors are generally presented as dull, slow-witted individuals (with a few exceptions) incapable of long-term planning or deep thought. This makes Ish look like an elitist prig for the most part and it got very old, very fast. Poor Em has to put up with a lot of crap throughout this book but hanging out with Ish without braining him with a frying pan might have been her most impressive achievement. I can deal with a less-than-heroic protagonist (I loved Flashman, after all) if there’s a great story to be told but that brings us to problem #2…

#2: If the Earth Abides but Nothing Happens, Does Anyone Care?

This isn’t a “kitten-squisher” of a book (Richard’s term) but at 373 pages it’s not exactly a novella, either. And there is very little excitement over that span. I thought the first 100 pages, where Ish just wanders around looking at shit, was truly excruciating and while the action picks up a bit from there, it is still a very slow moving book. It would be one thing if Stewart was using the book to highlight some truly novel (and unexpected) consequences of a disaster like this. But instead, he spends page after page describing things like metal getting rusty, plants growing where normally they would be weeded/trimmed back, etc.

Now, not every book is going to read like a Michael Bay script. I have no problem diving into a slow moving cerebral book, even one with a pretentious jerk for a main character, if I’m being treated to some top-notch prose. Unfortunately, this leads to my third and largest problem with the book…

#3: The Writing! Drove Me Crazy!

Earth Abides tells a story where civilization has effectively bit the dust and a small group of survivors attempt to start the whole thing over from scratch. There are definitely some Adam & Eve themes in play here, and Stewart decides early on to adopt a semi-biblical tone. That’s fine in theory, but the results were truly painful to read. A sample:

"I have seen it again," Ish thought to himself. "The great pageant of the year! Now is the time of dryness and death. Now the god lies dying! Soon the rains will come, and then the hills will be green. At last one morning I shall look out westward, here from the porch, and I shall see the sun setting far to the south. Then we shall all go together, and I shall carve the number into the rock."

Think about reading dialogue like that for over 300 pages. For me, this wore thin very fast and quickly became grating. Also, the multiple exclamation marks above are not at all atypical. There must be well over a thousand littering these pages. At times, it read like a comic book:

”What is the fascination?” said Ish to Em.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. It’s just the attraction of a stranger, something new. Isn’t that natural?”
“There is trouble ahead!”

TO THE BATMOBILE!

Honestly, the thing that put me over the edge in this regard is the fact that George Stewart can actually write. Towards the very end of the book, Stewart cuts the crap and just writes like a normal person, no biblical affectations or exclamation point fixation or anything. And once he does, the book is pretty darn good, even moving at times. But it was far too little, too late.

Anyway. This book has an excellent reputation, and the book’s influence on the genre is undisputable. But I just can’t recommend it. 2 stars, and much closer to a 1 for me than a 3.