Earth

By: David Brin

Narrated by: David DeVries, Kristin Kalbli

The long-awaited new novel by the award-winning, best-selling author of Startide Rising and The Uplift War- an epic novel set 50 years from tomorrow, a carefully-reasoned, scientifically faithful tale of the fate of our world.

©1990 David Brin (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"One hell of a novel.... has what sci-fi readers want these days; intelligence, action, and an epic scale" ( Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine)

"The prime attraction of Earth is the author's unfailing resourcefulness in extrapolating a post-greenhouse-effect future that is plausible, dismaying, and amazing in equal parts…. Brin's prose ranges from regular to high octant…. His characters have vivid intellectual lives." ( Entertainment Weekly)

"Brin has conceived his story on a supremely ambitious scale, and executed it with all the skills at this command." ( Chicago Sun-Times)

Enjoyed it, but it goes slow too often (3/2020)

I sorry of enjoyed this story, in which an “gravity laser” is invented by an improbable scientist, and of course has weapons potential. Naturally, the then equivalent of the CIA comes after him. A woman astronaut gets involved, dislikes the scientist at first but eventually comes around. And and and.

Brin uses the device of starting each "part" with a series of repeated chapter titles like "Earth," "Space," etc. Many of these are non sequiturs, and confusing.

The characters get a bit hard to follow, and he pretty deep into characters that don't have much impact on the plot. When some side characters do interesting things, they often don't ever get explained. For instance one saves animals from an impossible situation, but _how_ is never revealed, nor does the event have any relevance to the plot. Neither does that character have much relevance to the plot.

People fall in love, but nobody shows passion, or any emotion, except jealousy. Sex, of any, is only vaguely hinted at.

The narrators are just barely good enough to tolerate, and their (or the director's?) work interferes with the character development. Several characters voices sound the same. Worst of all, the lead female protagonist has an unattractive man's voice with a strong Kiwi accent. He may have explained why a New Zealander is captain of an American space shuttle, I don't recall, but it has nothing to do with the plot. Weird.

Tying up those loose ends that actually do get tied up takes at least an hour, and is free of either surprises or action.

I'd return this book, but I have a lot of unused credits and Amazon recently started cancelling credits after so many months, which violates the contact I signed up for

Anyhow, I'm done with Brin.

Earth review.

I love this book. please, if Ms. Kalbli is set to narrate any further books, encourage them to not do so in a manner that presents them as hating what they're doing and bored out of their mind. All areas narrated by Ms Kalbli were flat and lifeless and uninspired. It is a shame to have such a good story treated in such a careless fashion. Other than this point I really enjoyed the book.

David has an inside line on the future

What made the experience of listening to Earth the most enjoyable?

The narration was great the characters came alive.

What other book might you compare Earth to and why?

Accelerando by Charles Stross, it's a strong view of a possible future.

Any additional comments?

I'm just got done re-reading David Brin's "Earth" written in 1989 after a 15 year break to see how well it holds (the Audible version with a nice short story at the end that takes place in the same universe). In some of the sub-plot lines, he talks about the leaders with Swiss bank accounts? Check A world linked by computers and camera's recording everything done by the people? Check. Ice melting? Check. Earthquakes next to the coast taking out nuclear power plant? Check. The cost of connecting to the world wide web dropping to less then the cost of gas and food? Soon. Clearly he has a good inner line on projecting what could go on in the near future, check him out of you're looking for a good read.

great science fiction, characters and facts

What did you love best about Earth?

the connections it made for me about how the world works; social; economic and physical

What other book might you compare Earth to and why?

Kim Stanley Robinson "2312" except on a universal palette

Have you listened to any of David DeVries and Kristin Calbley ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no

Any additional comments?

wish it wasn't over.....

always surprised

I'm always surprised by how early David Brin's books were written after I've read them. I think that they must be written after 2010 to find out they were written before 1990

Two readers

The female reader is excellent. The male readers is sometimes distracting with his accents. The one he did for one of the main female characters was particularly bad. But the story and other reader is excellent

long but good it drags at times....the ideas prese

this book drags a bit however the ideas presented are worth the listen and the performance is excellent

Great story, poor narration

This is one of my favorite books, and I was pleased to find it unabridged on Audible. Unfortunately, the producers didn’t spring for top tier narration. While the male narrator is adequate, the female seems to have come from the 19th century elocution school that emphasized crisp diction and spit consonants over any emotional content. She couldn’t even be bothered to look up correct pronunciation of much of what she’s reading. I’d rather they just used the male narrator for the whole thing. Still, the book remains a classic. But next time, I’ll go back to the Kindle version.

Like Final Fantasy in real life.

David Brin brings the grand planetary perspective to the personable level of characters in a near future world that still feels believable 30 years later.

Milestone

Great book, not perfect reading.
A truly remarkable re-imagining of our planet used as a trick to go deep into the theories on how to preserve our dear earth.
I loved it in paper and wanted to listen to it, I was mostly happy about this version too.