by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright Oct 2010
End of Eternity is a little-recognized Asimov gem. It’s old, it’s obscure, but it’s a great read.
It was written in 1955, near the end of his first SF writing time, and it’s first noticeable charm is his depiction of the relations between men, computers and information – this book tells well how people of the mid-1950’s thought about these things, and it’s surprisingly different from how we think about these things in the 2010’s.
The story setting is the second charm. This is a time-travel story, but Asimov delightfully sidesteps most of the cliché’s of time travel stories -- it’s not about interfering with a famous historical event, it’s not about some hero or small team getting trapped in a strange time, it’s not about some evil overlord conspiring to rule the universe through controlling time.
The setting is the existence of an alternate dimension that sits outside of time -- Eternity -- and this dimension can be used to physically travel from one place in time to another -- think of a really long subway with stations at each century of real existence.
Within this Eternity setting lives a monkish society -- the Eternals -- who watch the real universe and busy themselves with tweaking it to make life better for all of humanity -- something they call making a Reality Change. This reality changing they do is very altruistic, but very secret. Their “cover” is temporal trade -- they move trade goods between the centuries.
The third charm is telling about this setting as a love story. We follow the adventures of Harlan, a Time Technician, as he falls in love with Noys -- something Eternals aren’t supposed to do. His love makes him do crazy things, which he also isn’t supposed to do -- no surprise there. But Asimov has his impetuousness become key to the existence of Eternity itself!
The last third of the book is a combination of resolving how Harlan’s actions will save or end Eternity mixed in with philosophic considerations about roles of free will, social planning, evolution, and human advancement. Heady stuff, and well handled.
All-in-all, End of Eternity, in spite of being fifty-year-old science fiction, is still a fun story. I heartily recommend it.
That said, here are the Technofiction flaws I saw in it:
o The biggest plot hole, and it is a huge one, is that temporal trade is not going to affect reality. Temporal trade is presumed by the Eternals, and Asimov, to be benign. But if the trade is of any volume and desirability at all, it is going to change reality much more than any tweaking the Technicians, such as Harlan, do.
o As mentioned earlier, the relations between men, computers and information now seems strange. In the sixty years since this book was written, these relations have changed dramatically and in surprising ways. This is a lesson about the surprises that are still in store for us as the computer revolution continues to unfold, and as other technologies such as the various biological technologies unfold.
-- The End --