Eon

Greg Bear is one of my favorite authors as I rate The Forge of God and Darwin’s Radio as Masterworks of Science Fiction literature. Eon is an earlier work of the author and quite more complex in its story and numerous characters. Even without prior knowledge that this is the first of a series of three volumes, you can appreciate the vastness of the author’s imagination and beg for a follow-up, though Eon stands well on its own.

Perhaps the author intended to publish Eon in two volumes as the book can be split in two linked stories of equal length. In the first half: A human adventure of great scale, non-stop action, well-crafted characters and described events, a dense effortless nail-biter. It is a testament to exceptional writing skills, deep technical knowledge and profound imagination. This apocalyptic first half rates a strong 10.

The second half continues deeper into the hard Sci-Fi genre adding difficult descriptive concepts of fate, parallel universes, infinity and complex technologies, and ends a bit abruptly into the Speculative Fiction genre. These are the worlds of the future humans who exist within the asteroid and beyond. Greg Bear uses the asteroid as a vehicle to describe or objectify how infinity interacts with parallel universes and fate of mankind. Though the added main characters are well defined such as they are portrayed, the story develops slowly into a sort of "alien" political intrigue that requires an effort to comprehend its abundant details and infinite implications. As relative space-time goes, the story then accelerates to its climax.

As defined, an eon is the time between the beginning and the end of all life but behold, Greg Bear will weave it all together to your satisfaction. He is indeed a master to conceptualize a story of this magnitude and level of complexity. Eon is a must read as a Sci-Fi achievement.