Quiet Earth

The Quiet Earth

First edition
Author	Craig Harrison
Language	English
Publisher	Hodder & Stoughton
Publication date	1981
Publication place	New Zealand
ISBN	0-340-26507-8
OCLC	15561928

The Quiet Earth is a 1981 science fiction novel by New Zealand writer Craig Harrison. The novel was adapted into a 1985 New Zealand science fiction film of the same name directed by Geoff Murphy.^[1]

The 2013 Penguin edition includes an introduction by Bernard Beckett.^[2]

Plot summary

John Hobson, a geneticist involved in a project concerned with manipulating DNA, awakes in a New Zealand hotel after a nightmare in which he is falling. His wristwatch has stopped at 6:12, along with all other clocks. He finds that all animals, fauna, and humans have abruptly disappeared following a phenomenon he dubs "the Effect".

After extensively searching for any sign of life, Hobson travels to the research unit where he worked to reactivate dormant genes in humans and animals using high-frequency sound waves and radiation. Hobson finds his supervisor, Perrin, in a radiation chamber, dead at the controls of the sound wave machine. The machine appears to have short-circuited, but there is no evidence indicating how Perrin died. Hobson retrieves a box holding Perrin's papers and begins journeying to Wellington, hoping to find survivors or clues. En route to Rotorua, Hobson sees a creature, seemingly a dog-calf hybrid, in his headlights. Terrified, Hobson drives off questioning whether it was real.

After an unsuccessful search, Hobson nearly attempts suicide. When he finds living fish in a stream, Hobson concludes that the Effect did not penetrate water. He is startled by a noise across Lake Taupō. Following it, Hobson finds his path blocked by a truck and is found by a gunman while navigating around. The gunman is Apirana Maketu, a Māori soldier in the New Zealand Army. "Api" woke up at his barracks in Waiouru to find the base deserted and later set out to find survivors. While searching, Api heard the same sound that Hobson heard. Believing it to be a car, Api laid the roadblock to catch anyone coming south.

Api believes that something hostile is loose. He is both relieved and worried that Hobson has experienced the same entity. The two men seem to already know one other, but neither can account for this, as they have never encountered each other before. They speculate about the possibility of other survivors. Api posits that those underground and underwater might have survived. Hobson recalls the worm, but notes a complete lack of rats, surmising that only animals below a certain size have escaped the Effect underground, invalidating the possibility of human survivors.

At the capital, Api and Hobson settle in a hotel and hunt for survivors. Hobson plans to run tests to determine the nature of the Effect and why he and Api survived, though this and their search are both unsuccessful. Api goes skin-diving for shellfish and pretends to drown as a joke. Hobson reacts unconsciously by holding Api's head underwater. There is a moment of hostility when Api breaks free, resolved when Hobson explains that his son, who was autistic, drowned in a bathtub. Both men realise that Hobson is not in complete control of his actions.

Three weeks after the Effect, Hobson is left alone while Api finds a new car. Hobson enters Api's bedroom and finds photographs of him during the Vietnam War, posing with the mutilated corpses of Viet Cong. Hobson believes that Api is a psychopath. The relationship between the two men deteriorates. Feeling helpless, Hobson plans to kill Api with sleeping pills.

After searching for a boat to take them to the South Island, during which both men experience an attack of dread from the "force", Api takes Hobson for a joyride in his Lotus Elite. They crash into a woman along the path, and she is taken to the hotel while critically injured. The men argue while the woman's condition worsens. Hobson senses the unseen force again, emanating from the empty city.

Api studies the Bible, and later wakes Hobson to tell him that he has solved the clock enigma. 6:12 relates to the Number of the Beast, 666, and to Revelation 6:12, which discusses men hiding from the face of God. Hobson does not believe this and holds a hidden gun on Api. The woman dies, sending Api into hysterics. After another argument, a battle ensues. Hobson kills Api after he gives up.

Breaking open Perrin's box to read the retrieved documents, Hobson realises his colleagues considered him unbalanced and kept him under surveillance. Perrin believed that Hobson's DNA was altered due to radiation, causing his child's autism. Hobson believes his work may have created the Effect.

In a flashback, Perrin seizes upon an accident with the sound wave/radiation machine following an accident created by Hobson. Perrin charges him with negligence, cementing Hobson's suspicions about the experiments and Perrin's motives. Hobson remembers sabotaging the machine to temporarily put it out of action and ruin Perrin's chance to use it. He then took what he believed to be a fatal dose of sleeping pills on the night before the Effect. As he reads Perrin's notes, Hobson realises that this sabotage almost certainly caused the Effect, but he subconsciously altered his own memory to hide this from himself.

This ability to edit his own recollections, and to take refuge in a kind of mental "super-reality", is automatic. Hobson finally accepts the guilt for letting his son drown; allowing him to die was his way of "committing suicide", believing his son's disability mirrored his emptiness. Hobson questions his reality and whether he is in Hell. With the death of humanity on his hands, Hobson jumps from the hotel. While falling, he wakes up in the hotel room from the beginning. Recovering from the nightmare of falling, which is all he can remember, he notices that his wristwatch has stopped at 6:12.

Reception and legacy

Following the book's publication, The Quiet Earth was lauded and is widely considered to be one of Harrison's best works.^[3] The book was later shortlisted for the New Zealand Book of the Year award. The Quiet Earth was later adapted into a film of the same name in 1985, directed by Geoff Murphy.^[4]

In 2013, the book was republished by Text Publishing as part of their Text Classics series, along with an introduction by New Zealand writer Bernard Buckett.

References