The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov

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.

Reviewed by adamfortuna on

4 of 5 stars

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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?

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 30 August, 2016: Finished reading
  • 30 August, 2016: Reviewed