Isaac Asimov: End of Eternity

[chillicheese]

Originally Posted by JunkMonkey

5.The End of Eternity - Isaac Asimov

Really interested to know how you get on with this JM, it's my all time favourite of Asimov, as well as being my number one time travel story and definitely in my top10 sci-fi. As with many of Asimov's stories, it has set the standard for all those who followed. It's the way he tackles the subject with ultimate practicality that makes it unique. He examines the nuts and bolts of time travel and tackles the problems and the solutions required to make it work as well as the consequences of its' very existence. All done in his classic pulp-ish style as well, love it.

[JunkMonkey]

I'm only a couple of chapters in and the backstory is still being set up (though with it being a complicated time travel story, as I seem to remember it is from reading it 30 odd years ago, "backstory" might not be the right word to use) but I'm enjoying it so far.

[JunkMonkey]

Which I'm sorry to say wasn't for long...

He examines the nuts and bolts of time travel and tackles the problems and the solutions required to make it work as well as the consequences of its' very existence.

Yeah, he does that - up to a point.

But it would have been nice to have some sort of story as well.

As it is our immature "hero" just wanders around getting more and more petulant at being manipulated that he turns into a sort of Science Fiction Perry. Nothing much happens in this book. People sit about and talk a lot about things happening, but not a lot actually happens. In the end, to add a bit of "drama" and to disguise the total lack of action, Asimov gets Harlan ask himself hundreds of increasingly frantic rhetorical questions. And then when he finally does decide to do something, his grand 'Samson-smash' temple wrecking gesture, it takes place in a gap in the narrative...

Despite having a great name himself Isaac Asimov is rotten at thinking up names for his creations. I had a mouthful of coffee when we were introduced to the character with the real showstoppingly great name of "Bonky LaTourette". I scalded the inside of my nose. It hurt... and "Finge" is terrible name for a villain.

Asimov was a ground breaker and helped introduce some great things into SF (like some real logic) but it's all a bit souless and cardboard. The man was a lot happier writing about robots.

Sorry I don't rate it as highly as you do but I just don't think it has weathered well.

[gil]

I have to say that Asimov, though a great man, a towering intellect, and a wonderful Popular Science writer, often writes unsatisfactory stories.

It's not his fault, though, that End of Eternity is memorable to me in that the cover art used in my edition is totally inappropriate and I later discovered it was actually the cover art for a totally different book!

I think his best fiction was his initial Foundation stories and his I, Robot series of shorts.

[chillicheese]

Originally Posted by gil

End of Eternity is memorable to me in that the cover art used in my edition is totally inappropriate and I later discovered it was actually the cover art for a totally different book!

Is this where that trend started. When I look at the SF Masterworks collection, they mostly stick to the unwritten rule that the cover of a sci-fi book must in no way relate to the content.

Originally Posted by JunkMonkey

all a bit souless and cardboard

Yes, proper pulp fiction. I agree, the characters are two dimensional and badly drawn, I always think that Asimov was so busily immersed in the science of the ideas that he only spent the minimum of time on the characters. Just enough to get the stories published