Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Unavailable
The End of Eternity: A Novel
Unavailable
The End of Eternity: A Novel
Unavailable
The End of Eternity: A Novel
Ebook274 pages5 hours

The End of Eternity: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this ebook

One of Isaac Asimov's SF masterpieces, this stand-alone novel is a monument of the flowering of SF in the twentieth century. It is widely regarded as Asimov's single best SF novel.

Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a member of the elite of the future. One of the few who live in Eternity, a location outside of place and time, Harlan's job is to create carefully controlled and enacted Reality Changes. These Changes are small, exactingly calculated shifts in the course of history, made for the benefit of humankind. Though each Change has been made for the greater good, there are also always costs.


During one of his assignments, Harlan meets and falls in love with Noÿs Lambent, a woman who lives in real time and space. Then Harlan learns that Noÿs will cease to exist after the next Change, and he risks everything to sneak her into Eternity.

Unfortunately, they are caught. Harlan's punishment? His next assignment: Kill the woman he loves before the paradox they have created results in the destruction of Eternity.


At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 5, 2010
ISBN9781429970945
Unavailable
The End of Eternity: A Novel
Author

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was the Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America, the founder of robot ethics, the world’s most prolific author of fiction and non-fiction. The Good Doctor’s fiction has been enjoyed by millions for more than half a century.

Read more from Isaac Asimov

Related to The End of Eternity

Related ebooks

Science Fiction For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for The End of Eternity

Rating: 4.0504999999999995 out of 5 stars
4/5

604 ratings36 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    When time travel was discovered in the 24th century, it became apparent that events could be manipulated both in the past and the future. The responsibility to make corrections and alter time fell under the purview of the Eternals, a group comprised of Computers, Life-Plotters, Technicians, Maintenance, Timers, and Cubs. The Computers are the highest-ranking members of Eternity and form the Allwhen Council.The eldest among them, Computer Twissell, takes under his wing a prodigy named Andrew Harlan and promotes him from Cub to Technician, to the chagrin of certain others such as Computer Finge, who targets Harlan and attempts to thwart him whenever possible. At the same time, Finge takes a young, gorgeous woman named Noÿs from the 482nd century as his personal assistant, but Harlan suspects there is more to their relationship.Meanwhile, Harlan is assigned a cub named Cooper and is tasked with training him on Earth history during the “Primitive” age just before time travel. Neither Harlan nor Cooper is immediately certain why the cub was directed by Computer Twissell to study under Harlan.Despite his attempts to avoid Noÿs, Harlan begins to fall for her and attempts to save her from a change that the Allwhen Council has approved for her century—a change that threatens to remove Noÿs from history and replace her with an analogous version of herself that could be a completely different woman, one with no feelings at all for Harlan.Desperate, Harlan begins to break the rules of Eternity by smuggling Noÿs to the 100,000th century, a time that the Eternals have barely explored and mankind seems to be mostly absent from Earth. Knowing that Finge and the council have probably discovered his plan, Harlan sets out to destroy the original discovery of time travel and the formation of Eternity before escaping into the future to be with Noÿs forever.However, Twissell reveals a secret about Cooper that threatens to undermine Harlan’s machinations. Twissell convinces Harlan to help him undo the damage Harlan caused—until Noÿs reveals an even deeper plot that shakes the foundation of Harlan’s existence…The End of Eternity is yet another splendid exhibit of Asimov’s remarkable worldbuilding talents. The detail involved in manipulating time and its effects were impressive.While most of Asimov’s characters in general are afforded little in the way of development and background, at least Twissell reveals a tarnished past that puts him on common ground with Harlan. The tension and pace remain fairly tight once Harlan begins plotting and scheming against Finge and the plot contains sufficient twists to maintain suspense.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "The End of Eternity" is a good, early take on time travel and what would later be coined as the Butterfly Effect. Asimov really flexes his intellectual muscles in this one.If you read a fair amount of sci-fi from this era, you come to expect very little from the writing of female characters. Even adjusting for the period I found this book exceptionally misogynistic, and off-putting because of it. BUT Asimov redeems himself by the end with a fantastic criticism of male paternalism and conservatism.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Presents some interesting ideas on time travel and reshaping history. Well thought out, 50's style. I like the Foundation series better.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov was a reread from my teenage years when the author was a favourite of mine.I've always found the subject of time travel compelling and here, Asimov creates a lot of tension in this sparse 1955 novel that has become a classic of its genre. I won't retell the story here, but rather share my opinion that the mechanics of time travel are well thought out, as are the social constructs. Our "hero" is rather vapid throughout and I enjoyed the nicely conceived twist that puts the whole plot in place. The characters are rather one dimensional and definitely take second place to the thought provoking description of the future society and its role in controlling human destiny.Not your average time travel novel. Recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I first read this book as a teenager in the 60s, so almost 50 yeas ago. Great Science Fiction, great writing. And a structure; with a beginning, a middle, and end. So much more modern fiction just seems to stop or appear to imitate a television series episode - often like modern music it is all middle or just noise. Now I need to re-read the Robot series. Looking forward to that.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Though most of the book felt stuck in the gender roles of the '50s, it executes a couple of surprising and ahead-of-its-time twists at the very end. It's also a bit better written than most of Asimov's longer fiction, with a handful of characters who are actually characters and not just plot devices or tools of exposition. The ideas are interesting, and the tension in the plot is well executed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This may be the book that created the idea of Time Police.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Asimov might be my favorite author. Very few books give me such a thrill when it comes to any kind of fiction. His trademarks are here - romance, a fast plot, small cast of characters, huge scope, big feel, twists turns and a conclusion that ended up giving me goosebumps. As is the case with most time travel stories, there's a ton of paradoxes but Asimov manages to guide most of the way without losing me. There's certainly some antiquated language but the book was written 65 years ago and it's so incredible to see such modern themes so long ago. There's a ton of themes here - class, nuclear power, war, history, psychology, regret...all the good stuff that I loved so much about the Robots/Foundation is present here. Short and sweet.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    If you have read and enjoyed Asimov’s Foundation series, you will almost certainly like “The End of Eternity.” The scope, the suspense, the wonder are all here. On the other hand, if you have not read the Foundation series, then “The End of Eternity” is a great place to start since it is in some sense antecedent to the events of the Foundation books. Incidentally, if you are looking for a better understanding of the internal chronology of Asimov’s fictional universe, you can find an ordered list of the books here.Because “The End of Eternity” is concerned with the human psyche and social condition more than technological ornamentation, reading it today, decades after publication, still feels fresh – there are relatively few anachronisms, and none so jarring as to veer into ridiculous and detract from one’s enjoyment of the plot. I enjoyed “The End of Eternity” for much the same reasons I have savored Babylon 5 TV series and the Matrix films. What makes each of these stories so compelling is the deep dive into big, existential themes. Until we are no longer mystified by the concepts of time or infinity or human “destiny”, “The End of Eternity” will remain interesting and exciting.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Andrew Harlan bothered me with the way he jumped to conclusions and then proceeded to interpret everything based upon those unjustified conclusions. However, I loved the premise and Asimov gives the reader some unexpected twists in the final quarter of the book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a fascinating book! It is the first Asimov novel that I have read and, to be honest, it will not be my last. The story is intense. Although the description is limited and brief in nature-- which was not my typical forté, I still thought that the momentum (the impetus) of the story drove everything forward at such a pace that it did not matter as much. Great book. Also, a magnificent ending.4 stars. Recommended for sci-fi lovers!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Yet another time travel story. It does sometimes feel like everything's been done before in this sub-genre, and I was disappointed to be reading the same paradoxes again, but perhaps Asimov is one who started it. This reminds me a bit of Blake Crouch's "Recursion," but with a little less action, tighter editing, equally flat but less PC characters, and, in the end, higher stakes. I enjoyed it. The story would have been stronger, though, had the hugely profound, galaxy-spanning moral introduced in the last ten pages been thematically present, or at least foreshadowed, throughout the story. As it is, almost out of nowhere we get Asimov preaching to us. He isn't a bad preacher, but it still feels artificial.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    You might think from reading the plot summary on the book's back cover (I got this originally from the local library) that this 1955 novel is the inspiration for Harlan Ellison's original (and Star Trek's modified) "The City on the Edge of Forever" (1967), but it's too different for that. They're both great, however.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    There is a bit of arcane time travel vocabulary, and the mechanisms bog the story down. However, it moves and kept me reading. Plus, there's romance. I look forward to seeing the film they are supposedly making of this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Andrew Harlan is an Eternal - a man living outside the normal timeline. He is a Technician in an organisation called Eternity. His job is to make small changes in the real world in order to remove undesirable futures. He has been tasked with teaching an unusual recruit his hobby of Primitive History - the history of life before Eternity came into being and before the reach of the time machines, called kettles. He is also tasked with observation of the 482nd century reality in the company of a non Eternal woman, a task he finds disturbing, especially when he finds himself in her bed. Eternity is no place for women it seems, and Harlan turns to criminal acts in order to spend more time with her. But then events show that Harlan is not completely in control of his own destiny, and that Eternity itself is at stake.This is the third time I have read this book, and each time I have found it unputdownable. Some of the technology is a little dated, but then the story was written in the early 1950s so some allowances can be made. There are some unanswered questions about how the realm of Eternity can exist, which are conveniently hidden behind Harlan's lack of knowledge. But the concept of time travel and the consequent paradoxes are brilliantly conceived and exploited. And it ends with several nice twists. This is a great work by one of the great masters of SF.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    If there was a flaw in Eternity, it involved women. He had known the flaw for what it was from almost his first entrance in to Eternity, but he felt it personally only that day he had first met Noÿs. From that moment it had been an easy path to this one, in which he stood false to his oath as an Eternal and to everything in which he had believed.An interesting take on time travel, in which the Eternals who change time for the greater good of humanity can never go home once they are recruited into Eternity, since subsequent changes affecting home century could have resulted in them never having existed. The annoying protagonist Anderw Harlan behaves nonsensically, but it more or less makes sense in the end.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I’m just going to say it: aside from a few select novels and stories, Asimov annoys the hell out of me and is, I think, one of science fiction’s most overrated authors ever. There! Start stoning me now. I’m prepared. I know I have blasphemed. I have read a hell of a lot of Asimov, including all of the Foundation novels and all of the Robot novels, including the extra Robot-inspired books, as well as other books, and I’m always astonished – and always mentioning in my reviews – at what a below average writer I think Asimov was, particularly as a young writer. He barely knew grammatical rules, such as how to use transitions. He knew practically nothing about character development, little about plot development, and wrote the absolute worst dialogue of any type of literature of any author I have ever read anywhere, and I have read tens of thousands of books over the course of my life! The WORST dialogue ever! I’m not joking. The most wooden, stilted, unconvincing, academic, formal, boring, inauthentic excuse for dialogue I’ve ever seen in any novel form anywhere. I have three college degrees and have 13 years of university study. I’ve published 15 books of my own. My own poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and criticism have appeared in magazines, newspapers, zines, peer reviewed journals, online magazines and journals, and elsewhere in hundreds and hundreds of sources in dozens of countries in numerous languages and one of my books was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. I have taught literature and writing at three universities and colleges. I feel like I have some credentials. I feel confident when I say that I feel that there are literally dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of science fiction writers who are better writers and perhaps even scientifically superior to Asimov. His legacy is vastly inflated. But that’s my opinion, and as has been pointed out regularly in my negative reviews of his books, my opinion is worth shit regarding his books.All that said, I’m going to skip the main synopsis of this book, other than to say it’s about time travel and is fairly innovative, especially for such an early time travel book, having been published in 1955. Pretty original, and I appreciated that. What I want to point out instead is something that I’ve pointed out for some previous books and something that several other reviewers have pointed out for this book, although to my total shock, not very many people at all. Asimov, the total misogynistic pig, is in top form in creating one female character in this book whose primary purpose is to be the sexual crush and ultimate seducer (because, after all, she IS a female, and that’s what they do to good men, right?) of our brave and good protagonist, Andrew Harlan, the Eternal. The beautiful, non-Eternal, Noys Lambent, a secretary or assistant of some sort, because after all, that’s what women do, aside from the scientist in I, Robot, creates a conflict with Andrew because women aren’t supposed to be part of the good old boy’s club in Eternity, his world, meaning he’s never gotten laid, I guess, so when she makes herself available on her world to him, he goes for it, initially feeling a little guilty, then goes for it with gusto and is drawn into her sinful female web, allowing Eternity to possibly be destroyed. Nice. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Asimov write entire novels with either no female characters or just one or two minor background characters who comb their hair in their bedrooms (Foundation, anyone?). Sometimes there’s a more major female character, but they’re either helpless and dependent on a strong male lead (robot novels) or are seductresses (robot novels). To Asimov, women are evil and/or dangerous. Yet somehow he was married. Was he merely a product of his times, was he secretly gay, or was he a stereotypical engineering/science nerd who was an academic social misfit, scared to death of females, yet strangely married to one? Or none of the above? Why did he hate women so much? Yet why in his later books, like the Prelude to Foundation books, did he write in strong female characters? Did he actually grow with the times? Did his attitudes actually change? Maybe they did. Maybe there was hope. Maybe he was a 1940s/50s-era misogynistic product of his time who didn’t know any better than the Nuclear Era Virgin/Whore Syndrome and who wrote that into his novels. If so, fairly pathetic and that goes to show what a weak writer he truly was, backing up my original claim. But then, he wouldn’t have been the only one, so fair’s fair, I suppose.In any event, I’m one of the very few to level this accusation against him regarding this or any book. The critics seem evenly split between genders, while the five star fans also seem evenly split between genders. In other words, just as many women love this book as men and apparently most women have no problems with him writing his only female character into the book as a stereotypical seductress whore intent upon making a male protagonist trip up and destroy Eternity. Apparently, women readers have no problems with this. While I find that astonishing, again, I am in the vast minority. I want to give this book a low rating, but at the same time, it was highly original, so that deserves a higher rating, so in fairness, I’m going to compromise and give it three stars. I think that’s a fair rating, given my criticisms versus its originality. Recommended for early sci fi time travel originality. Not recommended for fine quality literature.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is one of my favorite novels by Isaac Asimov, and I think underrated among his works, perhaps because it's a one-off, not something that ties into his Foundation or Robot series. I remember the outline of the story even decades after my first read, which is a sign of its ability to have an impact. What particularly stands out is the world-building. This is as intriguing, imaginative and well-thought out a world than any you can find in Asimov. Eternity is an organization that holds itself out of time. The "Eternals" are from almost all the centuries of man's post-industrial existence--and control and continually tweak that existence, altering reality without the knowledge or consent of those in "Time."Andrew Harlan is a technician in Eternity, helping to make those changes and quite self-satisfied in his role--until Lambent Noys throws a wrench into the gears of his mind and heart. Noys, even if she fits a fairly traditional role in the book, is still one of Asimov's stronger and most memorable female characters. She's more than she seems and in the end Asimov delivers through her quite the critique of patriarchy and paternalism, particularly through the growth of Harlan, one of his most misogynistic characters. I found myself amused by this passage with its reversal of the usual assumptions of women's impact upon history:Women almost never qualified for Eternity because, for some reason he did not understand (Computers might, but he himself certainly did not), their abstraction from Time was from ten to a hundred times as likely to distort Reality as was the abstraction of a man.And there's something about the themes and conclusion of this one I find very satisfying. Like all of Asimov's writing, it's great at making you think--but this also had heart.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I didn't enjoy this one as much as Asimov's I, Robot, but it is still pretty clever and delivers a number of twists I didn't see coming. The ending also has a thought-provoking philosophy that is summed up in this very spoilery quote (if you haven't read the book, read at your own peril):"In ironing out the disasters of Reality, Eternity rules out the triumphs as well...Can you understand that in averting the pitfalls and miseries that beset man, Eternity prevents men from finding their own bitter and better solutions, the real solutions that come from conquering difficulty, not avoiding it?"
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A solid time travel story. Asimov lives up to his reputation as a journeyman writer propelled by ideas more than plot or character. I was surprised to find Asimov does have a knack for the emotionally resonant situation, though his prose remains wooden and his characters flat. I accepted these emotionally key scenes as fact, rather than rejecting them as unpersuasive or not ringing true, as I might with another author. Asimov doesn't persuade me of the emotional truth he attempts to portray, or explore the nuanced thoughts and behaviors attending such situations. Rather, he identifies an important emotional fact tied to his premise, and depicts a simple scene or interaction between characters to capture that emotional truth. In this way he leaves to the reader the work of filling out the scene with emotionally believable detail.The End of Eternity largely avoids the genre's trope of paradox or logical contradiction: individuals meeting themselves in a past incarnation, killing an ancestor, and so forth. Asimov does address it obliquely as part of the logic or method of the Eternals, who strive to perfect civilization by pruning out undesirable inventions (Asimov refers to nuclear energy, but mostly interstellar travel) or macro social behavior (war, disease, some caste developments). There is also a very deliberate near-miss encounter between two incarnations of Andrew Harlan, but Asimov uses this to evoke the horror in Harlan more than to explore the contradictions, and the impression is that Asimov wasn't here interested in that aspect of time travel. Instead, he neatly ties together various ideas related to time travel and (less interestingly) the unintended consequences of social engineering.Concepts and developments linked to the Eternals and the mechanics of time travel:* Eternals are humans who live outside of Reality, insulated from the regular flow of time and cause / effect through the working of temporal fields. These fields constitute both a location and a time, and leave the impression of sterile hallways / bureaucracy from which the Eternals work their social engineering. There is a central logical contradiction or implication here which ends up being central to the denouement, Asimov neatly leaves it unaddressed though not hidden, the reader can figure it out or not.* Eternals fall into a caste system: Maintenance, Observers, Technicians, Computers. They are all men. Technicians, because they directly intervene in other time realities with the express purpose of changing them (which necessarily involves altering or even eliminating hundreds if not thousands of individuals affected by the change), are reviled and outcaste by other Eternals. An example of Asimov fixing upon an emotionally resonant truth though conveyed in melodramatic prose, and one which proves central to both his character Harlan and the plot.* The science of time engineering is finding the smallest change necessary (Minimum Necessary Change) to effect the desired downstream reality. Time is thought to be characterized by inertia, just as energy is. The familiar concept of a time circle, which is linked to paradox but which Asimov uses to imagine the science or probability of time engineering. Overall, clear links to the Foundation's concept of Future History and probability. Interestingly Asimov speculates that changes to women are more likely to have larger or more serious downstream consquences, primarily as they bear children and so are linked directly to more individuals.* Eternity (the temporal fields in which the Eternals insulate themselves) extend from the 28th Century and beyond. Prior to the 28th is Primitive Time: Eternals do no social engineering in these times / realities. The Hidden Centuries begin at 100,000th, times for which the Eternals have established temporal fields in which to operate, but are unable to enter / manipulate the "realities" corresponding to those sections of Eternity. These concepts end up having a role in the plot, but it is perhaps most interesting that such things are postulated at all. Is Primitive Time logically unavoidable? Is it a factor of energy needed for the Eternals to establish sections of Eternity? And eventually, Harlan is actually "blocked" (by whom or what influence is part of the resolution of the story) from visiting the Hidden Centuries, whereas previously those sections of Eternity linked to the Hidden Centuries were accessible.* Intertemporal trade: exchange of goods and raw materials between centuries (supervised by the Eternals).* Executions of Eternals by other Eternals are effected by placing them into realities which would kill them but leave no evidence for anyone in that reality, e.g. a crashing airliner.* Nova Sol as energy source: temporal fields are stipulated as requiring vast amounts of energy, and Asimov imagines the Eternals tapping into Earth's sun as it goes nova. Essentially borrowing energy from the future.* When interacting with people in a specific time, Eternals should not speak the word "reality" for fear of instigating unintended consequences across time and history. Somewhat at odds with the concept of intertemporal trade: with whom in each time do the Eternals liaison, and how are these interactions insulated from the same effects as are feared by simply referring explicitly to the fact any given decade may end up being altered or even pruned at some "later" point?A fine example of Golden Age science fiction.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The End of Eternity, by Isaac Asimov, was first published in 1955. It is a very interesting time travel novel that deals with Eternity. People in this book do not live forever. However, the book focuses on a powerful group and their fascinating technological and scientific environment known as Eternity, which keeps the world in harmony and fixes any problems that might cause seriously deleterious problems. Eternity workers have the ability to travel in time throughout much of the history and future of civilization on Earth. Eternity workers travel both back in time and forward in time, and use their scientific knowledge and skills to determine how the past affects the present and future. They also use their scientific knowledge to determine the “Minimum Necessary Change” that is required to adjust the past to correct problems in the future. This book presents some rather complex scientific explanations of time travel issues and paradoxes, which could be somewhat discouraging for some readers. However, the book focuses on one particular Eternity technician and his struggles to cope with his own concerns and the expectations of his superiors. He becomes involved in desperate actions that could bring an end to Eternity. It is a wonderful story that challenges the reader to think about the weighty decisions that are made by Eternity workers to keep the world running harmoniously, and the consequences of making wrong decisions about taking or not taking actions. This is a powerful and rewarding story by one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time. I recommend it to any thoughtful reader.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The End of Eternity follows Andrew, a technician who makes small changes in the world to supposedly create a better future.

    It started a little slow for where it was going, but overall, I really enjoyed it. Women weren't shown in a very good light, which I will chalk up to the times not only of Asimov but in the reality in which Andrew was living.

    Like I said, it started slow, but the last 4 or 5 chapters packed quite a punch. Lots of twists and turns, and very exciting. Only one thing that happened early on in the novel suggested what was to come. I would have preferred it to be spread out a little more, but what can one do.

    I especially like the shout-out to the Foundation series. The books really can go together in a way.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There's not much in the way of story, characters, or prose. But the set up and the science fiction ideas are excellent - strong enough to keep me awake at night thinking about them.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Awesome Assimov tale regarding time travel. Loved the book, and a movie is in the works!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a prequel to the galactic empire novels. Presents the idea that a benevolent powerful state would stiffle our future. Here the state is eternity, an all-powerful band that exists outside of time. They set themselves up as guardians of time, eliminating suffering. But in this world we are at our best when we don't monitor ourselves. Bah, I say. We are at our best when we do monitor ourselves.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Reading 50 year old science fiction is an entertaining experience. Not only do you have to envision the future with the author, you have to view it through a dated lens.Asimov's The End of Eternity is a great example of classic science fiction. You get an archetypal mystery/love story mix set in a world of time-travel.Asimov's science-fiction creativity is superb. How, for example, did he think up a time-travel system energized by the power of our sun in the distant future as it goes nova? The paradoxes that are always explored in time-travel books are well worked into the mystery.Unfortunately, the character development is as bad as the science-fiction is good. These people feel like little more than artificial devices invented to carry the plot forward—which, of course, they are.If you're feeling nostalgic, this book provides a few interesting hours of escape.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is the first novel I've read by Asimov, and I was very impressed. It tells a fascinatingly human story of desire, betrayal, revenge, and a sort of redemption. Asimov conveyed the complicated mechanics of the fictional science--which were so integral to the plot--in a way that was reasonably easy to follow and didn't feel like a lecture. The complexities of the temporal dynamics were an important part of the mystery elements of the plot, and it was fun to try to stay a step ahead of the protagonist. As I would expect from Asimov's reputation, the story brought up many ethical questions, both of the large, philosophical kind and the small, human variety. All in all a very fun and thought-provoking read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the best of the non-series Asimov novels. In this one, he posits time travel, but time travel that is rigidly controlled by a group called Eternity. Eternity's mission is to minimize humanity's suffering by carrying out "reality changes" that push history in the "right" direction. A young time patrolman named Andrew Harlan gets involved in a time change, then gets involved with a lovely woman (strictly against the rules) and then finds himself involved in something much bigger. Fascinating novel that plays with the paradoxes and possibilities of time travel, which remaining a good and engrossing novel in the process.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I believe that this was the first science fiction novel that I ever read, some 34 years ago. I loved it at the time, and while I have remembered only a few of the basic plot details, my vague but very positive memories of the book have left it high on my list of all time science fiction favorites.So, one of my reading resolutions for 2010 is to dedicate a decent portion of my reading time to going back and revisiting old favorites, and I decided somewhat reluctantly to give this one a try. I say somewhat reluctantly because the last couple of Asimov novels I have read have left me disappointed (especially The Robots of Dawn, which I found almost comically bad). And on some level I felt that it might be better to preserve a distant but very fond memory than find out that, to a more mature reader, the book no longer had much to offer.I am happy to report that I still like this book a lot. It features clever ideas, a fast pace, and the puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle plotting that Asimov always seems to do well. I found the characters more believable than I often find in this author’s books. There was even a surprisingly large amount of irrational behavior (engineering and scientific bents notwithstanding). And the token female Noys proves much more than the simple lust object that she first appears (I can’t say more than that without getting into spoiler territory). The ending offers a big surprise which is really quite affirming.After this, I think maybe I will retackle the original Foundation Trilogy, too.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A novel along the lines of Anderson's Time Patrol. What happens when an Eternal, outside of the stream of time and in charge of keeping the future going smoothly, gets caught up in his own personal interests? A bit of a departure from Asimov's usual.