Earth by David Brin
Earth is depicted in a dystopian near-future where overpopulation and severe environmental degradation have led to a crisis of resources. Natural habitats are decimated due to war and climate change, resulting in the extinction of many species and the displacement of people, particularly refugees from areas affected by rising sea levels. Society is characterized by conflict, with gangs of unemployed youth clashing with an elderly demographic in sprawling suburban areas. Amidst this turmoil, advancements in computer technology have created a global interconnected network, serving as a beacon of hope.
Central to the narrative is physicist Alex Lustig, whose ambitious experiment to address Earth's energy crisis inadvertently releases a small black hole into the planet's mantle. As he and Maori billionaire George Hutton investigate this phenomenon, they discover an even larger black hole believed to be of alien origin, posing a significant threat to humanity. Their efforts to harness a new energy source, known as gazers, lead to a power struggle against factions that wish to exploit this technology for destructive purposes. The story culminates with a resolution that sees an empowered consciousness, originating from a key character, taking control of Earth's energy systems, allowing humanity to restore ecological balance and venture into space.
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Subject Terms
Earth
First published: 1990
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—cautionary
Time of work: 2038
Locale: Various locations on Earth
The Plot
The action in Earth takes place at a time when overpopulation and environmental destruction have pushed planetary resources to the limit. With natural habitats destroyed by war or global warming, and with Earths ozone layer depleted by pollution, many plants and animals have become all but extinct, with a few remnants kept in steel and glass arks. Refugees from nations flooded by rising seas drift on rafts across the oceans; there is no land on which to settle. In the United States, tribal gangs of teenagers without jobs clash with the growing elderly populations of vast suburbs. In this future, computer technology has emerged as the one bright spot, linking everyone on Earth into the ultimate free press: an interconnected information network that spans the globe.
In an attempt to solve Earth’s energy crisis, brilliant young physicist Alex Lustig uses the illegal technology of cavitronics to create a tuned cosmic string, or black hole, inside a power plant. When his experiment is destroyed in a riot, the black hole escapes confinement and sinks into Earths mantle. Afraid that its uncontrolled growth might engulf the planet, Lustig recruits the help of Maori billionaire George Hutton, whose geophysical surveying company has the technology to locate the tiny singularity. Although their work shows that Lustigs black hole is dissipating, its orbit through the mantle reveals that it is not alone: A second, much larger, black hole is gnawing at Earths core. Its location and size indicate that it must have been dropped into the earth in 1908, at the site of the mysterious Tunguska explosion in Siberia. Because no humans could have created a singularity at that time, Lustig and Hutton realize that this black hole must be the product of alien technology, aimed as a weapon at the developing human civilization on Earth.
To combat this threat, Lustig plans to lift the alien black hole out of Earth’s core using gazers, a new type of energy beam created when a black hole focuses Earth’s own gravitational energy. Lustig, Hutton, and their most trusted colleagues establish a secret network of gazer control stations. These colleagues include Teresa Tikhana, a shuttle pilot who lost her husband to the first inadvertent gazer activity. Also joining the group is Jen Wolling, Lustigs grandmother, a Nobel-laureate biologist who is a computer net expert and a farsighted advocate for Earth.
News of this powerful new energy source leaks out, triggering a war between a conspiratorial aristocratic cabal, who want to use gazers as the ultimate long-distance weapons, and a fanatical environmentalist who tries to end Earths overpopulation problem with gazers programmed for human destruction. The clash of warring gazer beams burns an intricate pattern of superconducting channels into Earths metal core, creating an intelligent information network that all parties struggle to control. Jen Wolling ultimately wins, but the triumph both kills and immortalizes her. She becomes a disembodied mind within Earth, able to interact with the human race through the global computer network. The war ends as Gaea herself, in the form of Wollings transferred mind, takes control of the planets focused gravitational energy from within. With gazers now providing safe and limitless power, the human race is freed to explore space and restore environmental harmony to its home planet.