I tried a couple of times to get through this book back when I first got it. Then it languished on my Kindle.

In my attempt to clean up my NetGalley shelves and catch up on older books, I tried this one once more. My apologies, but the writing is just terrible and I can't force myself onward.

Because I'm not finishing this book, I won't be leaving a review anywhere.

At first I found this book very interesting. But then I felt like it needed a better editor. It just kept going on and on. Unfortunate, because the premise of parallel worlds and caretakers was a good one. However, some of the violence felt gratuitous and ideas and people that should have been more developed were not.

Even after finishing The Earth Hearing, there are still many theories revolving around my mind. There are so many reasons to enjoy this book, but it will take time to finish once a reader picks it up. The premise starts off well enough with clear-cut sci-fi elements mixed in.

However, the reader is in for quite the ride in the later 2/3 of the story where the author has characters analyze various sides of a multitude of controversial arguments. I believe most of the controversies are based in Western thinking, but I may just possess that bias in thinking. Take the book a chapter at a time and this will be an interesting reading experience.

The book was unique, interesting, and written well... but it wasn’t my cup of tea. I read 33% of the ebook before deciding to stop. Like I said it was written well so I can see this being good for someone else.

The premise of this novel is so interesting! From the description, it promised to be original, and I wanted to love the ride. The fact that it was slow to begin and heavy on world building was wonderful for me, because I was able to fully understand the dynamics at work in this universe, but ultimately, I wished for the plot to grip me more thoroughly than it did.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. Unfortunately I did not finish this one. Didn't grab my attention. Just not for me.

THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR THIS BOOK!

I agreed to read this book thinking it would be about environmental issues. I expected, on that basis, that there would be some political content and that there would be things in it that I would disagree with. But I was hoping that it might also include at least a few useful ideas for dealing with the very many environmental issues we are facing today.

While there are a few suggestions made for things that could have been done better, none of them are actionable for regular people without access to lots of money or special knowledge or equipment.

The main idea as far as I can trace it is that an interplanetary, or perhaps an interplanar group is monitoring Earth to see how well its people are taking care of the planet. Predictably they aren’t pleased and, after some quite adventurous disagreement among themselves they agree to petition their superiors for a hearing on the matter. As you can imagine, we don’t fare well, and it looks as though the entire population of Earth is about to be removed to a place they call “The Reservation” where they can take their stuff (not to include weapons; I was not sure about their tech). Apparently, the populations of several other worlds have already been relocated there, and it was threatened that after a couple of years these other people would find their way to the Earth people’s area and begin hunting them, presumably to eat.

But the book doesn’t really end.

Far and away the largest part of the book consists of a nearly endless series of political rants. Some, predictably, lambaste us for our many failings in the area of the environment. But a larger number are racist, anti-immigration, anti-feminist, anti-religious (several varieties of anti-religious, although no mention is made of any religions outside the Judeo-Christian-Islamic group), anti-business, anti-government (nobody has anything good to say about any form of government ever practiced on Earth), anti-medical, anti-scientific, anti-I don’t remember all the other things. Little is said in support of much of anything except Israel against the Arabs. Why so much time is spent on the Israel situation I don’t know, but this subject is brought up something like five times, more than any other single issue. However, they acknowledge that neither side can change, and no solution is proposed for the standoff – except the removal of everybody to “The Reservation.”

Almost everything humans have ever done since maybe before the evolution of modern man is denounced by somebody or other. Although most times and countries are criticized, Western Europe and, especially the United States, come in for the lion’s share of the abuse. A lot of what is said is true, although I suspect that some things are made up or only told in part. It is very depressing. You wish the commissioners would just go on and have everybody shot or nuked or something, even if that everybody includes you. Just to get it over with, so you won’t have to keep hearing about how bad you are.

Next to nothing is said about anything positive that anybody has ever done. No consideration is given to the many people everywhere who are trying to do the right thing as they see it as best they can. The Earth people are not given a chance to reply to all the allegations made against them. Some representatives are just coming in to do that when the book stops.

There are a lot of divisive ideas propounded here. These are well-articulated – some of them chillingly so – but propose no solutions for the problems they discuss other than to indicate that a lot of people they don’t like should just go away. Sometimes it is Earth people voicing these ideas; sometimes it is the monitors. But since in real life there aren’t any monitors, given the current problems of health and the economy and the anger that has built up around these issues, this is not the time for these ideas to be gaining more popularity than they already have.

I truly found this book to be disturbing. Because of that, I did not complete the reading of this book. It will definitely not be on a top selling list. It’s a bit wordy, without really saying much of anything. So, I will stop at this, due to the fact I don’t have any thing better to say about it!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book.
#NetGalley

Sorry to say, I did not finish this book. It started on a good note. It was engrossing and had pretty good world-building.
I started to have a problem with the fact that the characters seemed to develop special powers on the fly. However, I decided to hang tough to follow the story.
By Chapter 20 (28% into the book according to Kindle), it had turned into a treatise on Israel, Israelis, Palestine, the difference in world-view of Jews and Muslims.
I'm actually interested in the subject of the middle East, but not in the middle of a sci-fi/fantasy. I decided the rest of the book was just not worth my time.

The Earth Hearing by Daniel Plonix is a thorough look, through the eyes of fictional observers, at the state of earth's environment and the historical, political and societal conditions and events which have influenced it. The premise is that there are multiple dimensions/timelines where different instances of earth exist. Some "gods" appoint representatives who then recruit representatives, who then recruit observers to keep tabs on the state of the environment in each iteration, with the intention to step in and make corrections if conditions deteriorate.

The first twenty-five or thirty chapters held my interest. There was, in the first third of the book, a predominant focus on historical influences which was remarkably detailed and well-analyzed. As this analysis progresses, we are introduced to a conflict which seems to be keeping anticipated intervention from occurring according to schedule. Observers are missing. Representatives are blocked from communicating with their boss. Thus, alongside the environmental assessment, we have mystery and intrigue developing. It is a neat plot trick and kept my interest, even as the narrative crept into the area of pro-environment preachiness. We get to see different socio-political structures in other dimensions, as well as meeting some of the residents there.

By the time I got to chapter fifty, I found myself skimming large blocks of text. By chapter sixty, I was skimming pages. The problem was that the preachiness was far outweighing the story of the gods and their representatives and the system in place for protecting environments, not to mention that information from the early chapters was being repeated but with the analysis focussing more on social influences.

It was when the analysis of the same or similar events and situations shifted to looking at political influences that I threw in the towel. I admit that I was disappointed. The book was so darned *interesting* during the first half that I stayed up half the night reading it. If you love political analysis and discussion, you could probably keep going where I gave up.

When the representatives overcome their difficulties in communicating with the gods, a hearing is scheduled to review the situation. The results of the hearing will determine the fate of humanity.

I think that thre author could make their point in a lot less words while keeping the actual plot development at the forefront of the narrative. The plot eventually seemed to get lost in the posturing.. The story is well written and I could have stayed with it if the delivery from the soapbox had no so dominated.. Unfortunately, while I would have given the first thirty chapters four stars, I just can't find a way to rate a book I couldn't finish more than two stars.

I normally am very favorable in my ratings. This book is literary diarrhea. Nonstop ramblings that I tried to follow. Do not waste your time on this book.

Who remembers Andy Kaufman? He was crude, and offensive; but a skilled provocateur. Because I only saw him as such in his "comedy", I never knew if that was who he was or if it was an act, but I suspect more of the former than not. With a sample set of one, I don’t know if this is Plonix or an act. Some thought Kaufman brilliant. ... I didn’t. A couple of housekeeping notes: #1, I received a review copy of this from the publisher through NetGalley. And #2, while it is definitely fiction, given the nature of its premise and the extensive pedantry - Plonix seems to want to be didactic, but waxes overly pedantic ... lots of minutiae and lots of information - I’ll treat some of it as nonfiction.

Housekeeping #3: I am admittedly not good at “meaning”... sometimes I don’t get “it” even when painfully and explained to me - my brain doesn’t work that way. So me imparting meaning to what I’ve read is of little use to anyone else. Still, I wonder at what Plonix was at with his cast of characters. Having over the top zealots be the examples and later defenders... is the lesson be wary of your sample set? Even if an alien knows to not take one view as representative (not sure given the dialogue), how does one average out culture? How does one explain culture? I remember an experiment 42 years ago in which we were to describe something to someone else... a passport. The teacher properly poked back at every description offered: “...a brown paper...” - what’s brown? What’s paper? “Okay, a cellulose folio with a picture...” Well, you get the picture. Like the silly Star Trek Next Generation episode where the “universal translator” (as silly a science fiction concept as there is...even on Earth, there are languages that have three, four, six genders; every perturbation of subject-verb-object, a vocabulary of endless variation - though language family trees have some connections) breaks down and Picard has to communicate with a being who speaks in metaphors. Context is everything. How do you establish context? Well, there is some context in this book...and there are parts of questionable context.

The subtitle of the book is "A Novel of Ideas". Ideas can be good or bad and he peppers this with good...and litters it with bad. Be warned. You'll see the "hints" alluded to in the description - the good: oil based solar heat exchange, sustainable construction, solar cooking with focused parabolic mirrors (guess no late night cooking, though), a quick mention of permaculture, a couple of others. And you'll see a lot of bad ideas...much more on them unfortunately. This is part indictment, part polemic, part diatribe and (an unfortunately decreasing) part story. On that last bit, numerous vignettes seem to have little to do with the theme. There was a disconnected (mostly) extended scene on typesetting and fonts. (See minutiae.) Perhaps I am obtuse. (See Housekeeping #3, but I don't think it is my problem.) Then there was the gratuitous sex in the early parts that had no value added. Not sure what Plonix was going for but it came out of the blue like George R.R. Martin vulgar juvenile writing.

In a small respect, I have a feeling of mocking throughout this. Mocking religions, extremist mores, nationalism. And also a harsh criticism - calling evangelical Christianity a “death cult”...obviously to drive the point of the theme - dominion over the earth, which is merely a stopover to the good stuff later...devastation. But when Plonix devotes pages upon pages to a single sided discussion of ideal mating ages and attraction of adolescent girls, misogynistic and sexist treatment of women, ... I don't think, he's mocking. The agenda is pretty clear - no discussion... that treatment of women (several chapters, several parts)? No dissenting position. Nor is there any for any of the other "ideas" he presents - white supremacy and racism, antivaxxers ... I warned you about the bad. He loses any high ground for the didactic when all of his serious discussions are one-sided. All of the randomly assembled players of the moment are in absolute agreement on extreme positions? And his characters doing the discussion are caricatures of extremists. Or maybe what he wants them to be. One character thinks that "white Americans were some of the least racists [sic] people on the planet."

He says in one segment where one female character offers mild resistance "I don't care for hate speech." But the male counter says "'You really mean speech you hate, or at least speech that dissents form yours, don't you?' He was willing to bet she belonged to an ideological group that has engaged in actual hate speech,m and more than most. Social media abounded with their expletives, vitriol, and character assassination of those they have sought to marginalize." I wonder what Plonix is at here. I’ve seen extreme right wing (I don’t think they’re “right”, so I usually go with “wrongwing”) claim their opponents spew more vitriol than they, but this I’ve not seen - sure, the trolls come from both sides, but the not-left are far, far, far more hateful. And numerous. He names some leftish-wing media at one point, but not the Pravda of the right, Fox, or anything the Bwrongbarts of the world. Yep. Agenda.

A problem with Plonix’s story is that there is a lot of factual, pseudofactual, and made up material mixed together. Given the not inconsiderable factual information/ideas, careless or apathetic reader might take the latter two at face value and not realize what Plonix is doing. One reason it took me this long to read the book is because I kept checking what he was saying. A lot was true. Some was distorted, generously interpreted, and generously misinterpreted. I'll pick one: During the trial, the ... prosecutor mentions that cigarette manufacturers knew about polonium in tobacco and "...twenty years later, they found that acid wash is highly effective in removing polonium from tobacco leaves. However, they decided to keep things as they were - not wishing to risk tampering with the 'kick' or 'rush' sensation related to smoking." Well, actually... Not true. They wanted to avoid waking a "sleeping giant". In an article on the National Institute for Health's site (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509609/) you can see the wash removed aromatics, not “kick”, plus only 10-40% of surface contamination, nothing internal.

If you want good science fiction, this isn't it. If you are rusty on some ecological issues, it's a bit better. If you don't want to be hit with racism, sexism, antivaxxers, Gaza/Israel propaganda...might want to skip. If you want to see what the other side is thinking, have at it. I'm thinking Andy Kaufman.

On a positive note, I caught only a few typos for an ARC. And I did have an excellent takeaway: Plonix describes our genetic makeup (being evolved for the African plains and not for the modern world) with the term “caveman firmware”. Filing that.

Sorry, I gave up after 25 pages or so.

A lengthy lecture on farming and environmental techniques, delivered by a godlike super-human to a hitchhiking teenage dust bowl Okie girl was enough for me. The dialogue was incredibly stilted, with no attempt at all at an uneducated Panhandle dialect.

Even the gratuitous hints of sexual undercurrent couldn't keep me reading.

Life is too short, and there are too many good books to read to spend time with this lengthy dreck.