The End of Eternity (Fawcett Crest Book)

by Isaac Asimov

The best time-travel story since H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, by the Grand Master of science fiction, the story of Andrew Harlan, Technician and Eternal.

Andrew Harlan's job is to range through past and present centuries monitoring and even altering Time's myriad cause-and-effect relationships.

As a Technician with the Allwhen Council, he initiates Reality Changes that may affect the lives of as many as fifty billion people - and a million or more of them may be so drastically affected as to be considered new individulas. Above all, therefore, a Technician must be dispassionate. An emotional make-up is a distinct handicap. Then Harlan meets Noys and falls victim to a phenomenon older than Time itself - love.

Years of self-discipline are cast aside as Harlan uses the awesome techniques of the Eternals to twist Time so that he and Noys might survive... together.

• ISBN10: 0765319195
• ISBN13: 9780765319197
• Publish Date: 29 March 2011 (first published July 1975)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 19 October 2022
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Orb Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 256
• Language: English

Reviews

[adamfortuna]

One of my favorite Asimov stories so far! This one stretches the concept of time a step farther by creating eternals - effectively time police. Coupled with the idea that these eternals come different times of 10s of thousands of years, means that anyone in this role gives up their reality. But what happens when you fall in love with someone in time, when you know that time changes?

[Mercy]

4.5/5

[empressbrooke]

I didn't enjoy this one as much as Asimov's [b:I, Robot|41804|I, Robot|Isaac Asimov|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320435960s/41804.jpg|1796026], but it is still pretty clever and delivers a number of twists I didn't see coming. The ending also has a thought-provoking philosophy that is summed up in this very spoilery quote (if you haven't read the book, click at your own peril):

"In ironing out the disasters of Reality, Eternity rules out the triumphs as well...Can you understand that in averting the pitfalls and miseries that beset man, Eternity prevents men from finding their own bitter and better solutions, the real solutions that come from conquering difficulty, not avoiding it?"