This is somehow my first Asimov book. At first, I was underwhelmed. However, as the book went forward, I found that there was much more depth to the writing than originally met the eye and that the shallow characters were shallow with a purpose. Asimov sets up a group of scientist who are outside of time called the Eternals. While everyone on earth thinks that their main job is to facilitate commerce between various centuries, their true function is to manipulate history to make it play out more favorably. Thus, the Eternals have become gods without the people of the world knowing it. They've become puppeteers to a population that doesn't know to fight back, thus leaving the Eternals seemingly untouchable. It makes for an interesting polytheocracy where the people aren't even aware that their scientist have turned themselves into gods. It seems that only the brightest, most analytical, most unquestioning, most inexperienced in life, and most naive need apply for the job of Eternal. Recruiters would need to find someone who lived their entire life with those qualities to hopefully ensure that they'd not eventually change into someone who would call for a revolution in Eternity because they could no longer agree with the level of control and puppetmastery that the Eternals wield. With such a combination of personality traits, Our Hero falls in love with the first scantily clad woman that throws herself his way. And, in so doing, he puts the very existence of Eternity in peril because he's willing to do whatever it takes to keep her. And upon this small rebellion, our story turns.An interesting mystery is that the Eternals are shielded from being able to visit the future beyond a certain point. Apparently, future humans don't want the daliance of the Eternals in their affairs. Asimov makes the point that species evolve to adapt to their environment. However, since humans are able to adapt their environments to suit them, he postulates that humans have and will continue to evolve at much slower rates than beings that are unable to modify their environments. So we guess that future humans aren't that much different genetically from present-day humans. One wonders. My next read is Hominids (a book I've been wanting for ages which I received as a birthday gift) which imagines a parallel universe where Neanderthals did not die out or intermix with homo sapiens and eventually became more technologically advanced than we have during the same time period. I have a strong intrigue concerning the what-ifs of our evolutionary might-have-beens or our evolutionary future. I think fiction like this appeals to me simply because I only have one life to live and will never see our evolutionary future thousands or millions of years from now beyond an author's imagination. I'd love to see a far distant future as imagined by Asimov. I'll certainly read Asimov again. The content of the story was merely okay, but the questions that he created for me while I was reading have left me wanting more.
Nutshell: antisocial nerd, responsible for historical amendments to spacetime continuum, dicks it up for everyone in order to lose virginity.Eternity is an interdimensional NGO, set up in the 27th century (32), initially to carry on intertemporal trade (43), which trade was promoted as its primary purpose. Its true primary task is to "prevent catastrophe from striking mankind" and "to breed out of Reality any factors that might lead to such knowledge" of its biotemporal management of human history (43-44).We see that the main component of biotemporal management is actually wealth management for each century: "The Sociologists had an equation for the phenomenon" of uneven wealth distribution (45). Biotemporal managers allowed aristocracies to form, so long as they "did not entirely forget their responsibilities while enjoying their privileges" (46). Analogues to marxism here to the extent that the managers viewed the aristocracy as a ruling entity, "a class, not as individuals" (38). Generally, the point is to protect the species from destroying itself in nuclear war, but there's talk in the NGO of abolishing space travel, which always turns out to be a disaster.Some odd gender politics: no women in the NGO, for the bizarre reason that removing females from the spacetime continuum actually has a more deleterious effect than removing males (something to do with the birthrate). Plenty of commentary, express and implied, on freedom & determinism. Strikes me that determinism is the default position when the premise of the story is that changes initiated by the managers at one point alter later effects. That said, some characters believe in "temporal inertia" (169), and that effects from changes return to a hypothetical baseline after a nunber of centuries, rather than creating further diremptions.Anyway, lotsa paradoxes, including the central paradox of the novel (or, rather, of the Setting, rather than the Story): how is it that changes to history do not effect the NGO when the NGO interacts with and draws from history? Nifty link toward the end to the Robot/Empire/Foundation setting: safe to say that the denouement is the condition of possibility for that narrative.Recommended for those who stumble upon temporal field theory without being aware of its mathematical justification, persons for whom human appetites carry a quivery repulsion, and readers who associate the mushroom cloud with the system by which private capital was invested in business.
What do You think about The End Of Eternity (1971)?
Che peccato, vero Harlan, che nulla duri, nemmeno nell' Eternità?Meraviglioso!Le prime pagine le ho trovate un po' ostiche perchè il linguaggio è troppo fantascientifico per i miei gusti, ma poi la storia mi ha conquistata, anche un po' scioccata se penso a che mente visionaria aveva Asimov. Il finale toglie il fiato! Non sono un'appassionata del genere ma questa volta devo piacevolmente ricredermi.Vivi e lascia vivere, proprio quello che noi non facciamo. Noi Alteriamo, noi Cambiamo, e i cambiamenti estendono i loro effetti sui secoli seguenti...
—Mari
Andrew Harlan becomes an Eternal at the age of fifteen. He progresses through the ranks with impressive speed from Cub to Observer to Specialist. His career is thrown into crisis, however, when he is assigned to the 482d century. This period of history is hedonistic, materialistic, and matriarchal, in direct contrast to his own native 95th century, which is ascetic and sexually repressed. Far from his familiar homewhen, he meets and falls in love with Noys Lambent. She not only brings into quest
—Garth
Probablemente El fin de la eternidad sea la novela independiente que más me gusta de Asimov. Como parte de una saga me sigo quedando con las de la Fundación pero como historia suelta El fin de la eternidad me parece redonda. Literalmente.Tengo debilidad por los viajes en el tiempo, las paradojas y las historias con profecías autocumplidas. En esta novela tenemos todo eso y un poco más. Da igual que la haya leído varias veces, está escrita de forma tan inteligente que consigue engañarme una y otra vez. Aun sabiendo los diferentes trucos del relato Asimov consigue como buen trilero distraerme con una mano mientras con la otra prepara una sorpresa.La novela cumple 60 años y eso se nota en algunos aspectos, principalmente tecnológicos. Los ordenadores superavanzados funcionan con tarjetas perforadas, los microfilms son la forma más eficiente de almacenar texto y las calculadoras de mano son el no va más. También se nota la época en la que fue escrito en el papel que se espera de una mujer. Detalles aparte, el libro desde la primera hoja sabe a ciencia ficción clásica. A esas historias de una determinada época llenas de ideas y con una forma de contarlas muy fluida y sin complicaciones. Esos libros que invitan a pasar páginas y páginas porque no puedes dejar de descubrir su trama.Un clásico y una de las mejores historias de Asimov.
—Jarezal
