Earth (novel)
Encyclopedia
Earth is a 1990 science fiction
novel written by David Brin
. The book was nominated for the Hugo
and Locus
Awards in 1991.
, global warming
, refugees from ecological disasters, ecoterrorism, and the social effects of overpopulation
. The plot of the book involves an artificially created black hole
which has been lost in the Earth
's interior and the attempts to recover it before it destroys the planet. The events and revelations which follow reshape humanity and its future in the universe. It also includes a war pitting most of the Earth against Switzerland, fueled by outrage over the Swiss allowing generations of kleptocrats
to hide their stolen wealth in the country's banks.
The scope of the story expands vastly as the plot gradually reveals itself, bringing into question the future course—and even the survival—of humanity.
Internet
, e-mail spam, and the proliferation of personal video recording devices.
Brin claims at least 15 predictive hits in Earth including:
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel written by David Brin
David Brin
Glen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...
. The book was nominated for the Hugo
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
and Locus
Locus Award
The Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
Awards in 1991.
Plot introduction
Set in the year 2038, the book is a cautionary tale of the harm humans can cause their planet via disregard for the environment and reckless scientific experiments. The book has a large cast of characters and Brin uses them to address a number of environmental issues, including endangered speciesEndangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
, global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, refugees from ecological disasters, ecoterrorism, and the social effects of overpopulation
Overpopulation
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
. The plot of the book involves an artificially created black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
which has been lost in the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's interior and the attempts to recover it before it destroys the planet. The events and revelations which follow reshape humanity and its future in the universe. It also includes a war pitting most of the Earth against Switzerland, fueled by outrage over the Swiss allowing generations of kleptocrats
Kleptocracy
Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often without pretense of honest...
to hide their stolen wealth in the country's banks.
The scope of the story expands vastly as the plot gradually reveals itself, bringing into question the future course—and even the survival—of humanity.
Predictions
Brin set this novel 50 years in the future from the time he was writing, using the book as an opportunity to predict what technologies might — at that future date — be taken for granted day to day. Three technologies he predicted came to pass within only 8 years of the writing, include a media-centric, hypertextHypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, e-mail spam, and the proliferation of personal video recording devices.
Brin claims at least 15 predictive hits in Earth including:
- The World Wide WebWorld Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
(including it as being a major news-media outlet, complete with videos and discussion forums) and blogging. (Brin did not predict the URL, rather using a clumsier numeric form of address.) - E-mail spamE-mail spamEmail spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
and sophisticated personalized filtering software. - Reduction of expectation of privacy.
- Time limits on secrets both personal, corporate, and governmental
- Levees breaking on the MississippiLevee failures in Greater New Orleans, 2005In 29 August 2005 there were over 50 failures of the levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans, Louisiana, and its suburbs following passage of Hurricane Katrina and landfall in Mississippi. The levee and flood wall failures caused flooding in 80% of New Orleans and all of St. Bernard Parish...
. - The dissolution and partitioning of the Soviet Union (though most contemporary scholars later claimed that they were fully aware of the Soviet Union's impending collapse by 1989).
- Global warmingGlobal warmingGlobal warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
associated sea level rise and severe storm seasons. - Subvocal inputSubvocal recognitionSubvocal recognition is the process of taking subvocalization and converting the detected results to a digital text-based output. It is similar to voice recognition except it is silent subvocalization being detected...
devices. - Artificially created black holeMicro black holeMicro black holes are tiny black holes, also called quantum mechanical black holes or mini black holes, for which quantum mechanical effects play an important role....
s considered seriously. - Crisis habitat arks for endangered species, with a view to later restoration to the wild.
- Eyeglass cameras.
- The erosion of personal privacy.
- Eyeglass overlaysAugmented realityAugmented reality is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is...
on real environments. - Personality profiling through brain imaging.
- Art sculptures on a geologic scale.
- Decline of delivered mail.
- Lawyer software.
See also
- Effects of global warmingEffects of global warmingThis article is about the effects of global warming and climate change. The effects, or impacts, of climate change may be physical, ecological, social or economic. Evidence of observed climate change includes the instrumental temperature record, rising sea levels, and decreased snow cover in the...
- Micro black holeMicro black holeMicro black holes are tiny black holes, also called quantum mechanical black holes or mini black holes, for which quantum mechanical effects play an important role....
- Gaia hypothesisGaia hypothesisThe Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.The scientific investigation of the...
- Tunguska eventTunguska eventThe Tunguska event, or Tunguska blast or Tunguska explosion, was an enormously powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, at about 7:14 a.m...
- Gravitational radiation
External links
- David Brin's Official Web Site: My Other Science Fiction Novels
- Earth Wiki
- Earth at Worlds Without End