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Eon (The Way #1)

3.81 of 5 stars 3.81 · rating details · 9,602 ratings · 253 reviews

The 21st century was on the brink of nuclear confrontation when the 300 kilometer-long stone flashed out of nothingness and into Earth's orbit. NASA, NATO, and the UN sent explorers to the asteroid's surface...and discovered marvels and mysteries to drive researchers mad.

For the Stone was from space--but perhaps not our space; it came from the future--but perhaps not our f...more

Paperback, 512 pages

Published October 15th 1991 by Tor Science Fiction (first published January 1st 1985)

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May 25, 2013 Dirk Grobbelaar rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, books-i-own, favorites

Review – Redux

There should be a picture of Eon in the dictionary: right next to “Sense-of-wonder-SF”.

Reading this book was like listening to a complicated symphony. Eon opens as a near future artifact, or big-dumb-object, tale largely inspired by Rendezvous With Rama. The novel then progresses through a number of movements, each more mind-numbing and awe-inspiring than the previous. It is therefore no great surprise that the book eventually evolves (or devolves, depending on your point of view)...more

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Jun 17, 2012 Mosca rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

----------------------------------------------

I've been amazed at the number of readers that have been so underwhelmed by Eon. This astounding book was published in 1984 and did not anticipate the end of the Cold War, only half a decade away. Some say, with self-righteousness nurtured by hindsight, that this is a major flaw in this book. But most sleepwalking Americans, at the time, had no clue of the Eurasian (and Eastern European) realities of the times. This is not Greg Bear’s fault. It was,...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Andreas rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

An unknown object enters our solar system, a big Stone. The Americans arrive first and find wonderful things but also reveal something very unsettling...

That was a poor book. I liked the beginning when the nature of the Stone was slowly explored but the events that followed were pretty boring. The whole sense of wonder was missing and the reader gets a lot of political games instead. At the end it gets a bit better again but not enough to save the book for me. What I disliked was the structure o...more

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Feb 05, 2011 Simon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sf-masterworks, sf

Imagine an alternate history in which the cold war hadn't ended in 1989 and had instead continued to intensify. And to add fuel to the fire a mysterious object arrived in our solar system from who knows where that America gets to first and controls access to. If the Soviets believed the Americans were learning secrets that would give them an edge, tensions might escalate out of hand. But it isn't giving the Americans a technological edge, only offers confounding mysteries and a devestating visio...more Imagine an alternate history in which the cold war hadn't ended in 1989 and had instead continued to intensify. And to add fuel to the fire a mysterious object arrived in our solar system from who knows where that America gets to first and controls access to. If the Soviets believed the Americans were learning secrets that would give them an edge, tensions might escalate out of hand. But it isn't giving the Americans a technological edge, only offers confounding mysteries and a devestating vision of their future that they seem powerless to avoid.

This book, paradoxically, seemed both too long and too short. The overall story arc should either have been compressed down to a novel half the length or else fleshed out over two or three volumes. The sheer number of characters, minor story arcs, and mind boggling concepts explored was too much for a single book. Many of which could have been stripped out of the overall story without losing anything particularly important. On the other hand, more time could have been allowed to develop the many characters and their own story lines, the esoteric concepts more carefully explored if it was spread out over several books. Thus, it might be said, it falls between two stools. In particular, the last hundred pages or so was devoid of narrative tension as the story trundled to what seemed it's innevitable conclusion.

Another problem I had was visualising everything as it was described. I don't know if it was the author's use of words that made it difficult for me or if it was the sheer amount and complexity of strange environments, technologies and geometries presented to the reader to get their head around. Perhaps some maps, schematic diagrams and a glossary of characters might have been useful for reference.

That said, this was a visionary, ambitious work of SF that was crammed full of ideas which is precisely what SF should be doing. With a bit better writing and editing, this might have fulfilled it's potential to be the masterpiece it was trying to be.(less)

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Jan 23, 2008 Ethan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: real sci-fi fans (too weird for anyone else)

This is exactly what I was looking for when I was in the mood for some good 80's sci fi. Bear is a "hard" sci-fi writer - a lot of science, not so much in the way of character development. Actually, Bear's characters are developed fairly decently, but his best efforts come in his mind-expanding scientific/philosophical speculation. I honestly don't know enough math or physics to follow some of what he was talking about, but the basic ideas are pretty mind blowing, which is what good sci-fi shoul...more

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Apr 08, 2012 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf-novels-aaargh

There's a thing in science fiction called the Big Dumb Object which always provokes awe and a sense of wonder and all that, and Eon is all about one of those. They're called big dumb objects because boys of all ages love them, their eyes go all glazey thinking about the size, power and size of these things and all the author has to do is make sure their alien object is really really big. Works every time. Boys love size – breasts, penises, brothers, breakfasts, all good as long as they're big. S...more

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May 10, 2008 Mark C. rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: hard science fiction fans

Recommended to Mark by: provo library display

Rather compelling remake of Clarke's Rendesvouz with Rama. It really needed to be three books, perhaps, as too much happened in the last third of the book, and a bit too quickly to really engage me. Theoretical time/space science becomes the magic pixie dust that makes everything possible in the last portion of this book, but I still enjoyed it, even what I had a hard time visualizing.

Why aren't hard science fiction writers allowed to use illustrations? It seems archaic and lame to have to descr...more

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May 01, 2009 Manny rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Pronounced "yawn".

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Apr 11, 2013 Stephen Thomas rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR

Eon could have been a classic among the canon of epic SF. The basis of the story is immediately appealing, offering as it does the promise of mysteries and wonders. And initially the book delivers. The first quarter is full of exploration and discovery, taking the reader to exotic places and revealing fascinating technologies. But here’s the ‘however’. Quite suddenly the book takes a different tack. We become drowned in scientific detail and political intrigue. There’s so m...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Charles Dee Mitchell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: late-20th-century-sf

This is hard SF on a grand scale. Bear published it in 1984, so he was probably writing it in 1982. Therefore, as often happens, its future 2005 is already our past and so of course we know better about a lot of things. Like the breakup of the Soviet Union. China's ascendence on the world stage. The cold war did not result in a nuclear holocaust that wipes out most life on earth.

The appearance of a large asteroid in near earth orbit prompts the crisis in Eon. The U.S.A. and NATO get there first,...more This is hard SF on a grand scale. Bear published it in 1984, so he was probably writing it in 1982. Therefore, as often happens, its future 2005 is already our past and so of course we know better about a lot of things. Like the breakup of the Soviet Union. China's ascendence on the world stage. The cold war did not result in a nuclear holocaust that wipes out most life on earth.

The appearance of a large asteroid in near earth orbit prompts the crisis in Eon. The U.S.A. and NATO get there first, leaving Soviets fuming and suspicious. What "our" troops and scientists discover is that the asteroid is from earth's future, or possibly from an alternate timeline. It's hollowed out core shows successive levels of habitation, all now deserted since the inhabitants evacuated down a singularity they opened in the asteroid's northern cap. Deserted libraries contain detailed information of the Big Death, a nuclear war that is scheduled to engulf the earth in a matter of weeks. Spaceships filled with Soviet military are on their way, beings from deep in the singularity are back in the city to monitor the situation, and U.S. and NATO scientists much smarter than myself are busy working out the mysteries of what they call The Stone.

I have a confession to make. When I read hard SF, I make the same sort of compromise with the science involved that I make with character names in Russian novels. I let the impenetrable science, like the unpronounceable names, slide by, assuming I am picking up the gist of the thing and trying not to impede the narrative flow. So I really have no idea how much Bear extrapolates from the most advanced thinking of his day and what is more fanciful speculation on his part.

There are probably too many ideas in this book just as there are too many characters, although I would never wish it to be longer. Bear turns in restrained descriptions of the visual marvels and handles the action sequences well. The political maneuvering is believable if at times dated, and it is not limited to the 21st century humans. Our descendants, 1300 years in the future, still have their factions and their enemies at the gate.

This is a book about possibilities and the human blunders that can shut those possibilities down, for instance by burying them in a nuclear winter. Bear doesn't lay on the grandeur too thick, but through the central character of Patricia Luisa Vasquez, he conveys the sense of awe and terrible responsibility that those who can not only visualize but actually realize those possibilities must feel.

And suddenly, without any reason, without any certainty of her success, she felt wonderful. Patricia Luisa Vasquez existed in a bubble of joy, independent of all that had gone before, not caring what would come after...It had neither confidence nor euphoria in its character; it was simply a fulfillment of all that she had experienced, and would experience...The universe had twisted in some incomprehensible way and delivered to her an experience drawn from the visions in her head...

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Feb 10, 2013 cathepsut rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, read-in-2004

The 21st century seen from 1985. So it is slightly different world from the one we know. The Soviet Union still exists and so does the cold war. Only it is at the brink of becoming not so cold.

A huge asteroid appears and moves into Earth’s orbit. The US sends scientists to explore and it turns out that the “stone” is hollow and consists of 7 chambers. Man made. Filled with forests, lakes, and an abandoned city in one of the chambers. Built by humans? From a distant future? An alternative future?...more

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Nov 13, 2012 Randy Mcdonald rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

I suppose that Greg Bear's 1985 novel Eon is one of those science fiction novels that's better with its science than with its writing. Alma Hromic's 2002 review isn't entirely off.

Even in 1985, when the Cold War was still very much within living memory and the way of life it had dictated something familiar to every thinking reader out there, this book must have had a terribly anachronistic feel to it. The technology is there, the potential is there, but none of the characters seem to have evolve...more I suppose that Greg Bear's 1985 novel Eon is one of those science fiction novels that's better with its science than with its writing. Alma Hromic's 2002 review isn't entirely off.

Even in 1985, when the Cold War was still very much within living memory and the way of life it had dictated something familiar to every thinking reader out there, this book must have had a terribly anachronistic feel to it. The technology is there, the potential is there, but none of the characters seem to have evolved past the primal Cold Warrior types. The Americans come across as paranoid and greedy to keep all the treasures for themselves ("The Libraries were a purely American preserve... by order of the President," as though the American president could have the power of actually enforcing such an edict short of threatening to blow up the libraries if an impure and non-American foot ever crossed their threshold...), the Russians seem to be straight out of the worst parodies of early James Bond, the Chinese are kind of tapping in place trying to figure out what their role in all this is, and the rest of the nationalities up there seem to have been tossed in to season the polyglot nationalist salad. Eon, twenty years after its initial publication, suffers from this hindsight, to the extent that it sometimes gets so annoying and in-the-way that it's hard to concentrate on the storyline.

Then again, Arthur C. Clarke wrote novels with the same clichéd geopolitics (2010, anyone?) and arguably similar problems with believable characters and no one finds that particular cause to trash his works, do they?

Eon's fundamentally a work concerned with opening and closing possibilities. The opening comes when a vehicle bearing a suspicious resemblance to the asteroid Juno emerges in a burst of gamma rays at the edge of the Solar System and decelerates into Earth orbit. The explorers (NATO, Soviet, Chinese) who arrive discover not only a generation starship but--quickly hushed up--evidence that it was not only populated by humans, but that its inhabitants disappeared down a mysterious space-time corridor extending beyond, somehow. On the Earth, possibilities are starting to close down thanks to an intensifying Cold War, one that already broke out into a minor nuclear war, is getting worse as the different parties fear that the advanced technology of the generation starship could change everything. And in the meantime, the generation starship's descendents, living down the Way in their artificial city, are starting to be distracted from their trade and their wars with other factions in other places of their bizarre universe by events at home.

Early Greg Bear may not have been a convincing writer, but he was certainly good at depicting vast impressive things. His generation starship impresses; his depiction of an Earth on the verge of catastrophe scares; his depiction of the Way and its cities and its connections awes. And, at the novel's end he provides readers with another way to check whether or not they're in an alternate history. I can't go into the details of the plot in much detail since Eon is rather spoiler-heavy, but I can say that the novel is ultimately concerned with the characters' efforts to find some sort of home, perhaps particularly brilliant Los Angeleno physicist Patricia Vasquez to find her home again.

So. Read Eon for Bear's grand scheme. Don't read Eon looking for especially convincing characters or moving writing (although there is that one passage--no, no spoilers).(less)

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Oct 30, 2012 Kian rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf-masterworks

If you like your space epics meaty - Greg Bear offers you possibly one of the meatiest epics of all. Eon takes a cast of heavyweight characters, a grand stage, and a complex space-time problem that'll make your nose bleed every other chapter.

The stage for the story is "The Stone", a large asteroid in Earth's orbit. The Stone is hollowed out and devised into a number of chambers, each chamber serving a specific purpose. A multi-national group of scientists and forces are responsible for researchi...more

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May 07, 2012 Stewart Harding rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic-sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Eon, written in 1985, was set in the near future of 2005. The USA and the Soviet Union are on the brink of war and an enormous asteroid has entered the Solar System.

Our main protagonist, mathematician Patricia Vasquez, is sent up the asteroid in secrecy to try and unravel the mysteries inherent within the giant rock. There are seven great chambers within, containing two enormous cities, areas of untouched ‘wilderness’ and a mysterious seventh chamber. Patricia has access to the libraries, and le...more Eon, written in 1985, was set in the near future of 2005. The USA and the Soviet Union are on the brink of war and an enormous asteroid has entered the Solar System.

Our main protagonist, mathematician Patricia Vasquez, is sent up the asteroid in secrecy to try and unravel the mysteries inherent within the giant rock. There are seven great chambers within, containing two enormous cities, areas of untouched ‘wilderness’ and a mysterious seventh chamber. Patricia has access to the libraries, and learns that it is from the future. Or at least ‘a’ future. Of course, their history has no mention of ‘The Stone’.

At this point, I thought I was in for an interesting read. I’m a big fan of speculative future books, and this had all the hallmarks of a classic. The author had not foreseen the downfall of the USSR, and the world's space industry was far more advanced than it really is today. With the addition of history books from the future, I thought the author was going to have the balls to let us in on some of it.

Thus far, I was enjoying the novel. After this, it just got too complicated. After the first chapter based in the future human world, I was already dizzy with names, titles and characters I simply couldn’t relate to and didn’t understand. I’ve read other books that overcome this problem by introducing you slowly and subtly explaining new concepts, but Greg Bear has decided to throw you in and try and let you work it all out yourself.

To be fair, the characters in the book repeat that their culture is incredibly complex, but as a reader I should at least have an inkling of what’s going on. I’m not sure why Bear decided on bureaucracy and politics as a focus for these characters but I found it very frustrating. Just because the characters admitted “It’s all politics, very complicated”, it didn’t make it easier to follow. I didn’t know the intentions of many characters, or why their actions led to their consequences. The overly-complex explanations of the science involved also threw me.

I don’t mind a bit of new fangled science and technology, but it needs to be explained properly. Some authors do it by being very subtle and talking about it as you would any piece of modern technology. For example, a modern author doesn’t go into detail about how an internal combustion engine works because you don’t need to know that. Similarly you don’t always need to know the details of how a starship works, as long as it does and it’s consistent.

I found myself getting very bored towards the end, and forced myself to finish it to see what happens. As it turns out, I wasn’t interested in the ending at all. There are four sections to the epilogue describing what happens to four characters. One of them for some reason mentioned an eon, from where the title of the book derived. I think Bear thought of the title first and just tried to squeeze in an utterly arbitrary reference at the end.

The fate of Patricia Vasquez nicely mirrors this book. She ends up marooned, alone and her tale seems to fizzle out without any particular intrigue.

I think Bear simply tried too hard, and filled it with detail after detail and layers that got in the way of story telling.(less)

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Apr 05, 2012 Julio rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: cf

Enorme y ambicioso. Una épica historia de CF que abarca universos íntegros sobre eones de tiempo. Todo empieza al avistarse un asteroide que se acerca a la tierra. Su análisis revela que es artificialmente hueco. Al abordarlo, se descubren ciudades increíbles, pero inexplicablemente abandonadas. Su exploración revela sorpresa tras sorpresa. Su interior, por ejemplo, es más extenso que su exterior. De hecho, el fabuloso túnel construido en sus entrañas y por cuyo centro correo una inagotable fuen...more

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Nov 09, 2011 Ben Dutton rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 21, 2011 Jonathan Cullen rated it 3 of 5 stars

What I suspect was going on here is that Greg Bear obvously wanted to pay homage to Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama, but he also wanted to give something to those who felt Rama cheated them out of a plot. I suspect.

The use of the word(s) USSR dates a sci-fi novel like a yellow stove-fridge combo dates a kitchen. Many SF authors have incredible technical imagination but for some that does not translate into visionary political views. I contrast that to Iain M. Banks' Culture, which is de...more

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Oct 13, 2010 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have to agree with a lot of the reviews here. Although I ultimatley enjoyed this book it is frustratingly difficult to visualize. Having managed the inner workings of the stone, albeit far from satisfactorily the second half of the book is as easy to visualize and follow as it is rushed and disappointing, given the build up. The first half of this book is a fantastic crescendo which sympathizes with the readers inability to fully comprehend what is happening as neither can the characters. Howe...more

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Nov 11, 2009 Chelsea rated it 2 of 5 stars

I had... issues... with this book. The first part was, of course, getting past the Soviet-era antagonism and accepting it as what it was: a convenient antagonist at the time.

I generally don't like books that have maps inside; like maybe if the author was better at conveying a complicated story, then we wouldn't need a map? This one DEFINITELY need a map. I spent the entire damn thing trying to just understand the world they were moving around in. Maybe that makes me stupid, but I don't know tha...more

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Aug 28, 2009 Patrick Gibson rated it 2 of 5 stars

Recommended to Patrick by: evil spirits

Shelves: science-fiction

It's a book I loved when I was seventeen. On second reading, I question why I liked it. Oh, that's right, I was 17. Now I know.

The plot of EON is complicated, both in its science and in the political relationships between characters. Everything starts as a mysterious asteroid enters Earth orbit, and an expedition sent by the west discovers that it was built by humans of the future and somehow sent back in time unintentionally. Museums on the asteroid chronicle a future war between the U.S. and t...more

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Aug 23, 2009 Bryce Johnson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 17, 2013 Globalt38 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: scifi

This is a book that has really stuck with me even though it's been a long time since I read it and there have been many good books consumed since. I think it's because it had/has such possibility, is Epic Hard SciFi but with a hint of "personal" Indiana Jones adventure potential, and the fact that it is just huge and it seems that Greg Bear, even though he wrote 3 books around it, just scratched the surface of this huge artifact! The concept of an artifact arriving that appears to be a huge spac...more

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Apr 15, 2012 Hollowman rated it 1 of 5 stars

I got lost in this book. I mean that pejoratively!

Too much complex/techno world-building IMO concurrent with a complex social drama ... trying to imaginate too much can distract to the point of boredom. In a way, this book is similar to KSR (e.g. Mars trilogy). AC Clarke handle this "stuff" much better. M. Crichton provides info-graphics, charts or diagrams.
Authors spend a LOT of TIME planning and THINKING about THEIR projects ... I'm sure books like this (worldview-wise) makes sense to THEIR au...more

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Nov 03, 2010 Tammy ~NovelOpinion rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, favorites

I've read reviews that contain complaints about the tension with Soviet Russia in the beginning of the book and the difficulty visualizing the 'world' Greg Bear created. I can see where these things might turn some off.
However, I remember the Cold War and it was freaking scary as hell. I remember the collapse of the USSR as being a wonderful surprise. I can hardly blame the author for not forseeing that. To me the tension and politics at the beginning of Eon are perfectly believable. It's fictio...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Josh rated it 2 of 5 stars

While I liked revisiting my 80's Cold War childhood and seeing the world nuke itself into epochal winter, the political infighting of the advanced & alien societies that dominates the later part of the book had about as much resonance as a paper cup. Give me something to think on or give me lasers.

P.S. Any civilization that can contain wine in floating static-energy fields yet sips that wine with a straw still has some civilizing to do.

P.P.S. "Plantimals." Seriously? This is why sci-fi is a...more

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Aug 24, 2009 Jimbo rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, fiction, own

Having read Blood Music, and now Eon, the impression I am getting of Greg Bear is that he has good ideas, sets them up well, but has no follow through and no idea how to end his stories. I really enjoyed the first half of Eon - mysteries and characters introduced and developed well, and some convincing and tense action and politics. I was convinced that Eon was going to be a really good read. Perhaps it was these early high hopes that caused my later disappointment.

As the book progresses, things...more Having read Blood Music, and now Eon, the impression I am getting of Greg Bear is that he has good ideas, sets them up well, but has no follow through and no idea how to end his stories. I really enjoyed the first half of Eon - mysteries and characters introduced and developed well, and some convincing and tense action and politics. I was convinced that Eon was going to be a really good read. Perhaps it was these early high hopes that caused my later disappointment.

As the book progresses, things seems to unravel. The science behind the main premise of the story is presented in a reasonably convincing way, but some of the other scientific/technological "advances" are just silly and undermine the whole book - top of the list of offenders being "The Mystery", which made me cringe in a way I haven't cringed since Qui-Gon Jinn explained the Force via "midichlorians". And Bear really should have stopped to find out what it is actually like being a mathematician, before basing this story around a brilliantly gifted mathematician, then he might have been able to do something a little more convincing than have her lie down and close her eyes when it was time for her to work her magic.

Towards the end of the book, the main characters completely lose control of the plot and seem to become little more than observers in the story, occasionally interjecting to point out that they understand (in the case of the mathematical genius) or don't understand (in the case of everyone else).

It seemed that the end of this story was fixed about 100 pages before the end of novel, except for the minor twist that I found hard to care about - the main character dumped into a totally new and unresolved story arc. Clear set up, I presume, for a sequel. It was a page turner, but only because I wanted to get through a long drawn out explanation of events unfolding exactly as had been previously predicted.

Whether you are looking for hard sci-fi or space opera, you'll probably be disappointed.(less)

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Mar 09, 2011 Ian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: love-hate-relationship, question-reality, unfulfilled-expectations, nostalgia

I loved this book as a teenager/young adult in the 80's. It was the awesomest thing I'd read to that point, and it remained awesome in my memory. I own a true first edition hardcover in fine condition—actually pretty rare, especially in such good shape—and it will remain one of the prized pieces of my book collection for a long time. Eon also will remain one of the seminal sci-fi works of the late-20th Century. In retrospect its influence on later works is clear, its position as a pioneering wor...more I loved this book as a teenager/young adult in the 80's. It was the awesomest thing I'd read to that point, and it remained awesome in my memory. I own a true first edition hardcover in fine condition—actually pretty rare, especially in such good shape—and it will remain one of the prized pieces of my book collection for a long time. Eon also will remain one of the seminal sci-fi works of the late-20th Century. In retrospect its influence on later works is clear, its position as a pioneering work solid. It helps that Greg Bear is a physicist and mathematician, and his knowledge impelled him to make use of modern theoretical physics in ways that previous sci-fi authors couldn’t but which every subsequent author would attempt to emulate and tune to their own songs. The world building—and here I must qualify, I mean in the Thistledown asteroid—is fabulous. For those of you who haven't read Eon, the asteroid appears in our solar system from another universe, one closely paralleling our own, and enters orbit around Earth. We send people to investigate and discover seven hollowed-out chambers full of cities, forests, mountains, deserts, and machinery. The great wonder—which you quickly discover so I'm not really spoiling anything—is that the seventh chamber goes on forever. Re-reading this book I felt like I was entering through the bore-hole for the first time and experiencing the asteroid anew. I was there, in the Thistledown, one of the team, ready to explore and learn and add to scientific knowledge and grow closer to myself and my teammates. Then, when the war came, I felt the anguish and grief of The Death; I thought deeply about the horrors of nuclear weapons and the devastation they will someday bring.

And yes, if you're wondering, I do believe that nuclear weapons, so long as we allow them to exist, pose a very real threat to the survival of our civilization. No weapon is ever designed not to be used. If nuclear weapons are never again used, it's because they've either been destroyed or superseded by something more horrible.

Coming back down from my soapbox … Greg Bear's writing was very satisfying for me when I was younger. He conveys information effectively, dreams up creative storylines, and knows how to keep a plot moving. Now, having expanding my reading tastes—and ability—to a much broader spectrum of styles and authors, I find Bear's style a bit grating. Not too grating to read, but enough to make me chafe, like rubbing your palm on very fine sandpaper. Still, reading it again now, I thoroughly enjoyed Eon through the first 250-or-so pages. The plot was interesting and moved quickly. The characters were a little too obvious, a little to "best-seller" shallow for my taste, but they fit their environment and had plausible motivations and actions.

Then, somewhere between page 250 and 300, things settled down. The story plateaued. Many mysteries were solved, most plot points wrapped up. The mysteries and plot points that remained unresolved were, to me, not so interesting anymore. The world-building became estranged, even contrived, though that may be a bit too harsh. It became more about the characters than the plot. Now, let's make sure we're on the same page, here. I love character studies. I'm okay with a slow-moving plot full of interesting characters. But, as I noted above, the characters in Eon aren't that interesting. They make sense, but there's no real mystery to them, not enough depth to explore, and so became predictable. Slow plot + predictable characters = Bo.Ring.

However, even given the flaws and failings, I'm still glad I re-read Eon. It showed me how far my reading taste has evolved over the last 20 years. It helped me appreciate Eon in a way I couldn't as a young man, for the original work that it was. Re-reading Eon also was a nostalgic experience, helping me connect with my younger self, the self that developed a passion for sci-fi largely because of Eon and others of Greg Bear's novels. So, its flaws notwithstanding, Eon will retain is "awesomest" status in my memories.
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Dec 02, 2011 Banner rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

After reading The Forge of God I wanted to give Greg Bear another read. I'm still going to but I wish it had not been this one. I just couldn't get into this book.

The characters were not real. We kept hearing how great the female protagonist was suppose to be, but it wasn't until near the end that she did anything noteworthy.

I like hard science but this was just too confusing. I don't want to say anything that would cause me to add a spoiler, but the concepts were out there (which is a good th...more

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Jul 10, 2011 Tim Giauque rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Eon begins with a fantastic premise - one day an asteroid is detected heading towards Earth. It gets close enough to the planet to be captured in its orbit, and the nations of the world begin up-close scientific study of this asteroid, only to find that it's been hollowed out and people once lived inside it. What the astronauts discover as they get deeper into the asteroid only gets more and more fantastic, and these discoveries will, of course, change the world forever.

I liked the first half of...more

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Nov 03, 2011 Martin L. Cahn rated it 4 of 5 stars

First off, I believe earlier comparisons to Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama aren't quite valid. While characters believed Rama was an asteroid before they approached it, the Stone of Eon IS a hollowed out asteroid.

More importantly, Eon should be viewed as an alternate universe story on two levels. First, the setting of the novel can now be viewed as an alternate to our own universe from 1985 forward (in Eon's primary universe, the Berlin Wall never fell; the USSR never collapsed). Secon...more

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About Greg Bear

Greg Bear is one of the world's leading hard SF authors. He sold his first short story, at the age of fifteen, to Robert Lowndes's Famous Science Fiction.

A full-time writer, he lives in Washington State with his family. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear. He is the son-in-law of Poul Anderson. They are the parents of two children, Erik and Alexandra.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/gregbear

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