The End of Eternity
The story of temporal engineers who meta-regulate the history of humanity through the centuries, eliminating risk, adventure, and space travel in the process. One man rebels in order to save the existence of someone he loves, and in the end the time bureaucracy is destroyed for the sake of individuality and human achievement. The theme is the opposite of the Foundation stories, where the central planners and manipulators of humanity always dominate.
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17recommend
26mentions
24people
2009–2026years
69% recommend31% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- >> But I've started wondering if maybe I just liked Asimov's writing in particular.
A less commonly mentioned Asimov book that I really enjoyed and will read again is "The End of Eternity". If you've not read it, the ending is IMHO amazing and unique.
Last Question reminds me of it because of the style.
- Try "The End of Eternity" to see how Asimov dealt with female characters when they were there...
- I like the approach taken by several authors from Asimov in "The End of Eternity" to Star Trek or Loki on TV: Time travel is not allowed except for entities that live outside of time in a way that is not meaningfully perceived by anyone else; When unsanctioned travel happens, it is easy to detect and retroactively suppress by these entities. Of course this can all be refuted or at least declared a transient state at most by the mess Time Cop is; Or how things end up in any of the other stories.
- Makes me think of
https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/01/detecting-time-trave...
And also Asimov's classic End of Eternity
https://ia800500.us.archive.org/13/items/calibre_library_68....
where a time traveller who overshoots his target and winds up too far in the past posts a classified on March 28, 1932 with a picture of a mushroom cloud and the title
As literature I think (1) it reads like Chandler, (2) reads like a non-genre writer imitating the genre such as E.B. White in The Morning of the Day they Did It (who even scoops Rachel Carson)All (the) Talk Of (the) Markethttps://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1950-02-25/flipbook...
I'd say real genre writers such as Heinlein, Asimov, and Doc Smith were always more careful how they used neologisms and didn't just drop them out rapid fire in search of affect. But you sure see that in parodic material such as Calvin and Hobbes (which would parodize Chandler and sci-fi)
- Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir (top recommendation of the year)
Sanderson's Skyward Flight series (a few things came out this year, it's young-adult but thoughtfully enjoyable and easy to consume).
I read a few Asimov's this year I hadn't gotten around to, but the two that really stood out were 'The Gods Themselve's and 'The End of Eternity'.
(I primarily read to sci-fi/fantasy)
- This is from someone who is woefully under-read, and only remembered my teenage love of sci-fi in the last couple of years. I thought similarly for several years, that fiction was a waste of time. But then I realized I was scrolling through Twitter every day, and that felt like eating french fries as a meal: lacking substance.
Reading long form prose increases your attention span and the shape of your thoughts.
Reading fiction stimulates the imagination, which opens up the space of ideas that the mind can generate.
Fiction is a compressed simulation of life. By reading good fiction one lives more life.
Fiction is a cultural touchstone. New relationships open up when there are shared understandings of stories.
Good, hard science fiction is a record of what some of the most imaginative scientific thinkers (not necessarily scientists) have pondered. Again, mind expanding.
Science fiction stimulates curiosity by asking "what if"?
We all have to engage in lower energy activities and "waste time". Watching documentaries is a "waste of time" for someone not engaged in professional research on the relevant subject. Do you use Reddit? That's a waste of time. Having a science fiction book next to the toilet will leave you feeling more nourished after you've done your business (I look forward to using the bathroom when I know there's a delicious book waiting for me that I only read there).
Dead tree books are better for someone who has a hard time reading. Studies show there's a big difference in retention between words on a screen and words in print. Dead tree books also benefit from being "things" that can be left in the intended reading location, and give a sense of progress and of conquering when completed.
The tactile nature of flipping pages and of breaking in a paperback is lovely. The cover art attracts the eyes to the book.
Reading a book is a different action than looking at your phone or computer, and it has a different set of feelings, emotions, thought patterns. There's the smell of a printed book.
I love Asimov. I, Robot is easy because it's a collection of very short stories, but it risks being seen as shallow. The End of Eternity is considered Asimov's best novel, and it's not too long. I hear good things about The Last Question. Foundation is lovely.
Be right back, going to buy more Asimov.
