Earth Abides - Softcover

Stewart, George R

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345487133 ISBN 13: 9780345487131

Publisher: Del Rey Books, 2006

Synopsis

An instant classic upon its original publication in 1949 and winner of the first International Fantasy Award, Earth Abides ranks with On the Beach and Riddley Walker as one of our most provocative and finely wrought post-apocalyptic works of literature. Its impact is still fresh, its lessons timeless.

With an introduction by Connie Willis

When a plague of unprecedented virulence sweeps the globe, the human race is all but wiped out. In the aftermath, as the great machine of civilization slowly and inexorably breaks down, only a few shattered survivors remain to struggle against the slide into barbarism . . . or extinction.

This is the story of one such survivor, Isherwood "Ish" Williams, an intellectual loner who embraces the grim duty of bearing witness to what may be humanity's final days. But then he finds Em, a wise and courageous woman who coaxes his stunned heart back to life and teaches him to hope again. Together, they will face unimaginable challenges as they sow the seeds of a new beginning.

Praise for Earth Abides

"One of the finest of all post-holocaust novels."--The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

"The book has more thought-challenging elements than a shelf full of ordinary novels."--The Christian Science Monitor

About this title

Review

Generally regarded as the classic tale of life struggling on after a global disaster, Earth Abides (1949) was George R. Stewart's only venture into SF. Before the first page the human race has been almost completely wiped out by plague. Our hero Isherwood "Ish" Williams discovers a female survivor and fumblingly tries to bring up a new civilization in the ruins of California. It's an elegiac story of loss as humanity makes it through the crisis, at the cost of our race's painfully gathered knowledge--which seems irrelevant to the new generations as they develop a hunter-gatherer society reminiscent of the old Amerindian tribes, and see no practicality in the fabulous tales of the old days told them by Ish. His nickname is deliberately reminiscent of Ishi, the once famous Californian Indian who was also the last of his tribe and became a misfit in a new world, in his case early 20th-century America. Annoyingly for fans of survivalist SF who reckon civilization can be rebuilt in about a month with a Swiss army knife, Earth Abides proposes that the cycle of regrowth will take significant time ... but there is always time. Stewart's title and epigraph echo the Book of Ecclesiastes: "Men go and come, but Earth abides." One of the sadder, gentler Millennium SF Masterworks reissues. --David Langford

About the Author

George R. Stewart (1895-1980) was a Professor of English at the University of California. He published a number of novels, including two studies of natural catastrophe, Storm and Fire. Earth Abides is his only work of science fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0345487133
• ISBN 13: 9780345487131
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 345