Eon and Eternity by Greg Bear
"Eon and Eternity" is a pair of science fiction novels that delve into expansive futures for humanity, exploring complex themes of time, parallel universes, and the consequences of technological advancement. The narrative begins on December 31, 1999, when Earth is confronted by a mysterious asteroid known as the Stone, which reveals evidence of past human habitation. The story follows key characters including Olmy, a Hexamon operative, and a team of scientists led by Garry Lanier as they uncover the secrets of the Stone, including its connection to a devastating nuclear event in Earth’s future.
As the plot unfolds, the Hexamon, a political structure evolved from humanity’s exploration of a relativistic cosmic continuum called the Way, grapples with internal divisions and external threats from alien entities known as the Jarts. The central conflict arises as characters like Patricia Vasquez seek to alter fate and restore lost loved ones, complicating the stability of their universe. Themes of sacrifice, ambition, and the quest for knowledge are woven throughout, culminating in a confrontation with an entity called the Final Mind, which embodies the culmination of mental existence. Ultimately, the narrative addresses profound questions about humanity’s destiny, the nature of time, and the impact of choices made across alternate realities.
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Eon and Eternity
First published:Eon (1985) and Eternity (1988)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Science fiction—future history
Time of work: c.e. 2000 and after, as well as various time metrics in alternate universes
Locale: Earth and alternate Earths, the asteroid Thistledown, and the cosmic space known as the Way
The Plot
Eon and Eternity are among the most ambitious science-fiction novels ever published. They chronicle a number of futures for the human race and perhaps the most sweeping, speculative, and awesome future history ever proposed.
On December 31, 1999, Earths scientists are nervous. A mysterious asteroid called the Stone has suddenly come into orbit around Earth. When American space missions explore the Stone, they find that it not only seems to have been inhabited by humans but to have been occupied more than a millennium ago.
The other side of this enigma is glimpsed when veteran Hexamon operative Olmy reports to his superior, the presiding minister of Axis City. Axis City is a settlement of humans, in the far future, who have explored a relativistic cosmic continuum called the Way and established themselves there in commerce and rivalry with various alien peoples. The leaders of the Hexamon, which is the political structure of the humans in the Way, are stunned to find out that Thistledown, the asteroid spaceship from which their ancestors had set out from Earth more than a thousand years before, had not only returned to its original orbit but gone back to a time three hundred years before it had been constructed. Olmy returns to Thistledown in order to explore further.
Meanwhile, the American expedition explores the asteroids seven chambers and finds out much of the amazing truth for themselves. The expedition, led by the capable Garry Lanier, includes Karen Farley, a British-born Chinese scientist with whom Lanier falls in love, and Patricia Vasquez, a brilliant young Hispanic American scientist who alone can understand the mathematical intricacies of the far future. For Earth people, the biggest secret of Thistledown is not the Way itself but the asteroids library, which contains pictures of a nuclear conflagration that had taken place in Thistledown’s past at a date in the near future of Earth. Russia has a spy within the expedition, and thus the secret gets out, bringing political tensions on Earth to the breaking point. Ironically, the pictures of the conflagration on the parallel world touch off, in the present world, the very events they depict. Much of Earth is destroyed, and all existing political systems are reduced to ruins.
Patricia’s parents and fiancé are among those vaporized to death, and she becomes at once both inconsolably depressed and determined to find some way, in the topsy-turvy world of parallel universes made possible by the advanced mathematics of the Way, to reverse time and fate, thus bringing her loved ones back. In conducting this research, she threatens the fundamental equilibrium of the Way, so Olmy abducts her and takes her to Axis City. Olmy, though, has special plans for Patricia. He realizes that her mentality is similar to that of Konrad Korzenowski, the man who centuries later in time had designed the Way. Korzenowski has been assassinated, but Olmy, using the advanced technology of the Hexamon, can revive him if Patricia agrees to share her mentality.
Meanwhile, the desperate Russians attack Thistledown itself, though the danger is defused when their old-guard Communist leaders are outwitted by Pavel Mirsky, a visionary subordinate. Hexamon authorities take all humans from Thistledown to Axis City. The Earth people are awed by the technological progress the Hexamon people have made in their thousand-year odyssey, but the Hexamon is in itself split. The Way is filled with pernicious, alien enemies called the Jarts, against whom the Hexamon is barely holding its own. Part of the Hexamon wishes to destroy the Way and go into orbit around Earth, while the other wishes to accelerate the speed of the Way and thereby crush the Jarts. Because the two plans are not incompatible, it is decided that Axis City will split into two parts. Meanwhile, Korzenowski is reincarnated using Patricias mentality. He decides to go with the Earthbound faction. Patricia gets her part of the bargain and is allowed to search for an alternate Earth where she can find her loved ones. She fails in this attempt, landing in an alternate universe where the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt in the Hellenistic Era was never conquered by Rome, and therefore all of subsequent history has been altered.
Lanier returns to Earth with the Korzenowski faction and marries Karen Farley. The Laniers participate for fifty years in the Hexamon-led reconstruction of Earth from its nuclear devastation. This peace is imperiled when Mirsky reappears, after having gone with the part of the Hexamon who had accelerated to infinity. Mirsky reveals that his group has literally traveled to the end of time, where an impersonal entity called the Final Mind, the culmination of all mental being, prevails. The Final Mind feels endangered by the existence of the Way, which has been closed but not destroyed, and therefore asks the Hexamon to re-open it. Olmy participates in this project, capturing a Jart who he thinks he can use for intelligence. The Jart deceives him and dominates him. It is revealed that the Jarts are in fact performing the Final Minds mission in insisting on destroying the Way. The Way is successfully destroyed, and Korzenowski decides to join the Final Mind, where humanitys ultimate destiny lies. Lanier and Mirsky, though, are sent by the Final Mind back through history, for reasons and purposes unknown even to them. They will carry on the human quest for knowledge that the now-destroyed Thistledown exemplified.