The first is a furious space battle that erupts between the Soviets and the American forces. Bear also gives us two different climaxes, one near the middle of the book, and one at the end. I particularly loved the way he shapes the novel so that it begins with a sense of normality (the main character carries the groceries to her house, steps inside, greets her father, etc.) and progresses toward fantastic, terrifying dimensions. Had Greg Bear chosen a different career, he would probably have been a director, or a scriptwriter every scene is ‘choreographed' with exactly the right amount of detail, the transitions are flawless, the conversations amazingly natural. Not only is the book imaginative, it's also paced stylishly. One of the aspects that makes this story work is its structure. Finishing this book left me with the impression that I had just experienced a monumental chapter in human history. Obviously written with size in mind, Bear's work feels grand, epic, and important. It's not long before the humans discover the lost civilization within the corridor, but not before conflicts arise and war breaks loose.Įon is relatively long, about five hundred pages, but the length pays off. Upon further investigation, it is discovered that the inside of the asteroid is longer than the outside-in fact, it seems to stretch on for infinity, a corridor cutting through the fabric of space/time.
The civilization is hauntingly similar to our own it even has historic records, but documenting humanity's future. The asteroid is three hundred kilometres long its interior has been hollowed out into seven chambers, each containing remnants of an apparently lost civilization. At this time a mysterious asteroid enters the solar system. Earth has entered the twenty-first century, the Russians and the Americans (the Soviet Union's still awfully powerful in this book) are again at odds with one another, and there are signs of another nuclear war in sight. It's a novel of enormous size and complexity, backed by a strong plot. Greg Bear knows his science well enough to talk about it convincingly, and we get a book dealing with tunnels fabricated from space/time, singularities which advance and recede simultaneously, and floating objects that bear every resemblance to matter except that they were made from distorted spacial coordinates. This is one of those science fiction books where the science actually plays an important role in the story. The bottom line: Eon is an amazing novel, but it's not for everyone.
There are moments when reading Eon where you will just put down the book, stare off into space for a few seconds, then breathe an awed "Wow." Then there are other moments-more, I think-where you will put down the book and scratch your head in utter bewilderment, wondering what was it you just read.
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