As I remarked in another thread, I read Earth Abides many years ago in hardcover, before it came out in paperback. It’s alwaysbeen an obscure book. Afterwards, I went to our library and looked up George R. Stewart’s other works. He was a prolific writer of disaster books (Fire and Storm), well before Irwin Allen at al. made their series of disasater movies. I don’t think he wrote any more SF.
This thread has a bunch of other SF books for you to read. I really liked Earth Abides, but I haven’t read it since high school. My wife thought Ish was an unreasonable ass. I suppose he was at times, but dammit, he was trying to preserve the American Way[sup]tm[/sup].
Did anyone notice any technical problems in the book?
I read Earth Abides when I was only ten years old, and had no idea what I was in for. It really affected me greatly. I truly believe the book influenced my psyche and who am today.*
My parents had just divorced and I was with my father for the summer. I ran out of reading material and found the book (an old paperback) buried in a bookshelf. I hadn’t gotten into science fiction yet (I discovered Asimov and Heinlein two years later), and didn’t really know what to make of the book.
I found the book very believable, and the ending very realistic.
I read the book again in my twenties, and thought it still held up quite well, considering that it was published in 1949.
*[sub]For example, I decided long ago that I would do everything I could to be a survivor. Yes, I was one of those who prepared for Y2K.[/sub]
I was amazed on how modern it seemed, I read it in 1985 and I didn’t think to look at the title page until almost halfway through. I thought it was written in the mid 80’s for some reason.
(sorry about the quote mess up above)
Eonwe, I believe the book you are referring to is “I Will Fear No Evil”. Which I quite liked, by the way. “Number of the Beast” was pretty good, too, but I didn’t always follow the way it jumped around.