I first read Eon as a teenager, and was quite obsessed with its extremely detailed and imaginative worlds. I was curious to see if I'd still like it today, and I was pleased to find that it was just as engaging and mind-expanding as I'd remembered.

The most thrilling parts of the novel are the opening scenes, as the characters explore the multi-chambered Stone, gradually learning its secrets, and then travel further down the infinite Corridor; there's a tremendous sense of an journey toward greater and greater discovery. The final chapter is a brilliant twist that ends the novel perfectly with a beautiful reworking of its themes.

Of course, the novel's Cold War politics and its depictions of astronaut-soldiers in the year 2000 now seem extremely dated, but fortunately this is a novel about alternate universes, so one can simply pretend that the story takes place in a different universe than ours...

The human side of things isn't quite as good; Bear's handling of the romantic subplots is rather stilted and sometimes the characters seem a little too unflappable in the face of universe-changing events. But these aren't major problems, and there is often some emotional intensity in the scenes in which characters are yearning for home, or discovering that everything they knew was wrong.

I was briefly taken aback by the narrator's ridiculously manly voice (it's like being read to by Barry White), but I got used to it rapidly and he's very good at distinguishing the characters.

epic, near-future, space-adventure

yes, fortunately it's long enough that it lasted me a few late nights ;)

if you enjoy mind-expanding scientific/philosophical speculation then stick through the first few chapters of this book and you will find yourself hooked!

Thrilling epic mindbending

The surprise inside the stone and the depiction of this surprise

He makes the characters come alive in my head. Thank you Stefan.

The stone is the answer

Top 3.

Mirsky. I enjoyed the way his character was enlightened.

No. He did a great job.

The description of Axis City. It was exciting.

Mr Bear never fails to entertain, and Mr Rudnicki makes the story line even more believable. I'll listen to this one again.

I couldn't finish this it was so tedious. It reminded me very much of Ringworld (which was absolutely horrid) and Rendezvous With Rama (which wasn't AS bad as Ringworld, probably because the shallow characters weren't obnoxious). Eon falls somewhere in between, but when I realized it was going to be another shallow, contrived story with boring, undeveloped characters with the sole purpose of providing an excuse to blather on about this awesome meteor from the future, I stopped listening. Actually, I kept going a bit further (made it about 1/3 of the way through) just in case it was going to somehow turn into an actual story with an actual plot, but it was pretty clear by then that it wasn't going to do that.

I was seriously disappointed because the book synopsis held some promise... and I love Stefan Rudnicki's narration.

Intelligent, thoughtful, memorable,

The most amazing reaction to this rather lengthy listen was it held my interest! Indeed, at every opportunity, I looked forward to getting back to the story presented. I am not familiar with Greg Bear's work but will certainly be scanning his additional writings. Although I am not a scientist, I found the scientific explanations entirely plausible and were certainly entertaining. Then the mix of spirituality, personal growth and a reasonably believable story were just too much to ignore!

Very good read. I recommend this highly for those who have a spiritual bent as well as those who are fascinated with gathering knowledge and thoughtful wisdom.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book.

The 1st half of the book is really some of the best and most unique science fiction I have read in a really long time. The 2nd half of the book gets a little confusing and I found myself a little lost. 5 starts for the 1st half and 3.5 stars for the second half. Outstanding performance.

It's a "great big object" plot which is so cliché today, borrowed from the mind of Arthur C. Clark who did it first with Rendesvous with Rama, but it's such a great idea and so much fun that I didn't care! I love asteroids and stories about them! But I do wish that Bear had fleshed out the characters and environments better. I had a hard time rendering the scenes in my mind before Bear just charged ahead. Even after a second time, I still don't quite know what each of the six areas really look like or what Thistledown city looks like. Bear describes some of the technology but we're left guessing as to what the city actually looks like.

When I realized that the universe in which the narrator exists is NOT our universe! That moment came when Vasquez was testing the value of pi, presumably in "our" universe, to test her multi-meter device, and showed: 3.41592645, and she said "ok". Wow. Because, when I'd read that as a teenager for the first time, I'd assumed it was a typo.

Mon. O. Tone. Easy to get lost listening to this complex story. I like his voice, and it may just be this material which is complex, but I found it hard to see the picture his voice was painting in my mind's eye and had to backtrack quite a bit. A second listening will be needed to really get into the story the way I want to. Reading on my own with the Kindle edition I was able to follow the story much better. I'm not sure if the reader can be blamed for that but there are times when he does go full-on monotone and delivers some really sleepy lines.

World War 3. I read this in 1986 so that part of the story was disturbing. But it's funny to think about that now because the Earth in this story isn't "our" Earth (i.e. Greg Bear's Earth).

Multiple readings/listens are required to fully appreciate this difficult but enjoyable story. It's hard sci-fi of the hardest type, not for casual fans who know nothing about science.

The story is excellent but the narrator takes a long time to get used to hearing. If you can make it past the "4 Beginnings" that start the book you should be able to acclimate to the narrator. This is definitely a case of the story being more intriguing than the storyteller.