Customer Reviews

Eternity

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Eternity is one of those rare examples of contemporary science fiction that sustains interest as both a story and as science fiction. Its ancestors include the best works by Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. If you wander through the science fiction section of most book stores,an avalanche of second rate works penned under the inspiration of television or movie sequels dominates the racks. Bear's Eternity is a superb antidote to the latest Trekkie or Star Wars drivel. The story commands your interest from start to finish and raises the same kind of profound questions Clarke addressed in Childhood's End. When an author dares to be profound or ask ultimate questions in science fiction, he or she must be good or the effect is ludicrous, painful, and pathetic. Bear's work is insightful, compelling, and great fun.

I enjoyed this deep trip into The Way. I enjoyed how Bear explored the ramifications of The Way's existence and how mundane humans and future humans deal with it. It didn't have the same awe factor as Eon, though. This is probably because we've already been spoiled to the big reveal, about the nature of The Stone, The Way and the people aboard it. It was fresh when I first read it. My take may also be tempered by the fact that I first read Eon in high school and I didn't come to read Eternity until 15+ years later.

In any case, I did enjoy it. Bear spends more time exploring the characters he introduced in Eon, which was very welcome. His first foray with these characters was a little flat, but Eternity makes up for it by giving them dimensions and nuances.

If you read Eon, you should definitely read Eternity.

After reading Eon, I could not wait to get my hands on the follow-up.. . and in some ways "Eternity" came through better than I hoped.

There are some really clever twists and plot threads in this novel, but in the end it fades away rather than fulfilling the promise of the first book. There is also some great writing through the first two thirds of this book, but you may feel the last third leaves you wanting more. Great ideas abound in this novel, but they never seem to reach the climax the reader anticipates.

There is plenty of room for yet another sequel, but the story seems to work hard to quickly tie up any loose ends, just in case Greg Bear decides not to go beyond Eternity. If you liked Eon, read this novel, but be prepared a different intensity level.

While I initially had mixed feelings about Bear's Eon, I have to admit that certain points of his world did capture my interest and I did feel the desire to read more. In this light, Eternity is excellent as it shows us what happens to most of the important characters after the final events in Eon. In contrast though, the book was extremely slow to start and seemed mainly concerned about the characters attitudes and feelings as long passages were devoted to personal insight and environmental descriptions. Only after about 1/3 into the novel do things become much more interesting and the conclusion is definitely thought provoking. Overall, I would recommend fans of Eon to give this book a chance as it seems a fitting conclusion to the story, even if a bit long winded.

I've not read Eternity, but I just finished reading Eon. I don't think the Publisher's Weekly review is correct. In Eon, Konrad Korzenowski is the designer of the Way, not Pavel Mirsky. Mirsky is a soldier.

Sequel to best selling hard sci-fi novel Eon, set some forty years later. Following the Sundering (the separation of the Way from the asteroid starship Thistledown) 40 years earlier, Earth and the Hexamon (the future society of humanity) are not getting along. The `Old Natives' of Earth resent being treated like children by their descendants from the future, and in the long aftermath of the Death (the nuclear war that decimated Earth) want to be left alone to their own devices to recover as they see fit, which the Hexamon will not allow. Meanwhile, the Hexamon itself is beginning to weary of Earth, with its quagmire of need and excesses of misery and is somewhat homesick for the Way, the incredible world it left behind with the Sundering. But when Pavel Mirsky - the former `Old Native' Russian leader who opted to travel down the Way with half of the Hexamon's Axis City and its citizens just before the Sundering 40 years earlier and who with these citizens was forever separated from our universe - makes an impossible appearance on Earth, having returned from the end of time and space as an avatar and makes a startling request of the Hexamon, the political winds that this stirs up will lead to revolution, a terrible encounter with old enemies and the necessity of some old loyal servants of the Hexamon betraying the very Hexamon to fulfill higher duties. Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, on a parallel Earth (Gaia), Rhita Vaskayza, 21-year-old granddaughter of Patricia Vasquez (the mathematical genius whose theories led to the creation of the Way) seeks to fulfill her grandmother's wishes, searching for her grandmother's home universe and Earth using the extraordinary device known only as a clavicle. But will she find it... or enter into a nightmare?

Comments: I found this sequel a better read than Eon, and rather hard to put down. For starters there were less characters to try to keep track of, which meant better characterization. I found Korzenowski - `The Engineer', who designed the Way - very interesting, perhaps even more so than one of the book's other great protagonists, man-of-the-future, Olmy. You really start to get to know Korzenowski in this book (Korzenowski didn't have much to do in Eon, not featuring in the book until near the very end). And as for Olmy he is as sparkling as he was in Eon; whether we are observing him going through difficulties with his partner Suli Ram Kikura, interacting with his son Tapi, gaining knowledge about the Hexamon's mortal foes the Jarts or even going through his deepest and most complete failure. However although I cared for the character of Garry Lanier (as I did in Eon) I did find him largely too bleak, pessimistic and bitter in this book. He is 40 years older than he was in Eon, and frankly has not aged well. I preferred him in Eon. And I would have liked Judith Hoffman (a fairly major character from Eon) to have had a larger role in this book, but as it is, in this book she is a minor character.

We get to meet alien adversaries the Jarts in this book (they are only talked about in Eon), and they are as formidable foes to the Hexamon as they are strange. Finally Rhita Vaskayza (granddaughter of central character from Eon Patricia Vasquez) is an excellent character and a thoroughly modern young woman. And Gaia - her character's world - is very interesting, extremely detailed and compelling (Bear obviously worked hard creating this parallel Earth and its history), and could merit a book in itself. (Hint hint, Bear?)

Satisfyingly, like Eon this book was very epic in scope. It also had somewhat less technical language, although it was often fairly hard to visualize things being described (although not as hard as Eon). Also Bear has a much greater vocabulary than I do and as I read Eternity I found myself reaching for the dictionary every few minutes to look up a word. Nonetheless this book was most enjoyable and had a satisfying climax.

Conclusion: generally a quite satisfying read, although you may find the (probable) need to pick up the dictionary every few minutes annoying. Also at 400 pages this book is 100 pages shorter than its predecessor Eon, which is a shame as it is a better read. If you read Eon, you must read this.

4 stars out of 5

Eternity is a sweeping vision defining the plot vein started with Stapleton's Starmaker and Zebrowski's Macroworld. Extending from the near future to the Universe's end, Greg Bear paints a vision of Humanity (extended to all intelligentlife forms)at it's best and worst, and does it with very sympathetic characters, extensive and involved plots, and ingenious predictions on technology and evolution. Plus, The Way - a constructed, self-contained universe made by man. Quite possibly the best Science Fiction I have read. If you read Eon, by Bear, this is a must-read sequal that far surpasses the original.

I had somewhat forgotten how Greg Bear wrote. His descriptions of the Jart are so obscure and long-winded, the reader may as well just turn the page. I found it annoying that Greg Bear attempted to invent even more words in this book than Eon. My largest complaint however resided in the high number of typos, duplicated words, letters dropped etc that made the reading even more disruptive. It really looked like there had been global replacements as the same errors were repeated. While I'd admit that an author is more concerned with flow, plot, and technical accuracy - the editor should review with a little more care to the fundamentals.

At first I was disappointed by this book but the more I read it, the more enwrapped I became by this sci-fi political thriller. The thing that disappointed me most about this book was the feel that it was a sequel. Throughout the book numerous references are made to such groups as Geshels, Neo-Geshels, Jarts, Terrestrials, Old Natives, the Hexamon, the Nexus, and a seemingly endless list of planets without really giving much of a description or explanation as to what they are. After doing a little bit of research on this book, I made the discovery that it actually is a sequel to another book that Greg Bear wrote called Eon. While I've never read that book I would recommend reading it before reading Eternity because I presume it goes into a little more detail describing just what these organizations actually are.

Should one not have the time, one can eventually figure out what Bear is talking about through context clues, but it took me about a good half of the book until I was confident I understood what all of these things were. Once I got past this, I really could appreciate the book more.

The book takes place at some future date, presumably several hundred years or so from now, after a nuclear war with Russia. This nuclear war is referred to as both the Death and as the Sundering. Apparently an extremely large hollowed out asteroid called Thistledown, which is also referred to throughout the book as the Stone and also as the Potato, is in orbit around Earth. Humans have colonized this asteroid and it seems as if most of the wealthier humans, known as the Geshels, live there. Thistledown holds the gateway to a faster than light highway of sorts, that allows transportation between planets, galaxies, universes, and even through time. This "highway" is known as the Way.

Humans, however, aren't the only ones interested in the Way. A hostile species of aliens known as the Jarts also uses the way for transport and for conquering other planets. At one time the Way was open for public use, but at the time the book starts, it has been closed since the nuclear war with Russia. The entire plot of the book revolves on the debate with the Hexamon, the global government, on whether or not they should reopen the Way.

One aspect of the book that is really interesting is that in the story people can receive age regression therapy and live for a virtually infinite number of years. People's minds can even be downloaded in to City Memory, which is something similar to the internet, and then put into a new body. I think that?s where the book gets it's title from, because as a result of this people can live for all eternity if they choose to do so.

The people in the book also have an interesting way to reproduce. Their children's minds are created in City Memory long before they ever have a body. Their children's minds are usually parts of their parents minds combined and then sculpted to perfection. When the online mind has reached a certain age, it takes tests to see whether or not it qualifies to be a human. From their the mind designs it's own body, which is grown for it and then the mind is downloaded into the body.

The book also takes on a religious aspect as people return as angels from the "Final Mind", also known as God, to try to influence whether or not the Way should be opened. They want the Way to be destroyed because they claim that it interrupts the Final Mind's plan. One thing that I found particularly annoying was that the angels never mention why, or how the Way interrupts the Final Mind's plan. When people ask them they respond that they simply don't know. This really [inhales with force] the purpose out of the plot because it is never really explained to the reader why the Way should be destroyed.

Once I got past the lack of description as to what Bear is talking about however I found this to be a rather interesting book. After all there have been many great novels throughout history that have been far more vague, leaving interpretation or even translation entirely up to the reader (i.e. Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange). I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes reading about politics or science fiction.

I had to read this book after reading Eon, but came out a bit disappointed because the story seemed to stall in places and was not as captivating as Eon. Still a worthwhile work, and I'd recommend it to anyone, SF fan or not.