Asimov's "The End of Eternity"

After commenting to my father of how I enjoyed another book whose plot relied on time paradoxes, he recommended to me this book by Sci-Fi author Issac Asimov. In the past, I'd briefly tried one of Asimov's books, but I hadn't been hooked and eventually I gave up reading it. This time was fairly similar, but reading through the slow start was worth the wait.

The protagonist in this book is Harlan, who is known as an "Eternal". An Eternal is a dweller of Eternity, which is essentially a base from which experienced "Technicians" can time-travel. Not only can these Technicians time-travel, but they also can, after much planning, change things in the real world.

The book actually begins when Harlan is already half-way through his adventure and is blackmailing another Eternal into completing a "Life-Plot" for him. A Life-Plot is a map of what is likely to happen to a person when reality is changed. Strangely enough, we find out that this Life-Plot is for a woman, Noys Lambent, and Harlan delivers his fatal lines:

"If there was a flaw in Eternity, it involved women... he felt it personally only that day he had first met Noys... For the first time, the specific and express thought came to him. And though he pushed it away in horror, he knew that, having once come, it would return. The thought was simply this: That he would ruin Eternity, if he had to. The worst of it was that he knew he had power to do it."

The rest of the book progresses smoothly, but becomes significantly more intense in the last 100 pages, when we learn why the book is entitled "The End of Eternity".

Overall, I very much enjoyed this book. It was a slow start since I knew next to nothing about the story, and the vast number of Sci-Fi terms that were impressed upon me were confusing rather than engaging. It was not until the third chapter or so that I caught on to most of the scientific background, and it was not until more than halfway through that I understood all of it. The story, however, is fantastic. Even though Asimov takes a long time to set up all the pieces of his story, the playout at the end is fantastic, and the number of twists and unexpected turns that the book takes was very gripping.

Although I myself enjoyed this book, I don't know if everyone else would like it. I enjoyed the book because of its complexity, because this made it so much harder to predict that little quirks that came up throughout the book. Some, however, would likely find all the jargon more distracting that enhancing, and would perhaps not like to read this book as much. If, however, you're looking for a real mind-bending mystery/Sci-Fi/drama, then you should really consider reading this book.