Customer Reviews

Eternity's End

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

 

 

I really enjoyed this book. The universe and history Carver created is interesting and believable. I like his interpretation on interstellar travel and his characters. The only thing I might fault it for is for a few chapters where reality pretty much follows no rules - which could ruin a story - but he doesn't do anything ridiculous with it. I definitely plan to seek out more books by him.
This is apparently the sixth book of his to take place in the "Star Rigger Universe" - but it doesn't read like it's the sixth in a series. It firmly stands on its own as a novel.

I was pulled into *Eternity's End* by the notion of a Flying Dutchman spaceship, and found so much more than I expected. I just loved this book. The Flux and the Flux interface fascinate me. Carver pulls off the admirable feat of making something illusory, subjective, and "virtual" feel utterly real and yet profoundly unknowable--he vividly describes what is essentially indescribable. The frisson of the unknown grows persistently more eerie the deeper the characters go. I loved the Narseil, and the process of getting to know them through Legroeder's eyes (and especially the mild estrangement from human culture that I felt at one point, making me realize how immersed we'd gotten in Narseil culture). I enjoyed the heck out of the pirates and the cyber enhancements. The opening chase scene is only the beginning of a wild roller-coaster ride--you get a breath to look around now and then and ponder some intriguing new information, and then the author throws the next twist at you and you're off again. There are "silent running" scenes with all the tense appeal of the best submarine adventures, and exhilarating dogfights, and character interactions fraught with intense and complex psychology. This is topnotch space adventure and an edge-of-your-seat thriller, but it works on many deeper levels, too. I am dying to read a sequel. Please write one, Jeffrey Carver!

Carver starts off this book with heart pumping action that doesn't stop for much all the way through. It's a good tale of adventure with a comfortable mix of pulp novel ingredients like private eyes, space pirates and a host of believable, if slightly two-dimensional characters, along with more up-to-date ideas like cyber augments and a bit of political intrigue that makes this mystery feel very much like a Grisham novel on LSD. I'm not comparing quality, but the plot was enough to keep me interested through the somewhat large number of pages.

Despite a truly panoramic vision of the future, Carver stays on track and keeps the descriptive prose short and sweet. Like Asimov, he doesn't get lost in distracting details. Be warned, though, the numerous jaunts through the flux (hyperspace) can be somewhat unusual. The flux rigging is certainly his most original invention - a place where quantum indeterminacy allows the pilot's consciousness to have an incredible degree of control over the reality of the ship and its surroundings - but, to get the most out of the flux, the reader has to be willing to pump their imagination up to full volume. I recommend this book to anyone who likes a slightly dreamlike blaze through a galactic conspiracy.

There's a measure of political and social commentary such as with the Fabri natives and the corrupt government officials, some highly fictional armchair cosmology such as with the Deep Flux, and the occasional car chase and love triangle thrown in for spice. Stylistically, it brings to mind the earlier work of Robert Heinlein with the fast-paced and occasionally sardonic surrealism. Readers who demand profound truths out of every page might do well to steer clear of this one. But I enjoy a roller coaster ride as a lighter break from more serious books, and I'm going to be looking for more of Carver's books when such a break is needed. Eternity's End promised a breathtaking journey and Carver delivered.

This is the first book I've read by this author and I am impressed.

The story covers an amazing amount of ground as we follow the hero from the frying pan to the fire and back again, but the story is amazingly compact considering the setting and the ambitious plot.

Scene building is kept to a minimum. Other authors could have filled a trilogy out with this same story by writting page after page of descriptive prose and still fail to capture the stark beauty of Carver's brief but powerful descriptions of scenes. For example, more happens in this novel than Stephen R. Donaldson's entire "Gap" series and that sucker, although satisfying, consisted of five books!

I wouldn't be surprised if this book gets a nomination for a Hugo or Nebula award.

I saw this book at a bookstore and decided to buy it because I loved the cover! I had no idea if I would like it and I do not read Science Fiction regularily even though I love Star Trek. I am so glad I bought it though and I plan to get more of Jeffery Carver's Star Rigger books.

To me, reading this book was an experience like playing an old role playing game called Traveller, meaning it was a fun and exciting adventure in future time in outer space. The book starts out with a rigger (starship pilot) named Renwald Legroeder who is being framed for a crime he did not commit, which involves a mysterious starship that has been missing for 100 years, and space pirates. Legroeder is a human being and there are many humans living on a far away planet named Faber Erdrani (Sp?). There are native people there too and a neat race called the Narseil that the reader gets to know well in the story. Legroeder finds himself in jail waiting for a trial and then suddenly gets released by a lawyer named Harriet Mahoney that wants to help him. From there on the story is an exciting adventure and mystery with Legroeder needing to find out more about the missing starship Impris to clear his name. This book is very readable, I highly recommend it! I found myself sad when I was done reading, because it was so good and I loved the characters.

This book posits a future history in which human civilization is controlled by declining societies, while "outlaw" groups provide an alternative approach which is, by turns, both chilling and promising. Folks are wired, cyberspace reaches its logical limits, and conspiracies abound. The central love story is odd and yet workable, but it's the action that dominates in this story of a fellow who escapes from space buccaneers only to find dark doings back on his home world. This is a modern sci fi,
with frequent nods to earlier era work, but all in a post-this, post-that world. This is one of a series of "rigger" books (a "rigger" steers a ship in surreal hyperspace travel in a "flux"), satisfying hard science, interesting soft plot. Nothing all that new here, but not a bad flight.

When Star-Rigger Legroeder escapes the Golan Space Pirates after seven years of captivity the last thing expects on arriving home is to be framed by the RiggerGuild for his ships capture all those years ago. Luckily for him though Lawyer Harriet Mahoney things Legroeder can help her and is prepared to help him in return.

This is the first book I have read in the Star-Rigger Universe, but it's a good stand alone novel and enjoyable enough to make me want to hunt out the other books in this series. Legroeder is a likeable character and most of the supporting stories within the series are filled with believable people in extreme situations.

Apparently it took the author 4 year to write this novel, but for me it has paid off in a book I really enjoyed and am glad to have read.

This book is a great adventure; the ideas of the flux, underflux and the adventures the characters have in it are compelling and interesting. I enjoyed this book and will look for others by Carver in the Rigger universe and elsewhere.

I had just finished ruminating about how rare it had become these days to find a science fiction story crossing the borders of deep space or light speed (read my review of Ben Bova's Jupiter), when the very next book that I read - Eternity's End - turned out to be the one that mentions interstellar travel, hyperspace (called Flux in this book) and other such concepts in as matter of fact a manner as talking about going to dinner to a restaurant.

This book is set in his "Riggers' Universe". Riggers are people with special talents that help them navigate star ships through the Flux. Renwald Legroeder is a rigger who was captured by space pirates (yes, you heard right). He, with a girl called Maris, manages escape after seven years. He makes his way to the nearest planet, Faber Eridani. Here, instead of being accorded a hero's welcome, he is arrested and charged with helping the pirates in the capture of the star ship whose rigger he had been. He is tried. The trial is a farce. He is adjudged guilty, but with the help of an old but plucky lawyer, Mrs. Harriet Mahoney, he manages to evade authorities.

Legroeder and Harriet embark on an investigation which leads them to believe that a widespread conspiracy is involved in the piracy and in the false accusations against Legroeder. The conspiracy is also behind the strained relations between humans and Narseils (yes, the novel also has alien intelligences too). Somehow, a ship called Impris, lost in the Flux years ago, is a key to understanding the conspiracy.

Legroeder finds many allies in his fight against the authorities. The chief ones are a historian and archivist called McGinnis, a Narseil historian called El'Ken, Morgan Mahoney (daughter of Harriet Mahoney) who becomes romantically interested in Legroeder, and Tracy-Ace, a strange lady, who finally becomes the Legroeder's lover.

Legroeder, with the help of the Narseil manages to infiltrate the stronghold of the pirates, rescue Impris from the Flux and finally expose the conspiracy.

The novel is highly interesting and entertaining. The plot moves at breathtaking speed. Here is high adventure in the best of EE `Doc' Smith and Leigh Brackett tradition. Carver is a highly audio-visual. His visual descriptions of the Flux are beautiful and so are his use of sound effects. The book is interspersed with effects like: BAROOOOOM, DOOOM-M-M, Bzzzz, DROOM, whump, etc.

All in all, a highly readable book. The only thing I didn't like was the way Morgan was given short shift once Tracy-Ace appears on the scene.

ahmedakhan.journalspace.com

This is the first book I have read by Jeffrey Carver. It turns out that "Eternity's End" is number six or thereabouts in a series. Oops-I hate it when that happens, but authors often include catch-up chapters so that latent readers can follow along. Not so with this book. Carver has got some fairly strange conceptual things going on, and I had a difficult time reconciling these concepts as the story plodded onward. There are some very well written scenes. Carver does a good job of maintaining tension during the space battles and chases, but the scenes in between feel flat. Several of his characters are developed very well, but others are left undeveloped to the point in which I had to ask myself: Why is this character in the story?

This book has the feel of some of Arthur C. Clarke's early space opera. Clarke's early books worked well because they were short and not overwritten. Carver could do the same with "Eternity's End" by editing out 200 pages or so, disappearing a few characters, and tightening the plot up a bit.