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City at the End of Time
Multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, Greg Bear is one of science fiction's most accomplished writers. Bold scientific speculation, riveting plots, and a fierce humanism reflected in characters who dare to dream of better worlds distinguish his work. Now Bear has written a mind-bendingly epic novel that may well be his masterpiece.
Do you dream of a city at the end of time?
In a time like the present, in a world that may or may not be our own, three young people, Ginny, Jack, and Daniel, dream of a doomed, decadent city of the distant future: the Kalpa. Ginny's and Jack's dreams overtake them without warning, leaving their bodies behind while carrying their consciousnesses forward, into the minds of two inhabitants of the Kalpa: a would-be warrior, Jebrassy, and an inquisitive explorer, Tiadba, who have been genetically retro-engineered to possess qualities of ancient humanity. As for Daniel: He dreams of an empty darkness, all that his future holds.
But more than dreams link Ginny, Jack, and Daniel. They are fate-shifters, born with the ability to skip like stones across the surface of the fifth dimension, inhabiting alternate versions of themselves. And each guards an object whose origin and purpose are unknown: gnarled, stony artifacts called sum-runners that persist unchanged through all versions of time.
Hunted by others with similar powers who seek the sum-runners on behalf of a terrifying, goddess-like entity known as the Chalk Princess, Ginny, Jack, and Daniel are drawn, despite themselves, into an all but hopeless mission to rescue the future, and complete the greatest achievement in human history.
Do you dream of a city at the end of time?
In a time like the present, in a world that may or may not be our own, three young people, Ginny, Jack, and Daniel, dream of a doomed, decadent city of the distant future: the Kalpa. Ginny's and Jack's dreams overtake them without warning, leaving their bodies behind while carrying their consciousnesses forward, into the minds of two inhabitants of the Kalpa: a would-be warrior, Jebrassy, and an inquisitive explorer, Tiadba, who have been genetically retro-engineered to possess qualities of ancient humanity. As for Daniel: He dreams of an empty darkness, all that his future holds.
But more than dreams link Ginny, Jack, and Daniel. They are fate-shifters, born with the ability to skip like stones across the surface of the fifth dimension, inhabiting alternate versions of themselves. And each guards an object whose origin and purpose are unknown: gnarled, stony artifacts called sum-runners that persist unchanged through all versions of time.
Hunted by others with similar powers who seek the sum-runners on behalf of a terrifying, goddess-like entity known as the Chalk Princess, Ginny, Jack, and Daniel are drawn, despite themselves, into an all but hopeless mission to rescue the future, and complete the greatest achievement in human history.
476 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
182 people are currently reading
1983 people want to read
About the author
Greg Bear
230 books2,096 followersGreg Bear was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict (Forge of God books), parallel universes (The Way series), consciousness and cultural practices (Queen of Angels), and accelerated evolution (Blood Music, Darwin’s Radio, and Darwin’s Children). His last work was the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear wrote over 50 books in total.
(For a more complete biography, see Wikipedia.)
(For a more complete biography, see Wikipedia.)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 315 reviews
March 23, 2022
“In the society of would-be-gods, a humble man is always polite.”
Reading Greg Bear's City at the End of Time puts me in a strange situation where I enjoy the novel while sometimes having very little idea of what is really going on. While I've read this twice already several years ago, I'm not sure it prepared me for a third read.
If I don't ever quite understand all of what is happening or how the characters relate to each other, what makes this enjoyable? There is no good answer here. However, there is a sense of so much happening even as characters don't truly appreciate the role they are playing in a bigger drama. The language matches the high purpose and stakes of a universe in its final death throes. While I thought maybe the second half lagged a bit, it was still an engaging read for me, one which I wouldn't be surprised to have in my hands again a few years from now. 4.25 stars
Reading Greg Bear's City at the End of Time puts me in a strange situation where I enjoy the novel while sometimes having very little idea of what is really going on. While I've read this twice already several years ago, I'm not sure it prepared me for a third read.
If I don't ever quite understand all of what is happening or how the characters relate to each other, what makes this enjoyable? There is no good answer here. However, there is a sense of so much happening even as characters don't truly appreciate the role they are playing in a bigger drama. The language matches the high purpose and stakes of a universe in its final death throes. While I thought maybe the second half lagged a bit, it was still an engaging read for me, one which I wouldn't be surprised to have in my hands again a few years from now. 4.25 stars
March 9, 2010
Well.... I read all the reviews on this site just before I started reading. They almost put me off before I got going. But I have to say I am glad I persevered.
YES this book is slow, but I believe that not all books need to be written to the tempo of the current popular demand of the genre. The complex ideas in this story maybe too difficult to take in at a quicker speed. I enjoyed the walking pace; it allowed the characters to build up, and the weird science to slowly fall into place.
YES it may be 'different' to Greg Bear's previous offerings, but why should he fall into his own formula of writing. Creativity blossoms when new styles and ideas are attempted.
YES. It is complicated. Very complicated. The science forming in Greg's mind is extremely alien. Maybe less 'hard sci-fi' than some readers are used to.
BUT. I have a suspicion that many of the reviews written here have been slightly 'copy cat reviews'. Too many readers give up too easily. I had to re-read several chapters to understand some of Greg Bear's ideas, and to keep track of all the characters and situations. I just feel that a book of this weight deserves a little more study and concentration.
The three poor characters from today's Seattle, together with a group of curious and naive 'humans' from the future; come together to solve mysteries and try to save the existence of the universe. They are used as chess pieces in a larger game between a mixture of decidedly unpleasant characters from across time.
The way he decribes the forces at work, destroying matter, destroying time and space; and how entropy is played with by ultra beings, and how the remnants of humanity are used to fight the last eons of the universe... well it blew my mind!
I will not necessarily understand all of the book, but I will certainly never forget it.
If you have time to think... then DO read this book.
YES this book is slow, but I believe that not all books need to be written to the tempo of the current popular demand of the genre. The complex ideas in this story maybe too difficult to take in at a quicker speed. I enjoyed the walking pace; it allowed the characters to build up, and the weird science to slowly fall into place.
YES it may be 'different' to Greg Bear's previous offerings, but why should he fall into his own formula of writing. Creativity blossoms when new styles and ideas are attempted.
YES. It is complicated. Very complicated. The science forming in Greg's mind is extremely alien. Maybe less 'hard sci-fi' than some readers are used to.
BUT. I have a suspicion that many of the reviews written here have been slightly 'copy cat reviews'. Too many readers give up too easily. I had to re-read several chapters to understand some of Greg Bear's ideas, and to keep track of all the characters and situations. I just feel that a book of this weight deserves a little more study and concentration.
The three poor characters from today's Seattle, together with a group of curious and naive 'humans' from the future; come together to solve mysteries and try to save the existence of the universe. They are used as chess pieces in a larger game between a mixture of decidedly unpleasant characters from across time.
The way he decribes the forces at work, destroying matter, destroying time and space; and how entropy is played with by ultra beings, and how the remnants of humanity are used to fight the last eons of the universe... well it blew my mind!
I will not necessarily understand all of the book, but I will certainly never forget it.
If you have time to think... then DO read this book.
June 19, 2011
Tedious. Difficult. Disappointing.
This book is a perfect example of a failure of editing. Well over a full third of this material could have been removed and nothing about the story would have been affected. The one character written to have any semblance of a character arc is a minor character at best. The reader instead gets to follow some incredibly bland and passive characters just waiting for the end to arrive. When that end does come around, it is painfully obvious that it has been phoned in; most of the supporting cast has simply been forgotten in Bear's rush to have the protagonists do -- nothing. Congrats on a paycheck, I guess.
The story encompasses two time periods of Earth - one set in the present and one set is the extreme distant future. The humans of the future do not resemble us in either form or culture as trillions of years of evolution would leave a mark. Unfortunately, this future is extremely boring. For the first 250 pages, I would strongly suggest skimming or skipping entirely any chapters dealing with this time. They provide nothing aside from tiresome angst from characters that aren't essential to the plot. The characters inhabiting the present are much more interesting. Well, not the protagonists but rather the minor characters that serve to push the incredibly passive boors towards the finish line.
At about the halfway point of the book, the future storyline picks up and gets quite interesting. If the reader has skimmed a scant few of the earlier future chapters, it should not be difficult to understand what is going on. Even if confusion sets in, worry not, for the excitement is pretty irrelevant in the end anyway. These characters simply disappear and nothing is mentioned of their relationships again. A wonderful buildup of tension and wonder is squandered at this point as Bear again focuses on those painfully unimpressive protagonists waiting and wandering and waiting some more. A few entertaining scenes are sprinkled around the last quarter of the book but they're certainly not enough to make up for the lack of, well, everything else in this exceptionally shoddy work.
Yes, I suppose I am a bit bitter about having stuck through to the end. There was a very nifty premise that appeared to have some potential here but a poor execution and utterly boring story put that to bed. There's a reason this hardcover was found in the $1.99 bin. There's a reason my copy will be back in there in the very near future as well.
This book is a perfect example of a failure of editing. Well over a full third of this material could have been removed and nothing about the story would have been affected. The one character written to have any semblance of a character arc is a minor character at best. The reader instead gets to follow some incredibly bland and passive characters just waiting for the end to arrive. When that end does come around, it is painfully obvious that it has been phoned in; most of the supporting cast has simply been forgotten in Bear's rush to have the protagonists do -- nothing. Congrats on a paycheck, I guess.
The story encompasses two time periods of Earth - one set in the present and one set is the extreme distant future. The humans of the future do not resemble us in either form or culture as trillions of years of evolution would leave a mark. Unfortunately, this future is extremely boring. For the first 250 pages, I would strongly suggest skimming or skipping entirely any chapters dealing with this time. They provide nothing aside from tiresome angst from characters that aren't essential to the plot. The characters inhabiting the present are much more interesting. Well, not the protagonists but rather the minor characters that serve to push the incredibly passive boors towards the finish line.
At about the halfway point of the book, the future storyline picks up and gets quite interesting. If the reader has skimmed a scant few of the earlier future chapters, it should not be difficult to understand what is going on. Even if confusion sets in, worry not, for the excitement is pretty irrelevant in the end anyway. These characters simply disappear and nothing is mentioned of their relationships again. A wonderful buildup of tension and wonder is squandered at this point as Bear again focuses on those painfully unimpressive protagonists waiting and wandering and waiting some more. A few entertaining scenes are sprinkled around the last quarter of the book but they're certainly not enough to make up for the lack of, well, everything else in this exceptionally shoddy work.
Yes, I suppose I am a bit bitter about having stuck through to the end. There was a very nifty premise that appeared to have some potential here but a poor execution and utterly boring story put that to bed. There's a reason this hardcover was found in the $1.99 bin. There's a reason my copy will be back in there in the very near future as well.
March 4, 2013
Or the 'Slow Painful Death of Reality'...
There's a brilliant tale somewhere in 'The City at the End of Time', it's a book full of pregnant thoughts and weighty expectations but in the end I admit I was left just as unfulfilled as I did when launching into this difficult piece of prose. By splitting his story between so many characters Greg Bear risked spreading his story too thin but in fact it's perhaps the characters themselves that let the grander tale down.
The story follows several sets of characters; in the time period ten zeroes (presumably set in the future but with nothing in the book making it clear this is the case) Jack, Ginny and Daniel are all 'Sum Runners', characters who can shift fate and dive between worlds to a paralell reality more to their liking. Ginny is the perennial bad penny, a frightened girl who makes the bad choice every time and then flees. Jack is a lonesome busker, making the best of a bad job. Daniel is more challenging; he's shifted into a parallel world into another body not his own. Bereft of his old life and memories he has no personality or memories, just a burning need to survive no matter what the costs. Jack and Ginny both dream of the future, of the city at the end of time, whilst Daniel dreams of nothing.
In this city (in the time period fourteen zeroes) Tiadba and Jebrassy dream of Ginny and Jack respectively. Both are breeds, lowly life forms engineered by Ghentun and the Librarian (or Polybiblios) for a great purpose unexplained for at least half the book. In the future it appears humanity has evolved into a myriad of forms inexplicable compared to what we are now, but the breeds are an attempt to recreate their ancient heritage. So Jack and Ginny dream of Jebrassy and Tiadba, and vica versa, both sets of characters intruding on the others lives. At the start of the novel this is shown to be a terrifying and scary process, 'straying' as it is termed is a random and non-chronological process (Ginny dreams of Tiadba's future on several occasions) yet by the end it seems almost as though the characters are in constant contact with each other. The progression here is awkward and ill defined, aside from constantly repeating that the link exists very ground is made exploring this plot point.
Eventually, although nearly two hundred pages in, it becomes apparent that what's happened is the catastrophic downfall of humanity. A chaotic influence (sometimes dubbed the Typhon, sometimes called other names) is rewriting the rules of the universe and spreading out to engulf everything. This has resulted in chaos, a zone with no rules or fixed constants, where the physics that result in constants like ground, air, light can no longer be relied upon. Humanity once had an empire that stretched across the stars but all of that is gone; now only one planet (less in fact, just one city) remains. On this city, the Kalpa, the great Librarian Polybiblios has entrusted Ghentun, the keeper, to create a race of primitive humans who can survive in the chaos, who can venture out to the lost city of Nataraja where his daughter (a muse created by the alien creatures the Shen) might have the key to saving the universe.
In the past (ten zeroes) Ginny and Jack are hunted by chancers, people working for the White Queen (an agent of chaos???) who wish to prevent the Sum Runners from being reunited. Two hunters stand tall, Max Glaucous (who is far and above the novels best character) hunts Jack, and the enigmatic Whitlow (who hunts the Sum Runner who does not dream) hunts Daniel. Meanwhile Ginny encounters the elusive Bidewell, an ancient librarian who has been preparing for the end by studying books. You see, as the chaos in the future rewrites the laws of existence, it has also been rewriting the past. Time is being chewed up and broken down and the best way to observe this is to note how books are being changed. At the start of the novel Bidewell notes grammatical mistakes are disappearing, appearing, small commas inserting themselves to alter a paragraphs fundamental meaning or disposition. By the end of the novel as the effect accelerates the written word descends into a free for all. Of course this writing means nothing unless it is read, unless it is observed. It's a fascinating comment on how observing something fundamentally changes it, or in this case prevents random change from occurring.
However Ginny and Jack are sadly afforded so little character of note (and neither is Daniel, although there is plenty of plot reasons for that). She is shown fleeing, but what from is not made clear until towards the end when her backstory is filled in. Her character does not progress, just constantly fretting about the bad choices she makes by running before accepting her fate and running again. Time and time again she appears to find sanctuary before turning her back. Towards the end a myriad of alternate Ginny's are displayed, girls who were not as lucky and were caught by their hunters. How this can be the case I'm not sure though as the one reputable characteristic of the Ginny we have followed is that she makes bad choices.
Setting wise very little ground is covered in the past, the setting does not appear interesting or relevant for much of the book. Daniel's character hunts out someone he believes may help him, and then finds a girl who he believes may be related to him, but with the eventual revelation of his backstory this presumably was a lie. The time period ten zeroes is entirely unengaging save for the characters that inhabit it. This is in sharp contrast to the time of the Kalpa which is entirely interesting but the juicy details are held back until the novel is half way over.
It's incredibly difficult to invest in a story that struggles so hard to keep you at arm's length, to shroud itself in confusion and misdirection at every turn. Absolute certainties are slowly broken down, normal plot twists and turns ignored entirely as the slow beat of the Typhon marches onwards. Greg Bear's prose is excellent but until Tiadba ventures forth into the Typhon it serves little purpose.
Whilst the ending and the slow realisation of the true events being portrayed here have merit it struggles to justify the long investment reading this book has been. In the end Daniel's true original self is revealed, the librarian's erstwhile daughter completes her task and the sum runners are re-united. The witches, Bidewell, Glaucous, Whitlow are all cast aside as stories left unfulfilled whilst Jack and Ginny venture forth into a new and exciting universe, ready for their stories to begin anew.
This isn't a book about characters or plot, it's about the slow, painful death of cause and effect, of meaning itself.
There's a brilliant tale somewhere in 'The City at the End of Time', it's a book full of pregnant thoughts and weighty expectations but in the end I admit I was left just as unfulfilled as I did when launching into this difficult piece of prose. By splitting his story between so many characters Greg Bear risked spreading his story too thin but in fact it's perhaps the characters themselves that let the grander tale down.
The story follows several sets of characters; in the time period ten zeroes (presumably set in the future but with nothing in the book making it clear this is the case) Jack, Ginny and Daniel are all 'Sum Runners', characters who can shift fate and dive between worlds to a paralell reality more to their liking. Ginny is the perennial bad penny, a frightened girl who makes the bad choice every time and then flees. Jack is a lonesome busker, making the best of a bad job. Daniel is more challenging; he's shifted into a parallel world into another body not his own. Bereft of his old life and memories he has no personality or memories, just a burning need to survive no matter what the costs. Jack and Ginny both dream of the future, of the city at the end of time, whilst Daniel dreams of nothing.
In this city (in the time period fourteen zeroes) Tiadba and Jebrassy dream of Ginny and Jack respectively. Both are breeds, lowly life forms engineered by Ghentun and the Librarian (or Polybiblios) for a great purpose unexplained for at least half the book. In the future it appears humanity has evolved into a myriad of forms inexplicable compared to what we are now, but the breeds are an attempt to recreate their ancient heritage. So Jack and Ginny dream of Jebrassy and Tiadba, and vica versa, both sets of characters intruding on the others lives. At the start of the novel this is shown to be a terrifying and scary process, 'straying' as it is termed is a random and non-chronological process (Ginny dreams of Tiadba's future on several occasions) yet by the end it seems almost as though the characters are in constant contact with each other. The progression here is awkward and ill defined, aside from constantly repeating that the link exists very ground is made exploring this plot point.
Eventually, although nearly two hundred pages in, it becomes apparent that what's happened is the catastrophic downfall of humanity. A chaotic influence (sometimes dubbed the Typhon, sometimes called other names) is rewriting the rules of the universe and spreading out to engulf everything. This has resulted in chaos, a zone with no rules or fixed constants, where the physics that result in constants like ground, air, light can no longer be relied upon. Humanity once had an empire that stretched across the stars but all of that is gone; now only one planet (less in fact, just one city) remains. On this city, the Kalpa, the great Librarian Polybiblios has entrusted Ghentun, the keeper, to create a race of primitive humans who can survive in the chaos, who can venture out to the lost city of Nataraja where his daughter (a muse created by the alien creatures the Shen) might have the key to saving the universe.
In the past (ten zeroes) Ginny and Jack are hunted by chancers, people working for the White Queen (an agent of chaos???) who wish to prevent the Sum Runners from being reunited. Two hunters stand tall, Max Glaucous (who is far and above the novels best character) hunts Jack, and the enigmatic Whitlow (who hunts the Sum Runner who does not dream) hunts Daniel. Meanwhile Ginny encounters the elusive Bidewell, an ancient librarian who has been preparing for the end by studying books. You see, as the chaos in the future rewrites the laws of existence, it has also been rewriting the past. Time is being chewed up and broken down and the best way to observe this is to note how books are being changed. At the start of the novel Bidewell notes grammatical mistakes are disappearing, appearing, small commas inserting themselves to alter a paragraphs fundamental meaning or disposition. By the end of the novel as the effect accelerates the written word descends into a free for all. Of course this writing means nothing unless it is read, unless it is observed. It's a fascinating comment on how observing something fundamentally changes it, or in this case prevents random change from occurring.
However Ginny and Jack are sadly afforded so little character of note (and neither is Daniel, although there is plenty of plot reasons for that). She is shown fleeing, but what from is not made clear until towards the end when her backstory is filled in. Her character does not progress, just constantly fretting about the bad choices she makes by running before accepting her fate and running again. Time and time again she appears to find sanctuary before turning her back. Towards the end a myriad of alternate Ginny's are displayed, girls who were not as lucky and were caught by their hunters. How this can be the case I'm not sure though as the one reputable characteristic of the Ginny we have followed is that she makes bad choices.
Setting wise very little ground is covered in the past, the setting does not appear interesting or relevant for much of the book. Daniel's character hunts out someone he believes may help him, and then finds a girl who he believes may be related to him, but with the eventual revelation of his backstory this presumably was a lie. The time period ten zeroes is entirely unengaging save for the characters that inhabit it. This is in sharp contrast to the time of the Kalpa which is entirely interesting but the juicy details are held back until the novel is half way over.
It's incredibly difficult to invest in a story that struggles so hard to keep you at arm's length, to shroud itself in confusion and misdirection at every turn. Absolute certainties are slowly broken down, normal plot twists and turns ignored entirely as the slow beat of the Typhon marches onwards. Greg Bear's prose is excellent but until Tiadba ventures forth into the Typhon it serves little purpose.
Whilst the ending and the slow realisation of the true events being portrayed here have merit it struggles to justify the long investment reading this book has been. In the end Daniel's true original self is revealed, the librarian's erstwhile daughter completes her task and the sum runners are re-united. The witches, Bidewell, Glaucous, Whitlow are all cast aside as stories left unfulfilled whilst Jack and Ginny venture forth into a new and exciting universe, ready for their stories to begin anew.
This isn't a book about characters or plot, it's about the slow, painful death of cause and effect, of meaning itself.
February 14, 2013
I read this book like a 5-year-old would eat spinach. Their mother told them to eat it, they know it's good for them, but it just tastes. So. Bad.
I really wanted to like this book. I found the premise interesting - two different cities in very different locations/times/situations, and some of their inhabitants who dream about each other. Oh, and time must be ending, because that's what the title of the book implies. How fun! (sarcasm.) Being a fan of wibbly-wobbly sci-fi, I thought this book would be an interesting, and perhaps a little perplexing, read. Boy, was I wrong.
I'm giving this book 1.5 stars out of 5. I struggled through this book's lengthy pages of sci-fi madness, wondering why I keep reading it. Why did I keep reading it? Because I wanted to know how it ended! I did find the plot interesting, or maybe I'm just a completionist (Honestly, I don't really know), and Mr. Bear certainly knows what he's talking about because he described everything in detail. In fact, for me anyways, it was way too much detail. I found myself dozing off as I read, and having to go back and reread paragraph after paragraph just to get a picture in my head. Eventually, I gave up on figuring out what he was describing and made it up myself. Additionally, I often had a hard time picturing things because there is no explanation of them. For example, nootic mass. If this was ever explained, I must've dozed off because I had no idea what it was the whole book through. Some explanations were given in the form of a sci-fi textbook, if you will. A character named Ghentun reflects on the past a few times, and it reads like a textbook and the reader doesn't understand anything in this passage because it's all in future-people-speak!
Another thing that bothered me about this book was the characters. I saw where Mr. Bear was going with each character (i.e. Ginny is the shy, innocent one, Daniel is the rebel, etc.), but they didn't feel real to me. Every time someone said a line, it felt forced, and it felt like any other character could say it. Why are you so angry at so-and-so? There were several times while reading this book that I couldn't perceive the answer to this question. I think my favorite character was Daniel, maybe because we already had some insight into his past. (I realize they all ) He was mysterious, he was ! (not really a spoiler because it's revealed the first time we meet him but...still.) But at times (especially towards the end), even he felt forced and awkward. Speaking about forced and awkward, certain plot twists seemed a bit randomly thrown in or remembered at the last minute or something!
I know sci-fi is supposed to be a bit confusing, but this book is just foggy to me. I suppose I'm like that kid who finishes his spinach and then scrunches up his face as if to say, "I'm not sure what I just ate, but I didn't really like it."
IN SUMMARY:
THE GOOD: Interesting concept and plot, lots and lots of description, will keep you hanging...all 476 pages of it
THE BAD: Possibly too much description, not a lot of actual explanation of minor concepts, some elements of plot and character seem unmotivated and random
WOULD RECOMMEND TO: Hardcore sci-fi fans who catch on quickly, remember every detail they've read, and are looking for a ginormous epic
WOULD NOT RECOMMEND TO: Casual readers, especially if you're reading it on a low amount of sleep or are easily distracted
REASON FOR SCORE: I really wanted to give this book a 2 because of its excellent and lengthy plot, but by the time I finished it, I was so annoyed by it that I deducted half a point. Sorry, Mr. Bear. Gold star for trying.
I really wanted to like this book. I found the premise interesting - two different cities in very different locations/times/situations, and some of their inhabitants who dream about each other. Oh, and time must be ending, because that's what the title of the book implies. How fun! (sarcasm.) Being a fan of wibbly-wobbly sci-fi, I thought this book would be an interesting, and perhaps a little perplexing, read. Boy, was I wrong.
I'm giving this book 1.5 stars out of 5. I struggled through this book's lengthy pages of sci-fi madness, wondering why I keep reading it. Why did I keep reading it? Because I wanted to know how it ended! I did find the plot interesting, or maybe I'm just a completionist (Honestly, I don't really know), and Mr. Bear certainly knows what he's talking about because he described everything in detail. In fact, for me anyways, it was way too much detail. I found myself dozing off as I read, and having to go back and reread paragraph after paragraph just to get a picture in my head. Eventually, I gave up on figuring out what he was describing and made it up myself. Additionally, I often had a hard time picturing things because there is no explanation of them. For example, nootic mass. If this was ever explained, I must've dozed off because I had no idea what it was the whole book through. Some explanations were given in the form of a sci-fi textbook, if you will. A character named Ghentun reflects on the past a few times, and it reads like a textbook and the reader doesn't understand anything in this passage because it's all in future-people-speak!
Another thing that bothered me about this book was the characters. I saw where Mr. Bear was going with each character (i.e. Ginny is the shy, innocent one, Daniel is the rebel, etc.), but they didn't feel real to me. Every time someone said a line, it felt forced, and it felt like any other character could say it. Why are you so angry at so-and-so? There were several times while reading this book that I couldn't perceive the answer to this question. I think my favorite character was Daniel, maybe because we already had some insight into his past. (I realize they all ) He was mysterious, he was ! (not really a spoiler because it's revealed the first time we meet him but...still.) But at times (especially towards the end), even he felt forced and awkward. Speaking about forced and awkward, certain plot twists seemed a bit randomly thrown in or remembered at the last minute or something!
I know sci-fi is supposed to be a bit confusing, but this book is just foggy to me. I suppose I'm like that kid who finishes his spinach and then scrunches up his face as if to say, "I'm not sure what I just ate, but I didn't really like it."
IN SUMMARY:
THE GOOD: Interesting concept and plot, lots and lots of description, will keep you hanging...all 476 pages of it
THE BAD: Possibly too much description, not a lot of actual explanation of minor concepts, some elements of plot and character seem unmotivated and random
WOULD RECOMMEND TO: Hardcore sci-fi fans who catch on quickly, remember every detail they've read, and are looking for a ginormous epic
WOULD NOT RECOMMEND TO: Casual readers, especially if you're reading it on a low amount of sleep or are easily distracted
REASON FOR SCORE: I really wanted to give this book a 2 because of its excellent and lengthy plot, but by the time I finished it, I was so annoyed by it that I deducted half a point. Sorry, Mr. Bear. Gold star for trying.
January 12, 2020
This is a really good piece of work, both inside and out. Bear nails the right tone for reading this book at night, in bed, lights off, with a flashlight on your head. It is a gentle tale of upheaval. It sets a cozy film noir mood, includes a couple of square jawed, thick-fisted, 40's style characters, and I enjoyed the lift as the story bent my mind around semi-solid matter. The cool cover soaks right through the book's pages, already full of nice looking font, to give this fatalistic end-story the green/black and gray visual grains that put the picture right in my head.
Forget any objections to the ending. Must we have a bang, when a whimper will do?
I gave it 5 stars because I think the author pushed himself to reach for something new. I am sure that Bear challenged himself writing this, and in doing so, he found new territory, and I found it interesting. Portions of the book are not easy to grasp right away, but Bear has put us in the same position as his cast of characters -- we are all trying to make sense out of something we have never seen before. It seems that certain things in the story are vague and murky on purpose.
City at the End of Time will not appeal to everyone, still, this is not a 1 or 2 star effort, and I'll give it 5.
Forget any objections to the ending. Must we have a bang, when a whimper will do?
I gave it 5 stars because I think the author pushed himself to reach for something new. I am sure that Bear challenged himself writing this, and in doing so, he found new territory, and I found it interesting. Portions of the book are not easy to grasp right away, but Bear has put us in the same position as his cast of characters -- we are all trying to make sense out of something we have never seen before. It seems that certain things in the story are vague and murky on purpose.
City at the End of Time will not appeal to everyone, still, this is not a 1 or 2 star effort, and I'll give it 5.
August 13, 2008
What happened, Mr. Bear?
There was a time when I loved your books without question. I studied molecular biology in part thanks to the mad dystopia of _Blood Music_. I cherish my hardcover copies of _Eon_ and _Moving Mars_. You dreamed up some truly fascinating hard SF.
Then you started writing lousy thrillers, but I thought to myself "Hopefully he'll get that out of his system and go back to his forte".
Seriously, Mr. Bear, what happened?
In the first 25 pages of this book, Bear introduces five major characters. He starts out in the far-flung dying future universe, explaining nothing and dropping a bevy of indistinct, ill-defined terms. He moves to the present, dropping even more names and explaining precious few of them. I felt like I missed book one and picked up book two by mistake.
At that point, the book made me genuinely angry.
Perhaps I don't have the literary patience of my younger days. Other people have read and loved this book. More power to them. For my part, I'm done with Bear. Continuing with this book would have been a big waste of my time, and I somehow doubt that he's ever going to return to his glory days.
There was a time when I loved your books without question. I studied molecular biology in part thanks to the mad dystopia of _Blood Music_. I cherish my hardcover copies of _Eon_ and _Moving Mars_. You dreamed up some truly fascinating hard SF.
Then you started writing lousy thrillers, but I thought to myself "Hopefully he'll get that out of his system and go back to his forte".
Seriously, Mr. Bear, what happened?
In the first 25 pages of this book, Bear introduces five major characters. He starts out in the far-flung dying future universe, explaining nothing and dropping a bevy of indistinct, ill-defined terms. He moves to the present, dropping even more names and explaining precious few of them. I felt like I missed book one and picked up book two by mistake.
At that point, the book made me genuinely angry.
Perhaps I don't have the literary patience of my younger days. Other people have read and loved this book. More power to them. For my part, I'm done with Bear. Continuing with this book would have been a big waste of my time, and I somehow doubt that he's ever going to return to his glory days.
August 2, 2011
This book is a real brain twister. You get dropped in in the middle with very little explained, but with patience things become revealed. I actually like this plot style of starting in the middle and gradually revealing information that makes you reflect back and realize what was happening earlier in the book. Anathem by Neal Stephensen, and Rant by Chuck Pahlaniuk do this as well. This book askes a lot of your brain to suspend a sense of order to try to grasp the chaos, and ride the lines of reality that thread through complete mayhem. You have to hold on to a number of threads at once to understand what is happing. I know that I missed a lot, so I expect that I will revisit this book and gain a better understanding the next time through.
An interesting blend of mythology and sci-fi, with heavy doses of multi-time lines and multi-realities, and the utter expansiveness of reality, and connections across the vast expanses of time.
An interesting blend of mythology and sci-fi, with heavy doses of multi-time lines and multi-realities, and the utter expansiveness of reality, and connections across the vast expanses of time.
December 28, 2009
I wish that I would have reviewed this when I first read it. I simply loved this difficult read. It is a hard sci-fi that jumps time periods, alternates chapters frequently, and at times can be a bit confusing. It does however have a great underlying story that really comes together at the end. As a hardcore science fiction geek, this novel had it all for me, and I highly recommend it for lovers of the genre.
October 5, 2008
This was disappointing. I'm a huge Greg Bear fan - ever since the wonderful Blood Music. But this book has vast tracts of boring chapters. It's a book that is screaming for an editor - snip out at least a third of the long preamble to the finale and it would get another star, maybe two.
April 14, 2020
The aging universe is expanding and it's spacetime fabric is weakened.
Humanity is dispersed thinly across the dying cosmos and there are some cyber-punk type characters and some other powers and creatures and places and times and universes……..or something, that is when the plot completely lost me. I understood the sentences and they actually sounded sophisticated and full of meaning.
However, as I moved forward in the book I realized that I have no clue what the plot is about, I am not sure who the characters are and things are making no sense. They go here they go there, they do this and they do that, they say this they say that and no clear picture is formed. I am not sure why I continued? I thought it would make sense? I had excess time on my hand?
Listening to books does this to you sometimes. You continue listening out of inertia and out of the thin hope that you will understand all at some stage. When the book finished and I did not find any closure , I understood that this book was not for me.
Humanity is dispersed thinly across the dying cosmos and there are some cyber-punk type characters and some other powers and creatures and places and times and universes……..or something, that is when the plot completely lost me. I understood the sentences and they actually sounded sophisticated and full of meaning.
However, as I moved forward in the book I realized that I have no clue what the plot is about, I am not sure who the characters are and things are making no sense. They go here they go there, they do this and they do that, they say this they say that and no clear picture is formed. I am not sure why I continued? I thought it would make sense? I had excess time on my hand?
Listening to books does this to you sometimes. You continue listening out of inertia and out of the thin hope that you will understand all at some stage. When the book finished and I did not find any closure , I understood that this book was not for me.
August 26, 2009
Good god.
I started this one because of his critical acclaim for a previous book, all the while ignoring the vast selection of bad reviews on Goodreads; never again.
I took home a few things from this one:
1, he is an intelligent author.
2, having listened to this in audiobook format, actually reading the book probably could have helped in following the storyline.
3, there is no way in hell I would have read this in its entirety (too out there).
If the rating scale allowed for more variance, I probably would have given this less than 2 stars. However, based on deserved merit for intelligent writing, I can't give it just 1 star.
I may look for the award winner in the future.... but I may not.
I started this one because of his critical acclaim for a previous book, all the while ignoring the vast selection of bad reviews on Goodreads; never again.
I took home a few things from this one:
1, he is an intelligent author.
2, having listened to this in audiobook format, actually reading the book probably could have helped in following the storyline.
3, there is no way in hell I would have read this in its entirety (too out there).
If the rating scale allowed for more variance, I probably would have given this less than 2 stars. However, based on deserved merit for intelligent writing, I can't give it just 1 star.
I may look for the award winner in the future.... but I may not.
December 18, 2008
What a strange stew of familiar parts, and it really pretty much works. It starts out with a far (FAR) future bunch of post-humans living in an impossible kind of place, a little like Eon. Then there's a present-time thriller part, where people with odd talents are being chased by scary scariness with hints of cosmic historical depths, and this part reads like a mash-up of Tim Powers and Clive Barker (and I wouldn't be surprised to find some Charles Williams on Bear's shelf too). These keep alternating and blurring together, leading up to a world-changing Big Thing, except there's more story after that and then a whole series of Big Things, kind of like Bear's fantasy Songs of Earth and Power. And there's a mythical back-story that has kind of a Robert Silverberg feel, with an oddly moving kinky chicken-eating joke. And there are some pretty disturbing bits of Bear trying to imagine a fate worse than death, as he sometimes does. And there are cats-- a real what-the-hell cat moment to rival The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. There's a plot, but it's the kind where the rules aren't really available to you, so you have to just go with the flow. By the end I wasn't sure what it added up to, except that I had been with a damn good writer with a good heart, dreaming a big dream.
December 12, 2011
I listened to the audio version of this book one summer while I had a serious amount of weekly driving, otherwise I'm quite sure I would have given up. I was expecting science fiction, and ended up with some kind of odd present-day / futuristic fantasy.
As another reviewer puts it, this book was tedious and disappointing. There was quite a lot of mystery and intrigue building up throughout the book, with its parallel and intersecting plot lines, but the end was a huge, clichéd letdown.
As another reviewer puts it, this book was tedious and disappointing. There was quite a lot of mystery and intrigue building up throughout the book, with its parallel and intersecting plot lines, but the end was a huge, clichéd letdown.
December 18, 2008
Alternates between a very bad imitation of Tim Powers, and pseudo-poetic surrealistic gibberish. I read it all the way to the end hoping it would finish with an unpredictable payoff. No such luck. What a disappointing waste of time.
January 29, 2010
I kept hoping that by the end everything would become clear. But in the words of two of the characters (were they really the same character in different possibilities / times / universes?), it is "not to be known."
abandoned
July 22, 2013If anyone knows where Neil Stephenson and Greg Bear ran off to, please notify the authorities.
-m
-m
October 29, 2020
This was a great tale, one of those that's nonsensical but seemingly profound, all the way from the beginning until a few pages before the end. The ending is not a letdown, it's nonexistent, leaving the story with no arc and the structure without closure.
December 19, 2022
Far too much effort went into trying to convey the concept, and not enough into the characters. I nearly gave up about 3/4 of the way through as I felt I couldn't careless about the people. Rather complex, slow, and in the and disappointing.
August 30, 2021
I'm really not sure what Bear was trying to achieve here. He's attempted a mash-up of genres -SF and Dark Fantasy- that I don't think many would have thought could be viable or have even desired... and it doesn't work.
The main -and directly referenced- inspiration is William Hope Hodgson's incomparable The Night Land: TCatEoT has lovers across the aeons (though not via reincarnation), a Last Redoubt in all but name (and a Lesser Redoubt), mysterious wastelands and stationary Watchers and strange houses and highways. But Bear sees fit to big things up. His setting is not just the end of the world, but the end of time and the universe and every alternate universe (though it all centres, of course, around Earth and humanity - after all, what else could possibly matter in the whole of Creation?) His city in not just a last redoubt against the forces of darkness, it is a last redoubt against Chaos, the last redoubt of Reality, where all of what is left of Time is fragmentally washing up (though we only learn of the human bits of it).
But there is also a contemporary Seattle setting, featuring a rag-tag group of people with the ability to bend causality to their will via the manipulation of time-lines of adjacent -and not-so adjacent dimensions. These are constantly hounded by inhuman folk of varying degrees of monstrousness (and usually more or less immortal), possessed of dark powers that may as well be called magical (though Bear attempts to provide a 'scientific' logic for them, it amounts to little more than lip-service). At first I thought Bear was aiming for Stephen King, but at one point Clive Barker gets a glaring reference, and I realised that Barker's particular brand of Dark Fantasy was actually the target (and, admittedly, Bear does often hit home).
Taken separately, these two aspects would make interesting novels - Bear's writing is rarely short of excellent, and the pages do keep turning. But, kicking and screaming, he has forced them into unholy union, and the outcome just never came close to anything really new, and certainly not anything wonderful. The last third of the story becomes ever more disjointed, giving the distinct impression that Bear didn't know himself how to resolve matters... let's just say it possibly had to boil down to getting Macguffins to slot together. And to cats.
Oh, and there's a rather muddled invocation of gods and a overarching theme of the fundamental power of the written word and of books in particular.
Kudos for attempting something different... but not for success in said attempt.
The main -and directly referenced- inspiration is William Hope Hodgson's incomparable The Night Land: TCatEoT has lovers across the aeons (though not via reincarnation), a Last Redoubt in all but name (and a Lesser Redoubt), mysterious wastelands and stationary Watchers and strange houses and highways. But Bear sees fit to big things up. His setting is not just the end of the world, but the end of time and the universe and every alternate universe (though it all centres, of course, around Earth and humanity - after all, what else could possibly matter in the whole of Creation?) His city in not just a last redoubt against the forces of darkness, it is a last redoubt against Chaos, the last redoubt of Reality, where all of what is left of Time is fragmentally washing up (though we only learn of the human bits of it).
But there is also a contemporary Seattle setting, featuring a rag-tag group of people with the ability to bend causality to their will via the manipulation of time-lines of adjacent -and not-so adjacent dimensions. These are constantly hounded by inhuman folk of varying degrees of monstrousness (and usually more or less immortal), possessed of dark powers that may as well be called magical (though Bear attempts to provide a 'scientific' logic for them, it amounts to little more than lip-service). At first I thought Bear was aiming for Stephen King, but at one point Clive Barker gets a glaring reference, and I realised that Barker's particular brand of Dark Fantasy was actually the target (and, admittedly, Bear does often hit home).
Taken separately, these two aspects would make interesting novels - Bear's writing is rarely short of excellent, and the pages do keep turning. But, kicking and screaming, he has forced them into unholy union, and the outcome just never came close to anything really new, and certainly not anything wonderful. The last third of the story becomes ever more disjointed, giving the distinct impression that Bear didn't know himself how to resolve matters... let's just say it possibly had to boil down to getting Macguffins to slot together. And to cats.
Oh, and there's a rather muddled invocation of gods and a overarching theme of the fundamental power of the written word and of books in particular.
Kudos for attempting something different... but not for success in said attempt.
October 29, 2023
I admire the ambition. There is something compelling about an author's attempt to depict the end of time. I love William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land, with it's fever-vision of the landscape of ultimate futurity and its malevolent entities. From City at the End of Time I was hoping for a hard-sf take on The Night Land, insofar as such a thing is possible.
I loved the tale of Polybiblios, Ishanaxade, and Sangmer. I would have been happy to see more development of that legend-history. I could have done without the contemporary-Seattle plot entirely. Parts of that go literally nowhere.
I wanted more exploration of the Kalpa (the last redoubt of life in the universe). There is a map/diagram of the Kalpa and environs at the beginning of the book, which seemed to promise a Greg-Egan-esque exploration of what such a place might "look like," how it might "work." But we never got deep into the geography and mechanics of the place.
I also wanted more evocative depiction of the wilderness of unreality outside the Kalpa. I wanted to see the terrain forsaken by existence, and glimpse the horrors that haunt primordial chaos. I guess my expectations were set a little high.
I loved the tale of Polybiblios, Ishanaxade, and Sangmer. I would have been happy to see more development of that legend-history. I could have done without the contemporary-Seattle plot entirely. Parts of that go literally nowhere.
I wanted more exploration of the Kalpa (the last redoubt of life in the universe). There is a map/diagram of the Kalpa and environs at the beginning of the book, which seemed to promise a Greg-Egan-esque exploration of what such a place might "look like," how it might "work." But we never got deep into the geography and mechanics of the place.
I also wanted more evocative depiction of the wilderness of unreality outside the Kalpa. I wanted to see the terrain forsaken by existence, and glimpse the horrors that haunt primordial chaos. I guess my expectations were set a little high.
January 5, 2013
I finished the book to just not have a book hanging over my head. Ultimately it is too complex and convoluted to hold my attention. Brief flashes of clarity coupled with interesting concepts on time and reality are too few and far between. I finished in hopes that all would be tied together, but too many strands made it hard to find their relationship to each other.
There are brief moments where the story seems like the matrix, others lord of the rings, with cameos from weird x-men. And lots of confused prose. No one ever seems to know what is going on and wander around declaring so in a befuddled haze.
There are brief moments where the story seems like the matrix, others lord of the rings, with cameos from weird x-men. And lots of confused prose. No one ever seems to know what is going on and wander around declaring so in a befuddled haze.
April 28, 2022
Something, it isn't called entropy, is degrading the multiverse into chaos. The action switches between contemporary Seattle and Kalpa some trillion years in the future. In the now we follow fate shifters, Ginny, Jack and Daniel and hunters. In the future there are Tiadba and Jebrassy and some other characters like Polybiblios. Breeds and Tall Ones.
I should have known by the title, a trillion years in the future, who cares? They've lived a long life it's time for them to succumb to the end of the universe. As for Ginny and Jack, they have stones that have some mystical quality. They somehow connect to the future, and they may or may not remember when they do.
This was a slog, I felt that everything was made up on the fly. The characters would talk a lot of mumbo-jumbo. I couldn't get a grip on it. Visualization was hard or non-existent. The best I could do is root for the characters. 1.9 stars. The last seventy pages weren't any clearer, 1.6 stars. I loved Darwin's Radio. Whatever this was, it was not for me.
I should have known by the title, a trillion years in the future, who cares? They've lived a long life it's time for them to succumb to the end of the universe. As for Ginny and Jack, they have stones that have some mystical quality. They somehow connect to the future, and they may or may not remember when they do.
This was a slog, I felt that everything was made up on the fly. The characters would talk a lot of mumbo-jumbo. I couldn't get a grip on it. Visualization was hard or non-existent. The best I could do is root for the characters. 1.9 stars. The last seventy pages weren't any clearer, 1.6 stars. I loved Darwin's Radio. Whatever this was, it was not for me.
August 4, 2024
La idea de inicio me ha parecido genial y parte del desarrollo también. Pero poco a poco se ha ido embrollando, sin aclarar demasiado lo que estaba pasando (o yo me he perdido un poco) hasta llegar a un fin a un me ha dejado bastante frío. Pero no me ha disgustado. Y diría que tiene ideas bastante buenas que te dejan pensando después de haberlo leído.
December 27, 2018
Énorme foutaise de la part d'un auteur que j'aimais bien. Une idée de départ et rien à en dire de plus. Des centaines de pages d'ennui que j'ai parcourues à grande vitesse. Je passe sur le tic d'écriture consistant à placer des adjectifs de couleur inutiles toutes les trois pages. Nul.
February 12, 2020
This book is not among my favourites of Greg Bear's novels. It's too long and slow-placed and above all, too weird and surreal. Weirdness is good and fascinating in a proper measure, but too much of it spoils the story and makes it pointless and incomprehensible.
August 29, 2025
This was hard to read. I liked the concepts, and I liked the first chapter of Glaucous' introspection in particular. I found the imagery of the Typhon/Chaos quite hard to comprehend though, and the ending wasn't enough of a pay off to justify the challenge of grinding through the rest of the novel.
July 21, 2023
DNF. Got seventy pages in and gave up. Prose and plot both posed a challenge. Not for me.
February 13, 2022
You know that feeling of you have no idea what's happening at all in the book until the very end? And yet somehow I was ok with it!
It takes an exciting and evocative author to be able to keep you entertained while have the plot curtain heavy over your eyes. I thoroughly enjoyed my journey through this epic novel which used some of the most creative descriptions. The concept of 'show don't tell' was utilised perfectly when describing happenings and scenes in the story.
The sense of grandeur and wonder you have when Bear combines both science fiction that is both believable with present day time shenanigans is simply wonderful!
Mayhaps it is worth a revisit in the future, and digested again through the lens of my short memory, perhaps not. We shall see!
It takes an exciting and evocative author to be able to keep you entertained while have the plot curtain heavy over your eyes. I thoroughly enjoyed my journey through this epic novel which used some of the most creative descriptions. The concept of 'show don't tell' was utilised perfectly when describing happenings and scenes in the story.
The sense of grandeur and wonder you have when Bear combines both science fiction that is both believable with present day time shenanigans is simply wonderful!
Mayhaps it is worth a revisit in the future, and digested again through the lens of my short memory, perhaps not. We shall see!
March 13, 2020
This novel jumps between two separate settings, Seattle, in the modern day, the city of Kalpa, the last bastion of civilization (and apparently of normal matter) in the universe, trillions of years in the future, when some vague, poorly understood chaotic force has consumed the rest of reality.
These two settings are linked by a pair of time-travel-esque magical plot devices. The first is that some humans in this final city of Kalpa have apparently been bred to be reincarnations of humans living in the distant past (i.e. modern day seattle), and will go into a dream-like stupor where their previous iteration's consciousness will briefly take over their body, and vice-versa with the protagonists in seattle.
The second is some sort of method of communication from some unexplained menacing force, probably from the future, which can extend human lives far beyond their normal range, and give them magical powers, in exchange for assistance in tracking down the protagonists and people like them.
The protagonists in Seattle have the ability to jump between parallel selves in parallel timelines, and to sense which timelines will be better or worse in their near future. They also each have a mysterious magic rock called a sum-runner, and although despite it being mentioned nearly constantly, the significance of these rocks is not made clear in the first half of the book.
This book draws heavily from the Dying Earth subgenre, which I am a fan of. Wikipedia describes it as hard sci-fi, which it most certainly is not. Wikipedia, again: "Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic." Most of the extraordinary things that happen in the Seattle segments of the book are not explained scientifically, and I don't really think they could be. Trying to explain away magic powers as being the result of science of technology would, in this case I think, just sound like trying to convince the reader that these powers are not magic.
I persevered through about half of this book to figure out what I didn't like about it, and I think the answer is the air of hollow mystery, which pervades at least the first half. I've had this experience in some books in the past, where the most interesting thing about the story is the things that are kept from the reader. And when done well this does for a great story, but the problem with writing a mystery is that the answer to the mystery needs to be at least as good as the possible answers you've allowed to form in the reader's head. There's an art to handing out breadcrumbs of detail to the reader, giving just enough to keep the reader interested, all the while allowing the reader to slowly gain understanding of the underlying plot. If the underlying plot isn't all that interesting or well-thought-out, there isn't a payoff equivalent to the set-up, and it comes off as disappointing or anticlimactic.
Halfway through the text of this novel, I still have basic questions about the characters unanswered. For example: "what is this character's motivation," or "what is the importance of this MacGuffin that each of the main characters have," or "how does this character's action's work towards their overall goal." Many characters have some sort of unspecified plan which supposedly guides their actions, but they refuse to answer any questions about it. Having a character with mysterious motivations can be interesting, since the plot can revolve around uncovering why they're doing what they're doing. Having a whole cast full of characters with mysterious motivations is overwhelming. It starts to feel like the deliberate evasiveness of every non-protagonist character is contrived and silly. It almost comes off like they really don't know what they're doing, and desperately want people to think that they do. There's too many characters to focus on, with the result that any individual character's strange silence on their motivations can't leave much of an impression.
This isn't helped by the book's structure, which jumps between viewpoints and timelines in incredibly short chapters. You barely feel like you have time to get into the groove of a particular character's story before you are whisked away to experience the next one's confusion at the events which surround them. The reviews on the back of the book describe the novel as a thriller, which is I guess why chapters attempt to keep the action moving, but not enough time has been spent with the characters to make me empathize with them and care about what happens to them. It just jumps right into the action, with each main character either already being in a desperate situation, or being placed in one almost immediately. This also prevents the characters from stopping to think about what is going on, or ask for clarification on any points from people who supposedly know what is going on, or wonder someone who is supposedly trying to help them expects them to trust that person without any information about who they are or what they want.
If I'm about to do something, and a mysterious character says not to, I'm gonna ask "why not?" And if they give some garbage like "It will be made clear to you when you're ready" I'll tell them "It better be made clear to me right now, because otherwise I'm gonna do it just to spite you."
I think maybe this works into a life lesson as well. People who are working in your best interests and trying to help you won't keep secrets about your situation from you. If someone says they're trying to help you, and that you should trust them, but won't tell you whats going on or why they want to help you, then they probably aren't actually trying to help you.
The present-day segments and the end-of-time segments feel pretty disjointed. I don't know if they tie together in the second half, but at least in the first they're pretty tangential to each other. Present-day people do their thing, and end-of-time people do their thing, but neither group really has much of an effect on the other. Some characters in each are aware of their counterparts, but don't have involvement in each other's plots. This ends up functioning as two separate plots, both of which could stand on its own without any difficulty. I bet if you read just the present-day segments or just the end-of-time segments, you'd have a pretty coherent story until probably near the end.
It just kind of begs the question of why these two concepts didn't become two separate books instead of this one Frankenbook. It feels like I'm reading each of those hypothetical books, but switching from one book to the other every couple of chapters.
I don't want to be a total negative Nancy though, so I'll balance it out with some things I liked about the book.
I liked that the book was copyright 2008, but the symbol on the cover is copyrighted 1984. Both by the author Greg Bear. I'm sure there's a story here, I don't know what it is, but I like the questions it conjures up. Why did he devise the symbol so long before writing the book? Why did he need to separately specify that the symbol is his as well as the text of the book? Why was it important for people to know that the symbol has been his intellectual property for the last 30 years? I'm imagining Greg Bear scrawling the symbol on a napkin in the 80s, thinking it was genius, and then sitting on it for 24 years, waiting to write a book worthy of it. Its a weird and very evocative detail for them to mention on the edition notice, and I like that kind of thing.
I liked the Dying Earth setting, and the idea of most of humanity in the far future having converted themselves to some exotic form of matter, baryons, mesons, etc.
I liked the brief bits of history Ghentun brings up to explain how the Kalpa got into the state its in.
I liked the idea of world lines and people jumping between them and being hunted. I liked the idea of the hunters serving some higher power and being allowed to live forever as long as they served. It gave me a very RiceBoy-esque vibe, which I'm fond of.
In general I like a lot of the ideas of this book. It was just the form of presentation that got on my nerves, the "need to keep moving, no time to ask questions" form of storytelling. In my opinion its not very fitting for a book with big ideas like this one, because the strength of this kind of story is exploring those ideas, not rushing past them.
Overall I give the first half of it 3/5 stars. It didn't hold my interest, as much as I wanted it to.
These two settings are linked by a pair of time-travel-esque magical plot devices. The first is that some humans in this final city of Kalpa have apparently been bred to be reincarnations of humans living in the distant past (i.e. modern day seattle), and will go into a dream-like stupor where their previous iteration's consciousness will briefly take over their body, and vice-versa with the protagonists in seattle.
The second is some sort of method of communication from some unexplained menacing force, probably from the future, which can extend human lives far beyond their normal range, and give them magical powers, in exchange for assistance in tracking down the protagonists and people like them.
The protagonists in Seattle have the ability to jump between parallel selves in parallel timelines, and to sense which timelines will be better or worse in their near future. They also each have a mysterious magic rock called a sum-runner, and although despite it being mentioned nearly constantly, the significance of these rocks is not made clear in the first half of the book.
This book draws heavily from the Dying Earth subgenre, which I am a fan of. Wikipedia describes it as hard sci-fi, which it most certainly is not. Wikipedia, again: "Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic." Most of the extraordinary things that happen in the Seattle segments of the book are not explained scientifically, and I don't really think they could be. Trying to explain away magic powers as being the result of science of technology would, in this case I think, just sound like trying to convince the reader that these powers are not magic.
I persevered through about half of this book to figure out what I didn't like about it, and I think the answer is the air of hollow mystery, which pervades at least the first half. I've had this experience in some books in the past, where the most interesting thing about the story is the things that are kept from the reader. And when done well this does for a great story, but the problem with writing a mystery is that the answer to the mystery needs to be at least as good as the possible answers you've allowed to form in the reader's head. There's an art to handing out breadcrumbs of detail to the reader, giving just enough to keep the reader interested, all the while allowing the reader to slowly gain understanding of the underlying plot. If the underlying plot isn't all that interesting or well-thought-out, there isn't a payoff equivalent to the set-up, and it comes off as disappointing or anticlimactic.
Halfway through the text of this novel, I still have basic questions about the characters unanswered. For example: "what is this character's motivation," or "what is the importance of this MacGuffin that each of the main characters have," or "how does this character's action's work towards their overall goal." Many characters have some sort of unspecified plan which supposedly guides their actions, but they refuse to answer any questions about it. Having a character with mysterious motivations can be interesting, since the plot can revolve around uncovering why they're doing what they're doing. Having a whole cast full of characters with mysterious motivations is overwhelming. It starts to feel like the deliberate evasiveness of every non-protagonist character is contrived and silly. It almost comes off like they really don't know what they're doing, and desperately want people to think that they do. There's too many characters to focus on, with the result that any individual character's strange silence on their motivations can't leave much of an impression.
This isn't helped by the book's structure, which jumps between viewpoints and timelines in incredibly short chapters. You barely feel like you have time to get into the groove of a particular character's story before you are whisked away to experience the next one's confusion at the events which surround them. The reviews on the back of the book describe the novel as a thriller, which is I guess why chapters attempt to keep the action moving, but not enough time has been spent with the characters to make me empathize with them and care about what happens to them. It just jumps right into the action, with each main character either already being in a desperate situation, or being placed in one almost immediately. This also prevents the characters from stopping to think about what is going on, or ask for clarification on any points from people who supposedly know what is going on, or wonder someone who is supposedly trying to help them expects them to trust that person without any information about who they are or what they want.
If I'm about to do something, and a mysterious character says not to, I'm gonna ask "why not?" And if they give some garbage like "It will be made clear to you when you're ready" I'll tell them "It better be made clear to me right now, because otherwise I'm gonna do it just to spite you."
I think maybe this works into a life lesson as well. People who are working in your best interests and trying to help you won't keep secrets about your situation from you. If someone says they're trying to help you, and that you should trust them, but won't tell you whats going on or why they want to help you, then they probably aren't actually trying to help you.
The present-day segments and the end-of-time segments feel pretty disjointed. I don't know if they tie together in the second half, but at least in the first they're pretty tangential to each other. Present-day people do their thing, and end-of-time people do their thing, but neither group really has much of an effect on the other. Some characters in each are aware of their counterparts, but don't have involvement in each other's plots. This ends up functioning as two separate plots, both of which could stand on its own without any difficulty. I bet if you read just the present-day segments or just the end-of-time segments, you'd have a pretty coherent story until probably near the end.
It just kind of begs the question of why these two concepts didn't become two separate books instead of this one Frankenbook. It feels like I'm reading each of those hypothetical books, but switching from one book to the other every couple of chapters.
I don't want to be a total negative Nancy though, so I'll balance it out with some things I liked about the book.
I liked that the book was copyright 2008, but the symbol on the cover is copyrighted 1984. Both by the author Greg Bear. I'm sure there's a story here, I don't know what it is, but I like the questions it conjures up. Why did he devise the symbol so long before writing the book? Why did he need to separately specify that the symbol is his as well as the text of the book? Why was it important for people to know that the symbol has been his intellectual property for the last 30 years? I'm imagining Greg Bear scrawling the symbol on a napkin in the 80s, thinking it was genius, and then sitting on it for 24 years, waiting to write a book worthy of it. Its a weird and very evocative detail for them to mention on the edition notice, and I like that kind of thing.
I liked the Dying Earth setting, and the idea of most of humanity in the far future having converted themselves to some exotic form of matter, baryons, mesons, etc.
I liked the brief bits of history Ghentun brings up to explain how the Kalpa got into the state its in.
I liked the idea of world lines and people jumping between them and being hunted. I liked the idea of the hunters serving some higher power and being allowed to live forever as long as they served. It gave me a very RiceBoy-esque vibe, which I'm fond of.
In general I like a lot of the ideas of this book. It was just the form of presentation that got on my nerves, the "need to keep moving, no time to ask questions" form of storytelling. In my opinion its not very fitting for a book with big ideas like this one, because the strength of this kind of story is exploring those ideas, not rushing past them.
Overall I give the first half of it 3/5 stars. It didn't hold my interest, as much as I wanted it to.
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