Earth Made of Glass (Giraut)

As always John Barnes bring us into a fascinating future world which is very realistic, build up upon real facts and cleverly constructed fiction. This book provides the reader with an option to think over about the world, not even the one that is being described in the book. J. Barnes learns us how to think about the present world from many points of view just by entertainlingly shifting us into a fantastic world. I think if more peoples on this world would be reading such books the world would look better already...

I just finished re-reading Earth Made of Glass and then the third book in the series, The Merchants of Souls. Both are compellingly written and readable. The author is very good at telling stories through the viewpoint of the main character. Giraut's viewpoint is an interesting place to be.Giraut's marriage with Margaret is in trouble, and he doesn't understand why. Previous reviews characterized Margaret's behavior as irrational and irritating. It didn't strike me that way at all. She seemed to be behaving very reasonably by what was actually wrong: she didn't want to be married to Giraut anymore, but she still loved him as a friend, and she recognized that he still was in love with her, though she was insecure enough to consider that being in love with her was stupid of him. Both characters were very clearly of their cultures, which the author describes and delineates beautifully so that when they are being what we might think of as obtuse, they're using different cultural markers. It might have seemed obvious to us what Margaret was doing, and how everyone else knew, but in Giraut's culture it was a duel-worthy challenge (and worse, as he would put it, "ne gens") to doubt someone's word or faith. Not something he would willingly ever do. Also in his culture, women were expected to act irrational and flighty toward men whether or not that was their nature. So he didn't really see anything peculiar about how Margaret was acting; what had been strange was her earlier Caledonian candor and straightforwardness. If he'd thought of it, he would have realized she was acting weird; he didn't think of it because, to him, her behavior seemed natural.Barnes is a tremendous writer and I enjoy almost all his work. The sequence that Earth Made of Glass is part of is tied for my favorite of his series. I dislike star ratings but I can't bring myself to give the book less than 5 stars, although in an ideal world I'd be able to give it a less linear-scale rating or ratings on several axes of quality. I agree with earlier reviews that putting parentheses in characters' speech is jarring. I also think that in the edition I read, the grammatical errors were fixed: I didn't notice any.

A friend of mine gave me this book as a gift. Being a sequel I figured it might be good. With over 400 pages, there had to be something interesting within. I was wrong. It wasn't good, it was perfect.The characters of Giraut and Margaret are painfully real, the science fiction is interesting, the ideas are beautiful, the story itself can't help but hook you and the two cultures really give the book many flavors. The ending has a COUPLE of surprises, some of which you MAY of seen coming, but I doubt it. With hindsight I can say, 'Oh..OK..', but the end was enjoyable, thoughtful and powerful.I can't wait to get the FIRST book 'A Million Open Doors'. I can't believe this is the same author who wrote 'Washington's Dirigible'.

Barnes tries to do a lot of things in this book and I found it essentially engrossing. It got better and better as it went along. A welcome change from a lot of fare. I have not read _A Million Open Doors_ , and therefore was not familiar with Giraut and Margaret's personalities. Like another reader I found Margaret very irritating for more than half the book. That reviewer called her a "revenge" character and I agree. Poor, without-a-clue Giraut. Of course her affair with the Tamil assistant was obvious. Even the other characters found Giraut's obtuseness disgusting. Barnes finally does give us some more believable explanations for Margaret's behavior. I found the Ix character to be a bit too conveniently Christlike. As for the woman he ruins his Messiah mission for, well she did everything but take center stage and sing, "I don't know how to love him." Barnes' description and interplay of the two societies in conflict is the single riveting aspect of the book for me even though the Israeli/Palestinian parallels were pretty obvious. I admit I could not fathom welcoming ceremonies held outdoors in such a climate, plus that architecture must have been made from something amazing to remain like new under centuries of constant solar inferno and savage weathering. I had recently read _The Doomsday Book_ and _In the Garden of Iden_. Although those were based on real historical periods, I still found parallels. _Earth Made of Glass_ also has this hugely superior human group essentially viewing the studied cultures as primitive in outlook and ultimately expendable. At the same time the tiny number of "visitors" who actually interact with the individuals in these "lesser" societies form inevitable attachments, and acquire valuable insight despite their condescension. There are small hints that somewhere in the series(?), Barnes' will have his Council of Humanity at least explore the idea that a totally homogenized human society isn't necessarily the stronger entity they see as better prepared to face a superior alien culture. There might just be some essential knowledge, skill, or zest-for-life they are eradicating with their methods. Like another reviewer, I look forward to Barnes exploring the discovered alien sites, or encountering the aliens themselves, (preferably before Barnes' creativity runs out of steam). I suspect we are at least going to visit that group of societies on the rim who have also refused a Springer.

This book is a successor to "A Million Open Doors" with continuing characters: Giraut Leones, Margaret Leones, and Shan (chief of their agency which wants to bring together all the 1000 world societies to meet the aliens whose ruins they keep finding). Giraut and Margaret are on a new world, a high-gravity, hot, hostile environment with two cultures who hate each other. There are two major plots going on at once. In the first, one of the societies had put up a Prophet named Ix who preaches peace between the two cultures. I am not easily impressed by such things, but I had tears in my eyes several times as I read about him and things he said. I thought it was as beautiful as some of Christ's parables. The other plot is about the difficult marriage Giraut and Margaret are having. Barnes ABSOLUTELY avoids any easy answers, and I was impressed with the whole work. The uneveness problem arose from a few things: (1) the plot took a while to get interesting, maybe 100 pages; (2) there are frequent non-grammatical constructs of a certain type: "...to Margaret and I...," for example, and it is a little annoying. But the man is a genius in writing a moving story!