The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov – review

From Amazon.com:

One of Isaac Asimov’s SF masterpieces, this stand-alone novel is a monument of the flowering of SF in the 20th century. It is widely regarded as Asimov’s single best SF novel and one every SF fan should read.

Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a member of the elite of the future. One of the few who live in Eternity, a location outside of place and time, Harlan’s job is to create carefully controlled and enacted Reality Changes. These Changes are small, exactingly calculated shifts in the course of history made for the benefit of humankind. Though each Change has been made for the greater good, there are always costs.

During one of his assignments, Harlan meets and falls in love with Noÿs Lambent, a woman who lives in real time and space. Then Harlan learns that Noÿs will cease to exist after the next change, and risks everything to sneak her into Eternity.

Unfortunately, they are caught. Harlan’s punishment? His next assignment: kill the woman he loves before the paradox they have created results in the destruction of Eternity.

There’s nothing quite like jumping into a hard science fiction novel when you’ve been away from the genre for a while. Orienting oneself to the style of language can be daunting, particularly in a book like this one, where there are so many new titles and terms. Add to that the rather complicated time travel concept of the Eternals, and catching on might, at first, seem impossible.

It isn’t, however, and it’s in fact relatively easy to acclimate to Andrew Harlan’s world. Experiencing the story from his point of view makes for an obviously biased take on the Eternals and their interference with time on behalf of the human race. His position as a Technician is singular in that he is somewhat reviled by other Eternals as the person actually responsible for changing history, despite everyone else’s participation in the process. This gives him an ego and causes problems when he tries to deal with those around him. These difficulties are what make him an ideal target for the temptations that result from meeting the beautiful and passionate Noys Lambent.

The story of Harlan’s gradual fall away from the tenants of the Eternals and his relationship with Lambent is enjoyable and deceptively straightforward for much of the novel. Even though the entire book constitutes one big time travel extravaganza, you learn closer to the end that there is a more urgent time travel element that will determine the ultimate fate of the Eternals. This is when the story really speeds up, and it causes an already paranoid Harlan to become destructively rash in his attempts to keep himself and Lambent alive and free.
It’s that paranoia which will influence the reader’s interest in the main character. Harlan isn’t particularly likeable in any way. In fact, he’s quite the opposite: cold, egotistical, and self-centered thanks to his supreme talents in his Technician speciality. He is also, like most of the Eternals, socially awkward when dealing with new people and new situations. All of these personality quirks exacerbate an already problematic relationship with Computer Finge, who baits Harlan at every turn, and against whom most of Harlan’s paranoia is directed. It can, at times, become tiresome to read the constant worries and accusations that Harlan conjures up in his mind, but his role in the story wouldn’t be the same without it.

There are so many themes in this novel that I dare not try to name all of them, but the ideas that drew me in the most had to do with the book’s questions about humanity: what is the nature of the human race, and what will strengthen it versus what might eventually kill it. For that matter, as everything the Eternals do involves interference with human history, how much of that interference is good and how much is bad, and how is that decided?

The End of Eternity is quite engaging and provides readers with a lot of food for thought. As the blurb above says, it’s often considered Asimov’s best stand-alone novel. This is an opinion that I can neither confirm nor deny since I haven’t read his other stand-alones, but I can certainly rate it as an excellent, complex story in multiple ways.