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The End of Eternity

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The End of Eternity

By: Isaac Asimov
Narrated by: William Hope
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About this listen

The best time-travel story since H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, by the Grand Master of science fiction, the story of Andrew Harlan, Technician and Eternal.

Andrew Harlan’s job is to range through past and present centuries monitoring and even altering Time’s myriad cause-and-effect relationships.

As a Technician with the Allwhen Council, he initiates Reality Changes that may affect the lives of as many as fifty billion people – and a million or more of them may be so drastically affected as to be considered new individulas. Above all, therefore, a Technician must be dispassionate. An emotional make-up is a distinct handicap. Then Harlan meets Noÿs and falls victim to a phenomenon older than Time itself – love.

Years of self-discipline are cast aside as Harlan uses the awesome techniques of the Eternals to twist Time so that he and Noÿs might survive… together.

©1955 Asimov Holdings, LLC (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers Action & Adventure Hard Science Fiction Mystery Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Psychological Science Fiction Thriller & Suspense Time Travel Fiction Romance

Critic reviews

‘Isaac Asimov was one of the great explainers of the age…It will never be known how many practicing scientists today, in how many countries, owe their initial inspiration to a book, article, or short story by Isaac Asimov’
Carl Sagan

‘Asimov displayed one of the most dynamic imaginations in science fiction’
Daily Telegraph

‘Asimov’s career was one of the most formidable in science fiction’
The Times
All stars
Most relevant
I loved it, an exciting story that at the end matchs with history, the work of a master!

master asimov

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Isaac Asimov uses this well crafted story to articulate his ideas about time travel and the unavoidable—and unresolvable—paradoxes that must occur. He imagines a world where all human activity on Earth is under the stewardship of the ‘Eternals’. They live in a temporal bubble separate from normal humanity and are able to travel forwards and backwards through time at will. At any given point in the past or future they are able to move into normal elapsed time and make subtle changes. These alter subsequent history, keeping humanity safe from wars or other catastrophic events.

There are the usual twists and turns in the plot which ends in an unexpected but not unpleasing conclusion.

It is most gratifying to see that Audible is releasing a number of Asimov’s early works, with ‘The Naked Sun’ due in February 2024. What is very disappointing for UK members is that the seminal first book in the Robots and Empire series, ‘The Caves of Steel’ is NOT available to UK members, although unaccountably, a Spanish language version is.

Since posting this, I discovered, quite by accident, that 'Caves of Steel', beautifully narrated by William Hope, IS available on Audible, and was released on 27 January 2024. It was not pre-advertised, as 'Naked Sun' was, and followed a very recent and lengthy exchange with Audible Help, when the consequences of copyright etc were patiently explained to me. Is there an issue here of the right hand and the left hand? I would love to have it explained to me...

Excellent classic Sci Fi

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Assimov has always managed to place a human interest story with a love interest in a science fiction setting and make deep far reaching comments about society. How his work written in the 1950s can still seem so relevant today makes me think that he really did have time machine!

Very clever story with seemingly insignificant detai.s that are important plot devices that have key significance later on

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A story outside the of the foundation universe intriguing and consistant within itself with a very unexpected ending. Another Azimov triumph.

An unexpected triumph

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Isaac Asimov at his finest in blending human frailty and emotions into a grand dream of a perfect existence.

A masterpiece from Isaac Azimov

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