Child of Earth (The Sea of Grass Trilogy) [Paperback]

David Gerrold (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Sea of Grass Trilogy | Publication Date: May 11, 2005

Kaer's family has volunteered to emigrate through a world-gate to Linnea, a world known for horses as large as houses and dangerously mistrustful natives, in this new young adult novel from David Gerrold. Kaer and his mothers, fathers, siblings, and cousins embark on a training program in the Linnea dome designed to teach them to blend in with their new home's prior inhabitants in an environment free from the risk of discovery. The dome itself should be safe, but in a setting designed to be like Linnea in every conceivable way—from the long, harsh winters to the kacks, wolf-like creatures as tall as men—Kaer finds that even the simplest training exercises can be fraught with risk.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In an era when Earth's scientists are opening multiple gateways to parallel worlds, Kaer is a precocious 12-year-old with an unusual dream. Linnea, one of the worlds being settled, is a haven for beautiful, oversize horses, and Kaer yearns to relocate there with her large, multiparent family. To decontaminate settlers and prepare them for crossing the gateways, gargantuan domes that simulate the more promising worlds have been built, and after embracing Kaer's dream, her family begins the arduous process of adapting to life in the Linnean dome. Visions of a utopian frontier paradise quickly vanish as hardships multiply, and learning a new language proves maddeningly difficult. Yet Kaer's family pulls even more tightly together, and the adventure builds when Kaer is given a surprising mission: to visit Linnea ahead of schedule. Gerrold's blending of adolescent space adventure and cultural extrapolation resembles a hybrid of Heinlein's juvenile novels and Le Guin's future primitive world sagas. Readers hooked by Kaer's quest can look forward to the two further volumes of a projected trilogy. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

David Gerrold is the author of the Hugo and Nebula Award-nominated The Man Who Folded Himself, When Harlie Was One, and the Chtorr, Dingillian, and Star Wolf series. He also wrote "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode of Star Trek, which was voted the most popular Star Trek episode of all time. He lives in Northridge, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: BenBella Books (May 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932100474
• ISBN-13: 978-1932100471
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,372,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Gerrold is a figment of his own imagination.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classical Gerrold, June 2, 2005

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A. Giampietri "fjord blues" (Flekke, Norway) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Child of Earth (The Sea of Grass Trilogy) (Paperback)

Which is to say, this is a novel in which you'll find many elements that you'll have loved if you've read any of his other works, particularly the most recent ones: alternate social experiments, a first person narrator (with a twist!: there is one particular detail you never get to know about this character!), the emphasis on commitment, education, family ties, etc..
I don't understand why, together with his Dingillian saga, this novel has been billed as "fiction for young readers". Although, if you think of it... If being an adult means you cannot immerse yourself in the world of someone else's imagination and chew on the implications of the ideas and scenarios thereby presented, you must definitely be of a certain age to enjoy this.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Being David Gerrold, July 4, 2005

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Beverly A. Sykes (Davis, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Child of Earth (The Sea of Grass Trilogy) (Paperback)

I've often wondered what it must be like to live in David Gerrold's brain, a brain that creates such complex worlds, ecosystems, creatures, species of higher intelligence, etc. "Child of Earth" follows the story of Kaer and Kaer's family, through their preparation for moving to the world of Linnea, earth-like, but not exactly.

Gerrold brings in all the elements you'd expect from a Gerrold novel--bad puns, redheads, creatures and characters from former Gerrold works, friends from Gerrold's real life, political commentary, more bad puns, and chocolate, all framing the main photograph, which is the action surrounding Kaer's family, the giant horses of Linnea, and leaving one wondering how many years it will take for book 2 of this trilogy to hit the shelves.

I'm not sure why this is classified as a "young people's" book, since it involves some pretty complex scientific descriptions which I am either too old or too dense to follow thoroughly.

I managed to finish this book on an 8-hour drive from one end of California to the other and will now twiddle my thumbs until the sequel gets written. But then I've been doing that about Gerrold's Chtorr series for decades, so I'm used to it.

Good read. Buy it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good juvenile (Heinlein would proud), January 21, 2006

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Michael Lynn Mcguire "mmcguire" (Sugar Land, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Child of Earth (The Sea of Grass Trilogy) (Paperback)

This was a good story, the first of a trilogy. The books are in the new large format paperback so they cost a little more. The story is about an "extended" family moving to another, more primitive planet. Instead of showing up like the typical missionaries of old, they are going to try to blend into the primitive society until that society "grows up. It might work.