Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
So-so apocalypse fiction, August 17, 2000
I love end-of-the-world fiction. My picks for the best of the genre include "The Stand," "On the Beach," "The Day of the Triffids" and "Lucifer's Hammer." Unfortunately, "The Postman" just isn't up to the standards set by these works. For one thing, the narrative ark takes some twists and turns into some unusal, but not at all together satisfying directions. For another, several key moments in the plot are based on non-too-plausible scenes of the hero overhearing conversations of his adversaries. Some of the action scenes are not terribly believable, and the ending of the book reads like a cliched Western. Nevertheless, Brin does pack his novel with a number of interersting ideas and notions that at least make it worth reading for those with an interest in this particular genre.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A postapocalyptic novel with hope., January 4, 2003
In David Brin's postapocalyptic novel, The Postman, the civilized world has been destroyed by a brief nuclear war and the ensuing nuclear winter, diseases, and barbarism. Set in what used to be Oregon, remnants of civilization exist in small independent towns inhabited by survivors and their offspring eking out a living through agriculture and trades.Gordon Krantz is a lone wanderer, surviving by moving from village to village as a storyteller and minstrel. He finds a dead postal worker's skeleton in the woods and co-opts his clothing to stay warm. With the bag of postage, he hits upon a scam of representing himself as a postal inspector of the "Restored United States," sent to establish post offices in each town and re-establish mail service. He is surprisingly embraced everywhere he travels because of people's thirst for community and communication... and hope. He unwittingly becomes a victim of his own scam and is reluctantly thrust into a leadership role in reuniting Oregon, and by implication the rest of the nation in the future. Along the way, he discovers the way each town coped with the aftermath of the war, makes various friendships, falls in love, and leads the war against the rogue survivalists from the south. I quite enjoyed this novel and found it uplifting in the message of a regular man who had greatness thrust upon him and came to realize that he had to take responsibility. The movie, starring Kevin Costner, is also good but diverges a good bit from the book, especially in the second half. As is often the case, the book is better.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great first half!, August 4, 2005
I really enjoyed the first half of this book. The wandering postman poser bringing hope to every town he visits. I enjoy the post apocalyptic genre, and felt the story was proceeding enjoyably without many post-ap cliches. I really liked the hope springing eternal aspect to it.
Unfortunately the second half of the book devolved into something that could only be saved by deus ex machina - which is exactly what happened. The characters stopped acting like believable people. Critical events happened that were difficult to believe and never explained (the Scout's plan "somehow" was uncovered). Characters were being killed off almost as though the author were afraid that the story wasn't having any emotional impact for the last many pages so maybe if someone we had been introduced to died...
I was very disappointed by the end of the book. If it had left the standard "good guy vs. bad guy climax" out, the whole story would have been better for it. If you really want to enjoy the book, just stop at the second interlude.
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