The End of Eternity

I almost didn't buy this after reading the reviews about the narrator's voice, but you have nothing to worry about. This is coming from a listener who is already spoiled by great narrators like Scott Brick. The tone and inflections are very appropriate for the characters and create a mood that another narrator could not match. On the other hand, if hard science fiction bores you, don't buy this book. If you want a classic time-travel mystery that has surprising and satisfying twists and turns, then this is a great book! When you finish it, the first thing you will wonder is, "Why haven't they made a movie out of this yet?" It is that good, and yes, a movie is in the works. You will never forget the odd city of Eternity that sits outside of time, but feels like it is right next door!

I think this might be Asimov's best novel. It's a very different approach to time travel stories. He uses many paradoxes that twist it's way into the perfect ending. Only Asimov can write a story like this and keep in believable.

Spoiler:

The story consists of Eternals live outside of time as we know it. They can travel up and down through a created time tunnel in lifts called kettles. Technicians calculate changes needed throughout various centuries to minimize human suffering and war and keep humanity balanced.

One of these Eternals makes contact with someone from the unreachable centuries who doesn’t want Eternity to be invented, and this person wants to help end Eternity instead of creating it.

There is a monstrous choice to be made - Asimov asks what would you do in their place? The story, in my opinion, is a foreign but credible dive into the effects of time travel, changing time and the social ramifications of doing so. Should we really interfere?

The view of the future Asimov puts out, had me very depressed. I thought for sure the author was some sick utopian from the 50's (which sickly, seems to be coming back into fashion).. anyway, his view of 'eternity' seems to be of humans living comfortable lives without want or worry, like couch potatoes waiting for a welfare check. People losing all aspiration for life and ambition, therefore stopping most tech advancement.

I almost stopped listening in fact.. especially with the view of the only Woman in the story. The view of women in 'Eternity' is a sex objects only, something you have to trick into a relationship. It all seemed a sick, sick world. The story was good, although the outbursts by the main character towards his superior were over the top. I cannot see any situation where I'd ever react in such a way. BUT

The ending is so awesome and surprising that all my previous views about Asimov were swept aside. He really did get it. It was a sick society. Adversity and disaster is how we learn and strive ahead. As for the only Woman in the story... some reviewers don't seem to have finished the end, as the previous views are meaningless. I don't want to give any more away but it'll make a GREAT movie! Inspirational ending

I grew up reading a lot of science-fiction and much of my time was spent in the public library looking for books by Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein and others. When I graduated from High School the science-fiction content of my reading became more sparse although I still liked to read a good space opera from time to time so, when I saw an Asimov novel that I had not read, I grabbed it from Audible.

To be honest I was terribly disappointed. The End of Eternity seemed terribly slow and plodding. Asimov has always been more interested in stories than in action and I expected that, but I found myself horrified at what the characters were doing (changing history “for the good of the masses”) and so deciding for themselves what man’s future should be. Several times during the reading I almost put the book down and, had this been from another author, I might well have done so, but I could not believe that Asimov had written and published such a tedious and disappointing book. The characters seemed two-dimensional and I found myself wondering if I would give this book a 2 star rating or 3 star rating.

In the end I was glad I persisted. As with a couple of other books I have read, the ending justified the long trek through the middle. As with other Asimov books, the story, in the end, triumphed. Still I feel I can only recommend this book to those with the patience to get through the tedious middle to reach the satisfying end.

Mr Boehmer's narration, although not inspired, is perfectly adequate for the book and does not detract from the book.

I love a good time travel story, mostly to see what this author's take on the usual time travel paradoxes will be. Anyone who writes about agents changing history has to explain how they deal with things like the Grandfather Paradox, meeting earlier or later versions of yourself, and so on. There are a handful of well-known ways to deal with these issues (alternate timelines, a deterministic universe, special laws of temporal physics, etc.) and Asimov is rather inventive in using several of them at once.

The End of Eternity is brilliant in its construction of a civilization of time travelers and the history and technology that goes into their society and the way they meddle with time, but his protagonists are basically a bunch of whiny geeks who act like highly-educated monkeys fighting for the highest branch in the treehouse. Asimov's vision of a civilization that spans millions of years and thousands of realities doesn't include a single one where women become scientists and engineers and might join the Eternals' boys' club. The entire plot hinges on not one but two high-ranking Eternals who decide they are willing to throw all of reality into danger for the chance to get laid. I know this was written in the 1950s, but Asimov could have done better. It's like the idea of women as anything but sex objects to be coveted or to seduce men off the path of Righteous Scientific Objectivity just never occurred to him. So naturally when a girl shows up (the only female character in the entire book), she must spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E, and in this case, the end of Eternity.

I enjoyed the story, but Isaac Asimov has never been my favorite among the Grand Old Masters of science fiction; there is something just a little too cold and calculating in all of his stories. For the ideas and the plot twists, this is a fun book with a great premise, but don't expect Asimov to wow you with his nuanced grasp of human relationships. His characters are wire dummies to hang a story on.

I don't usually like stories that involve time travel. This one seems like a reaction to all of my objections–it addresses most of the inconsistencies of time travel in a clever plot. It is internally consistent, while most time travel stories are not. In its time, it is genius, but now it felt dated. If you can place yourself in a time when computers were expected to be able to think, or if you love Asimov, this book is for you. While it is a classic of science fiction, I didn't think it measured up to Heinlein. If I could go back in time, I would recommend it to myself, but in my top 100, not in my top 10.

I really liked this one. The setting and plot may not be as explosive and dramatic as some but I felt my attention was kept. Nice twist at the end. A classic writer that knew how to tell a story and didn't need to use profanity to tell it.

Possibly the best Sci-Fi listen I've heard yet. The reader was also good.

I don't know if I can finish this book. The narrator's ability to very deliberately speak each word as if it stood on its own rather than in the flow of a sentence is maddening. Listen to a sample and see if its something you can stomach on your commute. Also when character's are being "emotional" we are treated to a particularly annoying whiny voice that has only one timbre.

Otherwise the book is decent, though I find the main character's motivation a little hyperbolic and rash without enough exploration by Asmiov as to why. It ends up feeling forced in order to push the dramatic plotline along.

We really like the book, not the reader. He was far too flat an emotionless. Just doesn't sound like the Asimov I've heard in my heard for years; almost the opposite.