Binding: Hardcover Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9780345448392 ISBN: 0345448391 Label: Del Rey Manufacturer: Del Rey Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 496 Publication Date: August 05, 2008 Publisher: Del Rey Release Date: August 05, 2008 Sales Rank: 31260 Studio: Del Rey
Product DescriptionMultiple Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, Greg Bear is one of science fiction’s most accomplished writers. Bold scientific speculation, riveting plots, and a fierce humanism reflected in characters who dare to dream of better worlds distinguish his work. Now Bear has written a mind-bendingly epic novel that may well be his masterpiece.
Do you dream of a city at the end of time?
In a time like the present, in a world that may or may not be our own, three young people–Ginny, Jack, and Daniel–dream of a doomed, decadent city of the distant future: the Kalpa. Ginny’s and Jack’s dreams overtake them without warning, leaving their bodies behind while carrying their consciousnesses forward, into the minds of two inhabitants of the Kalpa–a would-be warrior, Jebrassy, and an inquisitive explorer, Tiadba–who have been genetically retro-engineered to possess qualities of ancient humanity. As for Daniel: He dreams of an empty darkness–all that his future holds.
But more than dreams link Ginny, Jack, and Daniel. They are fate-shifters, born with the ability to skip like stones across the surface of the fifth dimension, inhabiting alternate versions of themselves. And each guards an object whose origin and purpose are unknown: gnarled, stony artifacts called sum-runners that persist unchanged through all versions of time.
Hunted by others with similar powers who seek the sum-runners on behalf of a terrifying, goddess-like entity known as the Chalk Princess, Ginny, Jack, and Daniel are drawn, despite themselves, into an all but hopeless mission to rescue the future–and complete the greatest achievement in human history.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - The End of Everything?
City at the End of Time (2008) is a standalone SF novel. It is set in the present and at the end of time. And that end is much further than predicted. The city at the end of time exists more than a trillion years in the future.
In this novel, Jeremy (Jack) Rohmer is a busker currently living in Seattle. He juggles mice and hammers on street corners and rides his bicycle throughout the city. He dreams of Kalpa, a city at the end of time.
Rating: - Gonna give it a second go.
I had a heck of a time getting through this book the first time. When I finished it, I was relieved and proud of myself that I had gotten through it without killing myself. I decided to just move on an chalk it up to "that was a waste of time" (no pun intended). Unfortunately, or fortunately, my brain started to ruminate, to percolate as it were. It was if my subconscious mind wanted me to try again and--pay more attention.
It seems to me that this book is one of those that must be read ... Read More
Rating: - A welcome if imperfect return to the realm of SF for Bear
City at the End of Time is an attempt to meld Borgean and Stapledonian themes by Greg Bear.
Set in two time frames, present day Seattle, and the far, far, far future, City at the End of Time is an ambitious novel by a novelist who in the past has reached for ambitious large works (Eon, Forge of God, Blood Music) but more recently has been writing technothrillers like Quantico.
In City at the End of Time, Bear tries to reach for those heights of ambition again, while not quite getting ... Read More
Rating: - What... the heck... was THAT?!?
Arthur C. Clarke once famously said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Well, "City at the End of Time" has convinced me that sufficiently advanced Hard Sci-Fi can be indistinguishable from nonsensical Magical Fantasy. The story is supposedly based on mainstream quantum mechanics, dealing with the consequences of collapsing world-lines as the cosmos comes to an end in the far future. But the story is executed by a cast of bizarre, semi-mystical characters, each with ... Read More
Rating: - A simple idea, a challenging read
It took me a bit to warm up to this novel, as it does with any that switch point of view characters often. Also, similar to Jay Lake's "Trial of Flowers" I had a tough time trusting the author enough to become involved with the many unsympathetic characters. And yet, like the Jay Lake work, I was fascinated by them. Predatory, sometimes weak, they nonetheless all developed a (sometimes macabre) charm that made me care about what they would do next, and those characters surprised me at times. The descriptions ... Read More
- The End of Everything?
- What... the heck... was THAT?!?
