Subject: HARVEST by Robert Charles Wilson

From: [email-masked]
Date: 02 Aug 93 14:45:51 GMT

HARVEST by Robert Charles Wilson
		       A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
			Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper

     What if aliens offered us the chance to live forever--if the only price
we had to pay was to give up being human?  That is the premise of Robert
Charles Wilson's latest book, HARVEST.

     As might be expected from the premise, HARVEST is more a study in
characters than an action story, though there is a very impressive storm
sequence.  Wilson looks at the world through the eyes of those few who chose
to remain human.  And they are a motley crew--a doctor, a fundamentalist
Christian, a car salesman, a politician, two teenagers, a farmer's wife, an
Army colonel, a retired worker.  They have little in common--except their
decision.  What makes some choose one way and some another is one of the
main questions of the book, but Wilson never satisfactorily answers it, and
indeed, towards the end HARVEST becomes very much like an update EARTH
ABIDES, as the remaining humans cope with lack of electricity, the search
for food, and so on. Wilson also makes a few flubs. He says that on
election night, "a long Republican ascendancy over the White House had come
to an end," obviously expecting Bush to win in 1992.  (Internal evidence
says the story takes place in 1996.)  He also seems to think Lima is in a
time zone between Los Angeles and Anchorage, while it is actually in the
same time zone as New York.

     In spite of these minor quibbles, however, I would still recommend
HARVEST.  Wilson at least touches on the nature of humanity, and his
characters and their reactions to the situation and to each other may give
us some clues, if not to *the* answer, at least to *an* answer.

%T	  Harvest
%A	  Robert Charles Wilson
%C	  New York
%D	  January 1993
%I	  Bantam Spectra
%O	  trade	paperback, US$12.
%G	  ISBN 0-553-37110-X
%P	  394pp

Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked] / [email-masked]