Review: "Earth Abides" for the 21st Century
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 18, 2011
Not only is this a great (if a bit derivative) post-apocalyptic book, it's a celebration of life itself, and a reminder of how we all should live it. Nice job Mr. Wightman - I'm now looking for more of your books.If the plot begins a little too much in the "Earth Abides" genre (here, it's not a young man isolated by a rattlesnake bite, but by a science experiment; we have a grand loss-of-electricity scene; there's an identified child prodigy to carry on human civilization; and the story takes place in the same geographic area)...I can forgive because of the realistic characters, engrossing plot lines and charming ending.Martin Lake, the main protagonist, is an all-too-typical lost soul of the early 21st Century. He's grown up, been to college, done what he thought he needed to do, loved and lost a girl.  In a fit of "is this all there is?" ennui, he submits to an isolation experiment that keeps him away from all interaction and communication...while the world above him succumbs to a supervirus, killing 99.9% of the population.As an everyman hero, it's nice to see Martin written to react to situations not with movie-star moves or long soliloquies, but with basic survival instincts that morph into protection instincts as he begins to collect the shreds of humanity remaining.There are some minor flaws that distract: Evidently Mr. Wightman has never heard of the miracle gas additive Sta-Bil, which would be almost as ubiquitous in a depopulated world as gas itself. But to advance the plot in months rather than decades, the author takes liberties with the projected shelf life of canned goods, cars and fuel, and gets the characters on horseback much more quickly than a "real" PA world would require.That's how nitpicky I have to go to find fault in this excellent example of the genre. Wightman may borrow from Earth Abides and The Forge of God, but everything comes out clean. This book isn't really a description of mass death and survival after catastrophe; it's a celebration of life and love. Highly recommended.