EARTH
                            by David Brin

               Review copyright (c) 1991 by Doug Ingram

[Bibliographic information at the end of the article]

	As most readers of this group are no doubt aware, Brin's latest
book, _Earth_, has just come out in paperback in the last month.  I grabbed
it a couple of weeks ago since I've enjoyed Brin's previous works (such
as _The_Postman_ and _The_Uplift_War series) for the most part and hadn't
read any science fiction in a while.  Of the few science fiction authors
I read any more, I would rate Brin second best only behind Simmons, and
his latest work is up to his usual high standards, though I don't feel it
is his best.

	The story opens as a black hole physicist, Alex Lustig, is
attempting to locate a small black hole which accidentally dropped into
the Earth after one of his experiments was disrupted.  Fortunately for
the planet, Lustig's theory is that his black hole should evaporate quickly
before any major harm is done to the planet, but he soon finds some 
unpleasant surprises in his research.  Without getting into any spoilers,
let me emphasize that this aspect of the story was the most interesting
and entertaining.  I felt this overarching plot for the book held it
together well, and it kept me glued to the pages.

	Among the other major themes in Brin's speculative future are the
vast expansion of computer networking capabilities and environmental issues.
Those of you who have spent any time hacking around on Usenet or any 
network and/or have spent much time interacting with the various news-
groups will greatly appreciate Brin's vision of the future of the net.
I feel this also is a strong aspect of the story, and I enjoyed seeing the
way it was used as a plot device throughout.

	On environmental issues, I think it is safe to say that Brin has
a very pessimistic view of the world ahead of us.  While most of the
situations he describes are plausible (such as global warming, vanishing
of the ozone layer, rising ocean levels, droughts, etc.) and, in fact,
predicted by most experts for the near future, one can't help but get
the impression that Brin is using his book as a bit of a soapbox to talk
about protecting the environment.  Of course, that's his right, but some
readers might be a little turned off by his sometimes "preachy" approach,
though I personally didn't mind.

	So far, so good, one might think.  All of these elements seem to
add up to a very strong book, and yet I found myself disappointed.  Not
by the science fiction concepts, which I feel were well thought-out, but
by some of the plot elements which indirectly relied on Brin's speculation.
I am willing to suspend my disbelief for the sake of a novel.  Indeed, this
is why I enjoy fantasy so much, but Brin can't seem to make up his mind
about plausibility.  So much of his book is such a very good interpretation
of the possible future of the Earth 50 years from now that I felt shocked
by some of the implausible plot elements which were thrown in near the
end of the book.  Maybe it's Brin's fault for writing his science fiction
so well, but I feel that this book would have been much stronger had Brin
applied his ideas about plausibility as rigorously to his plot as he did
to some of his scientific speculation.

	Another minor problem I had with this book was Brin's jumping
around between all of the different subplots of this book.  At times,
I found myself flipping back to previous pages in order to recall just
which characters were involved where and what was going on.  I don't
mean to say that I like to be hand-held through a capsule review halfway
through the book, but I felt that Brin simply doesn't give the reader
quite enough time to get familiar with a plot thread before jumping to
the next.  This is a mostly a matter of taste and reading style, however.

	As Brin talks about in his afterword, near-future speculative
fiction is a very difficult genre to tackle because one has to worry so
much about plausibility.  My feeling is, though, that Brin excelled in
his major tasks in setting up the novel and the driving elements which
were based in science fiction.  I'm simply disappointed because I
expected him to equal this feat with an elegant and believeable plot,
which he did not.  Still, I can't help but recommend this book because
of the wonderful ideas which are presented and for the 90% of the book
which _is_ some of Brin's best writing.  If only he had been a little
more careful designing the "easy" part of this book, it would have been
a true classic.  An exciting science fiction novel, yes, but not as good as
it could have been.

%A Brin, David
%T Earth
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York
%D June 1991
%G ISBN 0-553-29024-X
%P 678 pp.
%O paperback, US$5.99
%O order from Bantam Books, SF49, 414 East Golf Road, Des Plaines IL 60016 USA

Doug Ingram // d.ingram@tcu.edu // "Carpe Datum"
	http://personal.tcu.edu/~dingram/books.html (for more reviews)