Land's End [Mass Market Paperback]

Frederik Pohl (Author), Jack Williamson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 1989

When Comet Sicara brushed near enough to strip the ozone layer form the Earth's atmosphere, civilization effectively ended--in fact, life on Earth was nearly extinguished. But the underwater cities survived, and some heavily protected land enclaves as well. When the "ozone summer" years were ending, submarine captain Ron Tregarth rediscovered his lost love, Graciela Navarro. but their triumph against all odds was only the beginning, for the alien known as the Eternal stood between them and threatened to destroy all they held dearest. The Eternal's goal was to absorb the minds of every living thing, to create a death-in-life to enslave the planet.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Two of SF's liveliest veterans here collaborate on a postholocaust novel that shoots off into unexpected channels. The authors portray idyllic undersea cities where ocean beds are farmed and giant squid are trained as intelligent helpmates, in contrast to the overpopulated landmasses, swayed by demagoguery. Catastrophe comes not from war, however, but from a comet whose debris burns off the atmosphere, creating a deadly "ozone summer." Survivors encounter the mixed blessing of new, alien-controlled leaders who feed and house them for their labor on the vast project of building a spaceship so that an alien life form, called the Eternallong dormant beneath the sea and activated by the comet explosioncan resume its interstellar journey. This is an odd, often dour novel that encompasses but doesn't quite meld its underwater utopia, comically petty tyrants and the doggedly optimistic "we will prevail" determination of its characters.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A cosmic disaster destroys the surface of the earth and awakens a sleeping alien menace whose purpose is to assimilate all surviving life into itself. Two veteran sf authors combine their storytelling abilities to create a sprawling, complicated sf story with more ideas than the plot can handle. For large sf collections only. JC
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (November 15, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812500245
• ISBN-13: 978-0812500240
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,619,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A waste of ink, paper, and your time, March 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Land's End (Mass Market Paperback)

I urge to you stay away from this book. It is by far the worst novel, SF or otherwise, that I have ever had the displeasure to read. Its very, very few redeeming aspects did little to alleviate the extremely frustrating, annoying, predictable and dumb parts of this book. As an avid SF fan and huge admirer of Frederik Pohl's, I was deeply disappointed.

The characters were the most pathetic I have ever encountered - they were completely flat and one-sided, totally naive, and uttered such annoying dialogue that I wanted to smack most of them every time they opened their mouths. Except for one, who I loved, but by the time she next appeared she had given birth, and, mysteriously, was stripped of all the interesting parts of her character and became solely a mother to her child.

The plot was predictable and surprisingly uninteresting. For a book about a comet striking the Earth (almost - the best part of the premise, one of the book's few highlights, is not the damage the impacts cause, but the damage inflicted onto the ozone layer and electronic equipment, by the comet's gases and EMPs. Sadly, this gem of a premise is strangled by the poor story in which it is presented), _Land's End_ is remarkably lacking in any sort of tension, suspense, or credible emotion.

At first, I thought the story was supposed to be some sort of fable or satire - where such hollow, annoying characters and such a preachy plot (filled with extremely obvious references to our current polluting of the environment and relations with animals) would be successful. But _Land's End_ takes itself too serious to be a satire and aims for too tangled a complexity (in both plot and execution) to be a fable.

The only two redeeming features of _Land's End_ - the secondary effects of a comet strike and the underwater 18 Cities - do not redeem it enough to make this book worth reading. For a much more exciting, captivating, and realistic comet-strike book, try Niven and Pournelle's _Lucifer's Hammer_ (their _Mote In God's Eye_ is also a MUCH better novel on the topic of first contact with aliens; as is Carl Sagan's _Contact_. Actually, just about any book is better than this one, regarding aliens. Pohl and Williamson's "Eternal" alien was like something cast by a Hollywood agent with no imagination beyond a half-drunken viewing of "Independence Day" - cliche, boring, and so overwraught as to be unintentionally comical.)

If I could give a negative amount of stars to this book, I would. It is, by far, the poorest SF novel I have ever read.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars dumb, pointless, December 12, 1999

By 

Benjamin Crowell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Land's End (Mass Market Paperback)

If there was a prozac for books, this book would need a dose of it. Dumb, pointless plot. Dumb, pointless characters. A substandard effort from Pohl, who is one of my favorite authors.