Earth Abides

Peculiar attempt at a post-apocalypse book. A man alone cross the landscape. An omniscient narrator tells how earth is going to evolve without man. If it had ended there is could have been a great book.

His research into the mechanics of civilization is sadly lacking. Electricity runs for ages without anyone manning the power stations (who's shovelling the coal). The water runs forever until the reservoir leaks (no pumps needed - everything gravity fed no doubt).

The community he founds is particulary awful. Cardboard cutout people who seem to appear from nowhere. Kids they don't bother to teach how to read. What none of them are ever read a bedtime story?

Some nasty social (and racist) values pop up. They hang a man because he has syphilis. African Americans continue to grow cotton but are too dumb to know what to do with it.

Written shortly after WW2 when most of the planet was being rebuildt this book seems to have an oddly apathetic view of humanity.