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Loading... Darwinia (edition 1998)by Robert Charles Wilson
Work InformationDarwinia: A Novel of a Very Different Twentieth Century by Robert Charles Wilson
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. So.... uhhh... Yeah.... Ok.... So, based on the description, I was expecting an Edgar Rice Burroughs homage. A "lost continent" type story, which I've always had an affinity for. And this did, in fact, start off like that. But then it took a very sharp left turn and got VERY interesting as it transitioned into what would seem to be a Matrix ripoff if not for the fact that this book came out pretty much the same time as, if not slightly before the movie. So first 1/3 -> 4 stars. Next 65% -> 4-5 stars. However... WTF was that ending? Answer: STUPID Final 2%: 0-1 stars Overall: 3 stars I liked a good deal of this book, but ultimately I feel ambivalent about it. This book has layers, starting with a really great Alternate History story and then no reviews | add a review
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In 1912, history was changed by the Miracle, when the old world of Europe was replaced by Darwinia, a strange land of nightmarish jungle and antedeluvian monsters. To some, the Miracle is an act of divine retribution; to others, it is an opportunity to carve out a new empire. Leaving American now ruled by religious fundamentalism, young Guilford Law travels to Darwinia on a mission of discovery that will take him further than he can possibly imagine...to a shattering revelation about mankind's destiny in the universe. "Darwinia" is a 1999 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The history of the world proceeds differently. No 1914-1918 Great War, slower technological progress, the US the sole world superpower, and a revival of creationist explanations of the origin of Earth and life follow the apparent miracle. In 1920, Guilford Law and his wife and child travel to England, which is being resettled by the remains of the British Empire. He will join an American scientific expedition into the interior of the land now called Darwinia. But Guilford is haunted by dreams of another life, one that ended in a war that his history and his memory say never occurred. Other men around the world are likewise haunted, by dreams or, for certain men without conscience, by terrible phantoms they think of as gods - evil gods with real-world powers.
Wilson loves setting ordinary human relationships against a backdrop of cosmic scale, and Darwinia eventually becomes cosmic indeed - this 1998 release is a very 1990s SF novel. Not Wilson's best, but quite satisfying. ( )