cover art by Milford Hunter |
First Impressions
A glowing review of The End of Eternity was published before the end of 1955 in Authentic Science Fiction Monthly. The unnamed author of that book review felt that The End of Eternity was Asimov's "greatest work to date", praising it for hitting a sweet spot between Asimov's overly-complex Foundation Saga (which had originally been published piece after piece in serialized pulp magazine story format) and lesser novels by Asimov such as The Currents of Space (1952).
1955 review of The End of Eternity |
cover art by Ed Emshwiller |
Yes, it is unusual to see Asimov being praised for "excellent characterization", particularly since the main character in The End of Eternity is not a very likable person (his name is Andrew Harlan).
Expertly Constructed
What does it mean to say that The End of Eternity is "expertly constructed"? Asimov spent a short time in the army during World War II and occasionally we readers get a taste of the colorful language that Asimov probably heard during that time. One of the workers inside Eternity describes the curvaceous Noÿs Lambent as "built like a force field latrine" (see brick house).
As a first-time reader of this novel you might initially assume that Noÿs is present in The End of Eternity for only one purpose, to provide a bit of eye candy for Andrew. You cannot be more wrong! By the end of the story, readers see Noÿs in a completely new way.
source |
No Accounting for Taste (1956)
The review of The End of Eternity by Damon Knight that was published in Science Fiction Stories (March 1956) provides a 180 degrees reversed view of the novel compared to the earlier review in Authentic Science Fiction Monthly (discussed above). Knight complains that The End of Eternity is too complex and cluttered with an overload of mind-numbing technical jargon from Eternity.
in the Ekcolir Reality Original cover art by Frank Freas and Edmund Emshwiller |
Two Types of Sci Fi Fans
In his review of The End of Eternity I suspect that Knight was dancing around the difference between science fiction fans who 1) are science nerds and 2) fans who don't know much about science. I started reading Asimov's novels when I was about 12 years old and fell in love with his complex and wordy stories, so I have to conclude that Asimov's style simply suits some people's tastes and not others.
Love in the 482nd Century
source |
When Andrew first meets Noÿs, he believes that she is from the 482nd century (what we would normally describe as the far future, past the year 48,200). In his Foundation Saga, Asimov had imagined a future in which humans had by then colonized 25,000,000 Earth-like planets of the galaxy. However, in the Reality of The End of Eternity, there is no human colonization of the galaxy. In the the 482nd, women lead independent lives and can dress like liberated women, shamelessly showing off their beautiful bodies. Andrew falls in love with Noÿs and when he fears that he will not be allowed to have her because of the rules of Eternity, he lashes out and tries to destroy Eternity.
Destroying Eternity would not be the end of the world. "Eternity" is the time travel system that Asimov imagined for The End of Eternity. The "Eternals" are residents of Eternity, a constructed space-time bubble, outside of normal Time, that allows easy access for the Eternals to all future times.
In a metaphorical sense, Andrew is "punished" when he believes that he must kill his beloved Noÿs, but he is never actually punished by the authorities of Eternity. In fact, the top Eternal assures Andrew that he will not be punished for having taken Noÿs out of the 482nd century in a gallant (if misguided) attempt to keep her from being erased from time.
A Detective Novel?
detective Baley |
Noÿs and Andrew prepare to travel into the past |
A Love Story
In the end, Andrew does not mind having been tricked by Noÿs because he realizes that she loves him and her plans for the future of Humanity really are for the best. For some reason, Barham says that Noÿs is from "the decadent 575th century". In The End of Eternity it is only Andrew, who comes from a sexually conservative century, who views the 482nd century as decadent.
La fin de l'éternité |
Asimov was often amused by the interpretations that readers invented for his fiction. In his review, Marc Barham tells us that The End of Eternity "involves philosophic considerations of free will, social planning, evolution and human advancement... in a way that feels shaped by the political dialectic of the ‘Free’ world versus the ‘Communist’ world".
I'm always pleased to take note when other people write long discussions of a story that I like, but in this case, I must scratch my head and say that communism has never entered my thinking while reading The End of Eternity. A great thing about novels is that each reader brings their own perspective to the story. In my case, as a biology nerd, I like the idea that Noÿs was from a time far in our future (10,000,000 years in our future) after which human biology had changed significantly; humans of the future kept evolving (or were genetically engineered). My favorite interpretation is that Noÿs could put ideas into Andrew's mind by some sort of telepathy. If so, does Harlan have any level of "free will" or is he simply the puppet of Noÿs and her telepathic super-power?
Earth's Reality Chain |
I'm skeptical about Barham's suggestion that The End of Eternity somehow encapsulated the cold war antagonism between "individualism and collectivism". Asimov needed an organizational power structure in Eternity that was easy to portray and also was easy to topple when the time came. What Asimov depicted as the governing structure of Eternity is like the governing board of a big corporation. I like to imagine that by the time Andrew tries to destroy Eternity, Eternity had already served its purpose. The positronic robots who had created it used Noÿs as their secret agent who could put an end to Eternity's dominion over Humanity. The Mallansohn Reality (as depicted in The End of Eternity) was an artificial construct that could easily be unraveled when the time came to end Eternity.
The Foundation Reality
The Foundation Reality |
H. G. Wells
In his review of The End of Eternity, Barham mentions the influence of Herbert Wells on Asimov. In an essay about time travel, Asimov mentioned The Time Machine as being the "first true time-travel story" and he wrote that Wells was "probably the best science fiction writer of all time". However, I have never found evidence that Wells ever tried to write science fiction. In The Time Machine, Wells displayed no interest in creating a believable depiction of the future or a technology for time travel.
1920s television in the Ekcolir Reality (source). |
Anti-Science Fiction
You could even call The Time Machine anti-science fiction. Good old Joe, working in his basement invents the first artificial life form or time machine or space ship or anti-aging pill or... well, you get the idea. It is not science. It is a fantasy story teller using a pretend "scientific breakthrough" to get their magical fantasy story started.
Isaac Asimov had some training in how to do science research. Probably more important, he was part of the governement-run effort during World War II to use science and technology to defeat Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire. When Asimov wrote his time travel story, he depicted an entire organization that was devoted to making time travel possible.
dystopia or utopia? |
In The End of Eternity Asimov makes it clear that during the long stretch of centuries monitored by Eternity, there are many different Earthly cultures and "World States" that come and go with time. The Eternals are completely disinterested in such Earthly affairs as long as the extremes of rich and poor do not get too extreme. How anyone could read The End of Eternity and refer to the Eternals as an "enlightened elite" is baffling. The Eternals remind me of the bumbling crew of a submarine that is struggling to keep their ship functioning.
Big Brother
The Organization |
2003 edition |
1984 edition my current copy |
IA UTOPIA |
"The End of Eternity to me seems as if Asimov has written an American version of 1984 through the lens of a futurist and a technocrat much like H.G.Wells but with the optimism of an American scientist who knows that creating Utopia is easy as long as you have all the information of Eternity at your fingertips." (source)
I really wish that Asimov had lived a loooong life and that he could have been here with us in the age of the internet and had a chance to have online discussions with people such as Marc Barham.
source |
Valkyrie |
In his "second career" as a scientist and non-fiction science writer, Asimov was realistic about the difficulty of spreading human civilization through outer space. Asimov had fun writing Sci Fi stories about using trips through hyperspace as an imaginary way for people to quickly travel between the stars, but Asimov believed that he would be remembered for his robot stories which depicted "mechanical men" as the companions of humans. It may be the "destiny" of mankind is to make a form of artificial life that will be able spread among the stars.
Related Reading: more discussion of The End of Eternity
Also: political conflict in science fiction
Next: Artificial life in Frank Herbert's Destination: Void.
visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers |
I've read some of Asimov's stuff before but wasn't aware of The End of Eternity. It sounds like a good read.
ReplyDeleteNice post.