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Terraforming Earth
by Jack Williamson
(Tor, $6.99, 343 pages, paperback; February 2003.)
 The
plot of Jack Williamson's Terraforming Earth begins as a simple
emergency plan to rejuvenate the Earth and reinstate the human species
as a macrocosm, in the event that the planet is struck by a devastating
impactor from space: a meteor. As is the way of simple plans, this soon
turns disastrously complicated. All of the contingency planning comes
close to being worthless when an impactor suddenly strikes the Earth
two years before the project's scheduled completion. Alerted to the
imminent crisis, the originating scientists and two stowaways make it
to Tycho Station on the Moon -- whence the plan is to be discharged
-- just before the impactor hits home and life is extinguished on Earth.
The first clones of these scientists are awakened one hundred years
later to begin implementing the great plan. They are cloned again and
again for as long as it takes: sometimes hundreds of years apart, sometimes
thousands. This is their epic journey in the chronicle of life on the
planet Earth, its rise and fall, and the alienness they encounter within
the life they find evolving on the devastated planet, and inside themselves.
Told from the point of view of one of the clones, Duncan Yare, and
his clone descendants, the "voice" of the tale never skips a beat. The
reader can almost believe that the successive Duncans are all one person.
It is intentional that the clones' training and upbringing remain forever
the same, because of the united purpose and special inherent skills
they thereby bring to the project. So five children are repeatedly born,
trained and raised in the same environment by robots for an eon, until
the Earth lives again or they die trying. Many, in fact, do die in the
attempts.
There are setbacks and new discoveries; shocking turns of events; an
alien presence; mysteries; disappointments; love, loss and rebirth;
and, above all, purpose -- but even that is questioned in the end.
This is a compelling story, well told through Williamson's deft narrative
voice. If you wonder about the future of humankind and the Earth, our
home, you may find comfort in this book and the possibilities if offers.
Then again, you might cringe at some of the things that humanity is
capable of at its worst. But, in the end, there is hope and faith in
what we as a race and as individuals might ultimately become.
So read this story -- it's all in the journey. Well done, Mr Williamson,
I enjoyed every minute of it.
Review by Marianne Plumridge.
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