Cover of the first edition
| |
| Author | Isaac Asimov |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Mel Hunter |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date
| 1955 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 191 |
The End of Eternity is a Hugo Award-shortlisted 1955 science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, with mystery and thriller elements on the subjects of time travel and social engineering. Its premise is that of a causal loop – a type of temporal paradox in which events and their causes form a loop.
In The End of Eternity, members of the time-changing organization Eternity seek to ensure that their own organization is founded as history says it was, by ensuring the conditions for that event happen as history says they happened. The protagonist, Andrew Harlan, is placed in a situation where he must decide whether to allow the "circle" to close and Eternity be founded, or to allow the opposite to happen and Eternity never to have existed.
Many years later, Asimov tied this novel into his broader Foundation Series, by hinting in Foundation's Edge that it is set in a universe where Eternity had existed but was destroyed by Eternals, leading to an all-human galaxy later.
Plot
In the future, humanity uses time travel to construct Eternity,
an organization "outside time" which aimed to improve human happiness
by observing human history and, after careful analysis, directly making
small actions that cause "reality changes", as well as to help establish
trade between the various centuries to help those in most need. Its
members, known as "Eternals" and by the roles they hold, prioritize the
reduction of human suffering, at the cost of a loss to technology, art,
and other endeavors which are prevented from existing when judged to
have a detrimental effect. Those enlisted travel "upwhen" and "downwhen"
and re-enter time in devices called "kettles". Their rules prevent them
from earlier travel to the Primitive times before the 27th century,
when the temporal field powering Eternity was established, to
prevent accidental damage to pre-temporal history. Also, humanity's fate
is unknown – the earth is empty by the 150,000th century, but this is
preceded by a period called the Hidden Centuries from the 70,000th–150,000th centuries in which for unknown reasons they cannot access the world outside Eternity to learn more.
Andrew Harlan is an Eternal and an outstanding Technician – a
specialist at implementing reality changes – who is fascinated by the
Primitive times. Senior Computer Laban Twissell, the Dean
of the Allwhen Council, enrolls him to teach a newcomer, Brinsley
Sheridan Cooper, about the Primitive. Harlan's work requires they stay
for a week in the 482nd century with non-Eternal Noÿs Lambent, a member
of the aristocracy of that time. Harlan falls in love with her, and
discovers that in the new reality planned for that time, she does not
exist. Against Eternal laws, he removes her from time and hides her in
the empty sections of Eternity that exist in the Hidden Centuries.
Harlan later finds that the kettles will not travel to the time
he hid Noÿs (there is a block at the 100,000th century), and confronts
Assistant Computer Finge with a weapon, accusing him of sabotaging
matters out of jealousy. Finge states he has reported Harlan's conduct,
and did not place the block. Harlan is summoned to the Council but is
not reprimanded; he deduces that because his transgressions were
ignored, he must be there to serve a larger purpose. Harlan confronts
Twissell and explains that he has been teaching himself temporal
mathematics and believes that its 23rd century inventor, Vikkor
Mallansohn, must have been helped in his discovery by someone from his
future; he concludes that his current role is training Cooper to do
this. Twissell confirms this, adding that unknown to Cooper,
Mallansohn's secret memoirs show that Cooper will take over Mallansohn's
role and in effect, become Mallansohn. This must be kept from Cooper, so that Eternity will be founded as it historically was. Harlan blackmails
Twissell by threatening to destroy Cooper's ignorance unless Noÿs is
returned, but is outwitted; Twissell locks him in the control room with
all controls deactivated other than the lever to send Cooper back –
matching the memoir's statement that this was his role. Harlan, enraged,
breaks open the controls and changes the power output, causing Cooper
to be sent back to an unknown point estimated to be in the early
20th century.
Twissell is aghast, but as Eternity still exists, he
theorizes he can undo Harlan's damage, and send Cooper back correctly
for his mission. They think Cooper might try to communicate using an
advertisement in one of Harlan's Primitive magazines that would only
stand out to an Eternal. Harlan finds a magazine from 1932 has changed,
and now shows an advert in the form of a mushroom cloud,
something no human could have known of in 1932. However, Harlan refuses
to tell Twissell about the advertisement until they bring Noÿs back
from the Hidden Centuries, which he had been previously barred from him
with a barrier at the 100,000th century, which Twissell insists is
theoretically impossible. Together, they travel far upwhen to discover
what has happened. Twissell speculates that the Hidden Centuries might
represent a time when humans evolved and changed into something else.
They pass the 100,000th century unhindered and find Noÿs. Harlan agrees
with Twissell that he will travel downwhen and bring back Cooper, so he
can be sent to the correct time for his mission – but only if Noÿs comes
with him.
On arrival in 1932, Harlan holds Noÿs at gunpoint, revealing that
he suspects her of being from the Hidden Centuries, and that he has
brought her so that she could not harm Eternity. Noÿs
acknowledges she is from that time, and explains that her people had
also developed time travel but their method shows many possible futures
rather than just one future as seen by Eternity. They learned that
humans would have been the first species to spread into the universe,
but in each future where Eternity existed, safety was given a priority
and by the time humans reached the stars, other species predominated and
prevented this. In each future, humanity died out afterwards, in a
species-wide depression. Noÿs' mission was to make the minimum change to
history to remedy this – which was to prevent Eternity from ever being
founded. She chose an approach in which she and Harlan were together.
Noÿs gives Harlan the choice of killing her and preserving Eternity, or
letting her live and allowing a different future to arise. Harlan,
remembering the unhealthy interpersonal relationships between the
Eternals, and the sociological damage he has seen done to people whose
original "homewhen" had ceased to exist, begins to agree with her.
Suddenly, a reality change occurs; the kettle disappears, indicating
that Eternity now never happened. The book ends by stating that this was "the end of Eternity – and the beginning of Infinity".
Major characters
- Andrew Harlan: An outstanding Technician (a member of Eternity who is responsible for implementing reality changes). He is appointed as Twissell's personal Technician; The real reason for this is later revealed to be that the memoirs of Temporal Field inventor Vikkor Mallansohn describe him as having this role and being responsible for training the Cub[clarification needed] Brinsley Cooper, therefore Harlan is given these tasks so that the "circle is completed" – so that history happens as it has happened, and Eternity is established as it was established.
- Laban Twissell: Senior Computer and dean of the Allwhen Council, responsible for ensuring the events of Mallansohn's memoirs occur as described.
- Hobbe Finge: Assistant Computer, who greatly dislikes and distrusts Harlan.
- Noÿs Lambent: a human from the Hidden Centuries, who is first introduced as a non-Eternal member of the aristocracy from the 482nd century, officially Finge's secretary. Her actual mission, unknown to any Eternals, is to destroy Eternity by preventing it from being founded, for the eventual benefit of humanity
- Vikkor Mallansohn and Brinsley Sheridan Cooper: Mallansohn develops the Temporal Field in the 24th century leading to the founding of Eternity in the 27th Century. He leaves a time-sealed memoir behind, which reveals that the person universally known as Vikkor Mallansohn of the 24th century was actually a Cub called Brinsley Sheridan Cooper, who had been mentored by Harlan, sent back in time to teach Mallansohn the temporal field equations, and who, finding Mallansohn dead, had taken on Mallansohn's name undetected, to complete his life's work and ensure Eternity would be founded despite the death. Cooper is unaware that this will happen when he is later found by Twissell living in the 78th century, and trained to be sent back in time.
Origins
In December 1953, Asimov was thumbing through a copy of the 28 March 1932 issue of Time and noticed what looked, at first glance, like a drawing of the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. A closer look showed him that the drawing was actually a geyser, the Old Faithful.
However, he began pondering the question of what the implications would
be if there had been a drawing of a mushroom cloud in a magazine from
1932, and he eventually came up with the plot of a time travel story. He
began the story, The End of Eternity, on 7 December 1953, and he finished it on 6 February 1954, when it was 25,000 words long. Asimov submitted the story to Galaxy Science Fiction, and within days, he received a call from Galaxy editor Horace L. Gold
that rejected the story. Asimov decided to turn the story into a novel,
and on March 17, he left it with Walter I. Bradbury, the science
fiction editor at Doubleday,
to get his opinion. Bradbury was receptive, and by April 7, Asimov was
informed that a contract for the novel was in the works. Asimov began
expanding the story, eventually delivering the novel version to Bradbury
on December 13. Doubleday accepted the novel, which was published in
August 1955.
The novel reflects the state of scientific knowledge of its time,
some of which has been superseded. For instance, the power source for
the time travelers is referred to as "Nova Sol", and a link to the far
future being taps the energy of the exploding Sun. Scientists now know that the Sun is far too small to explode.
As may be seen below, the novel may also be counted as the prequel to the Empire series of novels, which form part of the Foundation Series. Asimov had already included a kind of time travel in his 1950 novel Pebble in the Sky, but it was a one-way trip.
The original End of Eternity appeared in 1986 in a collection called The Alternate Asimovs.
Reception
The book was highly acclaimed by critics. New York Times
reviewer Villiers Gerson praised the novel, saying it "has suspense on
every page" and "exhibits in every chapter the plot twists for which the
author is famous." In a 1972 review, Lester del Rey declared that no one "has wrung so much out of . . . or has developed all the possibilities of paradox."
As noted by critic Susan Young, John Crowley's award-winning 1989 novella "Great Work of Time" has the same basic outline as The End of Eternity
– i.e. a secret society of well-meaning time travelers bent on
remodeling history, and a young man recruited into the society in order
to make a specific change that would bring this society itself into
being. The details of what the time travelers do and where in time they
operate are much different from those in Asimov's book. However, in both
books, the society's operations come to a halt through the influence of
people from the future, because the society's actions endanger the
existence of that future. Young also notes a similarity with Poul Anderson's The Corridors of Time
which also depicts a complex society of time travelers, who find
sections of the future inaccessible – and also in Anderson's book, the
intervention of the people of that further future plays a pivotal and
cataclysmic role in the plot.
Charles Stross has stated that his 2009 novella Palimpsest is effectively a rewrite of The End of Eternity.
Role in Foundation series
As written, The End of Eternity suggests that the new reality is the one that leads onto the Galactic Empire and Foundation but does not confirm it. The mechanism of time travel is most likely not the one stumbled across in Pebble in the Sky because of Harlan's words about the energy requirement for the Temporal Field. The "neuronic whip" from The Currents of Space and other stories in the "Empire" future is also found in The End of Eternity, again as something that had to be removed from reality. There are also no aliens who could compete with humans: in "Blind Alley", the aliens' predicament is rather like what will overtake humanity if Eternity is not prevented.
The original, unpublished End of Eternity is clearly a different future from that of the Foundation, but Asimov says in his story-postscript that he had some idea of a bridge in the published version.
Asimov placed a hint in Foundation's Edge,
many years later, that the Eternals might have been responsible for the
all-human galaxy and the development of humanity on Earth of the Foundation Series, but that interpretation is disputed. Asimov himself mentions the disparity. The human-like robots may have been intended to play a part.
Translations
The End of Eternity has been translated into over 25 languages. The Russian
translation, first edition 1966, was heavily censored due to both
sexual references and sociological discussions unacceptable to Soviet
ideology.
For some time, The End of Eternity was out of print, but was remedied with Tor Books' 2011 hardcover reissue and a recent move to various e-book formats.
Movie adaptations
The book was made into a movie in the Soviet Union in 1987. It mostly follows the novel except for the ending.
The novel ends with Noÿs and Harlan both deciding that the suppression of spaceflight by Eternity is not in the interest of humankind, and the two live "happily ever after".
In the Soviet film the ending takes place in the mid-1980s Germany rather than 1932 Los Angeles. Noÿs never fully describes why she wants Eternity
destroyed, but in the middle of the movie, before her true identity is
revealed, she gives some idea. Harlan yells at her that he is but a pawn
in things and storms off, and there is a strong implication that he and
Noÿs have no further contact. Then, a scene shows Harlan observing both
Twissell and Finge in 1980s clothing getting out of a Rolls Royce and walking together. The implication is that Twissel and Finge use Harlan as a pawn to further their own materialistic gains.
While out of step with the rest of the film as well as the novel,
the ending follows the Soviet concept that the "everyman" (Harlan) is
frequently manipulated by the bourgeoisie, as a pawn to its own ends. The movie ends with a long shot of Harlan walking away from the camera, alone, down a highway.
A television film based on the book, entitled A halhatatlanság halála (literally The Death of Immortality) was made in Hungary in 1976. The screenwriter and the director was András Rajnai, and the main character was played by Jácint Juhász.
The 2011 movie The Adjustment Bureau uses some of the ideas of The End of the Eternity.
In 2008, New Regency acquired the rights to the novel for a possible film adaptation.
