The Siege of Eternity (Eschaton Sequence) [Hardcover]

Frederik Pohl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1997 | Series: Eschaton Sequence (Book 2)

Continuing the tour de force that began in The Other End of Time, this new novel finds secret agent Dan Dannerman battling a second siege of aliens armed with high-tech devices and a secret network on Earth and in space.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Sequel to The Other End of Time (1996), Pohl's new saga in which an unsuspecting Earth has become the object of a galactic war waged between the Beloved Leaders, or Scarecrows, and the Horch over who controls the ``eschaton,'' a time in the remote future when every being that has ever lived will rise again. Spook Dan Dannerman, astronomer Pat Adcock, and others were abducted from the orbiting Starlab, cloned, and subjected to horrid experiments by alien ``Dopeys'' and ``Docs,'' controlled by the Beloved Leaders. They manage to escape and return to Earth, where they find other copies of themselves with altered memories already in residence. The returnees have also captured a Dopey and two Docs who promise to help them understand Beloved Leader technology. Colonel Hilda Morrisey of the National Bureau of Investigation takes charge of the clones. Then the Docs break free of their Dopey's control and warn of imminent invasion by the Beloved Leaders, and maybe Horch too--until Hilda's assistant, a religious fanatic mole, attempts to blast Hilda, Dan, and the Docs. Pohl does a seamless job of reintroducing readers to the convolutions of his black-comic future tussle. However, while The Other End of Time was both self-contained and sequel-ready, this crowded, complex entry merely seems incomplete. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

Unlike many sequels, this one is more successful than its precursor. -- Analog, Tom Easton

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312863756
• ISBN-13: 978-0312863753
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,895,433 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This book is really only a long introduction to its sequel., August 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Siege of Eternity (Eschaton Sequence) (Hardcover)

This book is incomplete and unsatisfying. Although I love Pohl's stories, I felt like I had wasted my time with this book. There is no resolution. No conclusion. It just stops. I though that maybe my copy was defective and missing a few pages. That said, it is an okay story. But hardly worth the hard cover price. You could really skip it and go directly to the much better "real" book, "The Far Shore Of Time".

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars My interest wasn't "sieged", April 5, 2000

By 

T.P. McArdle (Lincoln, Nebraska USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Siege of Eternity (Eschaton Sequence) (Paperback)

Although not quite as entertaining as "The Other End of Time", this is still a good read. It is basically building up to what I hope is a climactic ending in "The Far Shore of Time". Most of the book deals with USA's/NBI's reaction to the duplicates and the aliens once they arrive back on earth. It also describes the political posturing by the various UN nations to gain access to the aliens and their technology aboard the Starlab. Things become more interesting toward the end of the book when the Scarecrows' spacecraft is detected and a broadcast is received. At the end of the book there is the dreaded realization that the Scarecrows have already infiltrated the populations of earth and have begun their conquest which should set up the third novel in the series very well. One thing I didn't care for was the comment boxes that Pohl inserted randomly throughout this book. It is somewhat annoying to break from the story to have to read these. Perhaps they would have been better placed at the beginning of each chapter.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Page Turner, October 29, 1997

By 

Andrew S. Cruse "andrew2" (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Siege of Eternity (Eschaton Sequence) (Hardcover)

The Siege of Eternity doesn't quite live up to the expectations I had after reading The Other End of Time, as Pohl chooses to mostly ignore the eschaton issue which made the first novel so fascinating.

However, the Siege of Eternity has a taut plotline that was somewhat lacking in the first. Eternity reads more like a techno-thriller than the contemplation on the nature of the universe and man's place therein. As a thriller, Eternity works very well. It is impossible to put the book down. Unfortunately once I finished tearing through the book I felt as if I had just eaten a boatload of popcorn. It tasted good going down but wasn't all that filling.

The prospects for the final book in the trilogy don't look too good for a swing back in the direction of the first since the big cliffhanger at the end of the first is left completely unresolved. (In fact it isn't even touched) Which means that the third novel must include the introduction of the Horch and the obligatory big space battle between humans, Horch, and Scarecrows. All of which can't leave much room for philosophical contemplation. Here's to hoping Pohl decides to make it a tetralogy so he has space to return to his ruminations on the eschaton.