Earth Abides [Mass Market Paperback]

George R. Stewart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 1983

A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the human race. One survivor, strangely immune to the effects of the epidemic, ventures forward to experience a world without man. What he ultimately discovers will prove far more astonishing than anything he'd either dreaded or hoped for.


From the Paperback edition.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the human race. One survivor, strangely immune to the effects of the epidemic, ventures forward to experience a world without man. What he ultimately discovers will prove far more astonishing than anything he'd either dreaded or hoped for. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

George Rippey Stewart (May 31, 1895 – August 22, 1980) was an American toponymist, a novelist, and a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his only science fiction novel Earth Abides (1949), a post-apocalyptic novel, for which he won the first International Fantasy Award in 1951. It was dramatized on radio's Escape and inspired Stephen King's The Stand. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Fawcett (May 12, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449203905
• ISBN-13: 978-0449203903
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 3.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (395 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,946,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

343 of 372 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the Most Memorable Books I've Read, May 17, 2003

By 

Jenny Hanniver "medieval_student" (Philadelphia, PA, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Earth Abides (Mass Market Paperback)

When I write "one of the most memorable books I've read," that's saying something, because I've kept up a pace of reading at least four books a week since before entering Kindergarten and am now 67. I borrowed EARTH ABIDES from the library a year after it came out, in 1950, when I was a 14-year-old high school sophomore, reading everything and anything labeled "science fiction." I didn't own the book until fairly recently, but it stayed vividly in my memory. I could call up characters like fussy Maureen, stolid George, loyal Em and the tragic genius child, Joey. I remembered the fascinating journey across America, the vague frustration I felt (even so young) over Ish's passive character and the generally negative slide of the tribe from scavenging off civilization into what appeared almost to be an Upper Paleolithic lifestyle at the novel's end--not even qualifying as barbarism.

But it's Stewart's refusal to tread the usual Golden Age sci-fi path and make Ish a superscience hero that makes the novel very special. Ish may be a scientist, he's academically bright, but like many people he's low in energy, street-smarts, and foresight. By and large his motley clan possesses even lower survival skills. They aren't much different from the Valley Girls in another good story in the end-of-the-world genre, the movie NIGHT OF THE COMET. Both are based on an understanding that if the human race's average IQ is 100, half the people who are likely to survive a major disaster aren't going to be awfully competent. Stewart certainly knew that, and it provided both the uncanny realism and the rather depressing pessimism of this story. It's fascinating to note that the other reviewers have noted both aspects of EARTH ABIDES.

94 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST book I've EVER read, hands down!, February 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Earth Abides (Mass Market Paperback)

George R. Stewart weaves at once a beautiful and hauntingly believable tale with this novel, one that I've never been able to forget...or wanted to. Once considered dated, with the lessening of global nuclear tensions, the scenario Mr. Stewart envisions for a possible worldwide catastrophe, one brought about not by bombs but disease, has once again come to the forefront and become the most plausible ingredient in mankind's demise. More even than the fact that this is a truly enjoyable read is the deeper message Earth Abides shares with the reader as it reaches down and touches our very hearts, defining what it means to be human in an inhuman environment. The symbolism involved in Isherwood Williams' desire to keep a hammer with him for the future as a tie to the past is obviously an unconscious comment on his personal hope of rebuilding a fallen civilization. A hope that goes unfulfilled in his life time and maybe many lifetimes to follow. The insight into the human psyche that Mr. Stewart demonstates as he carries Isherwood from his youth at the beginning of the book to old age and finally death at the end and Isherwood's subtle change of attitude during that process, rings exceedingly true and speaks volumes about Mr. Stewart's keen and perhaps unique ability to put into words what it really means, or at least should mean, to be human. I've rarely read a book more than once because I just don't have the time, but I've read Earth Abides several times since I was a teen and I know I'll read it several more times before I too reach that stage in my life that Isherwood assures us won't be the calamity our youth oriented culture would have us to believe.

711 of 796 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Review!, February 28, 2005

By 

Jorge Barbarosa "the_bassist" (the back 9) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Earth Abides (Mass Market Paperback)

I can't expound upon this book as some of the reviewers have. Nor can I recall in exact detail everything in the book.

But I can add value in this way.... I read this book 30 years ago, and I still think about it. I can remember the plague, the snakebite that saved the main character, the waves of predatory evolution after the event... the tribe, the forced justice, the eventual shut down of the urban areas as the infrastructure started to erode. The shift from scavanging off of grocery shelfs (for years) to providing for themselves.

The last breaths of the story teller and the fight for the symbol of power, the hammer which every year the protagonist took up to the cliffs and recorded the time since the plague.

30 Years.... and I still think about it. How many books, movies, songs... etc... do you expect to think about 30 years down the road. You probably wouldn't even remember the title let alone a rough outline.

Will I read it again? Certainly! I ran into a young lady reading this on the subway a few years back, and we had a wonderful conversation... it's that kind of a book.

Is this considered a "Good" review? Click on the helpful button if so. It would interest me.

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