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wulvaen 's review for:
The End of Eternity
by Isaac Asimov
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
For fuck sake 😑
So, after reading all his Robot, Galactic Empire and the first four books of his Foundation series, I have come up with a term I'd like to coin to describe Asimov's "isms".
While Brandon Sanderson has a "Sanderlanche", there is something Isaac Asimov has that I'd like to call an "Asimov Moment".
So, what's an Asimov Moment? It's when he stops writing like a storyteller and starts writing like a historian / scientist and stops showing and starts telling. It's the moment he vomits out exposition dumps because he knew you didn't have a fucking clue what was happening. It's when you say to yourself "oh wow! That's so cool! What an awesome concept! If only I could have possibly guessed this with the aid of foreshadowing and better writing".
All of the worst aspects of Asimov's books I have mentoned before are all present in this book and have completely took over the jungle:
So, after reading all his Robot, Galactic Empire and the first four books of his Foundation series, I have come up with a term I'd like to coin to describe Asimov's "isms".
While Brandon Sanderson has a "Sanderlanche", there is something Isaac Asimov has that I'd like to call an "Asimov Moment".
So, what's an Asimov Moment? It's when he stops writing like a storyteller and starts writing like a historian / scientist and stops showing and starts telling. It's the moment he vomits out exposition dumps because he knew you didn't have a fucking clue what was happening. It's when you say to yourself "oh wow! That's so cool! What an awesome concept! If only I could have possibly guessed this with the aid of foreshadowing and better writing".
All of the worst aspects of Asimov's books I have mentoned before are all present in this book and have completely took over the jungle:
- The unnecessary and forced romance that goes at the speed of mach-10, typically between two people of different worlds that have nothing in common and the love interest has no personality and exists solely to be the love interest, because Asimov has a hidden rule of every story having to have a romance in it.
- Almost every character goes into moments of pure diatribes of science talk that has exposition dumps woven into it so he can force a square block into the circular hole in our heads, instead of taking the time and using the delicate art of storytelling and prose to shape and mold that square into the shape of a circle so it can fit smoothly into our heads so we can better understand and fully connect with the concepts he's trying to convey, and make the story more immersive and interesting.
- Inconsistent quality of writing where more than two thirds of the book makes you want to stop reading any book ever again because it's so uneventful, confusing and exhausting. This is the case because the book is split into parts. Part one of this book involved the introduction of the main character Andrew Harlan and his rise in the Eternity organisation and trying to make us understand the culture and their job and purpose. Part two is intruducing the shitty romance that makes no sense. Part three is where the book gets interesting and has some twists and concepts revealed thanks to exposition jumps and major leaps in logic from characters with us not understanding how they got there. Ending is satisfying because the concept and twist were interesting.
This was by far the worst book I have read from him so far. I had zero connection to most characters, the main character is extremely unlikeable and one of the most stupid characters I've ever read, he's also selfish and vicious and COMPLETELY MANIC. I've never read such a manic character, in fact, this whole goddamn book was manic! It was all over the place. The random outburst from characters, the gigantic random leaps of logic with fuck all foreshadowing, and it all has to make sense with exposition dumps.
This book, right here, is every terrible Asimovism combined into one big mess and disappointment. The concept for this book, as usual, was AMAZING! And the moral messaging at the end was excellent, how monitoring reality and making alterations to prevent harm and disaster makes humanity so coddled and protected that they never evolve and grow. This entire book was both a warning to parents not to overprotective their kids and let them leave home (or, in the case of humanity in this book, leave earth and explore the stars) so they can reach their full potential and be happy.
I very much love the metaphor and the concept, but the Asimov moments were so prevalent and servere in this book that it completely destroyed the concept and what incredible impact it could have had on us.
This hurts me even more as I just came from my favourite book from him and his best book so far imo, Pebble In The Sky. I have literally just went from reading his best book to his worst book, and I have a big case of whiplash. So disappointing.
I wanted to give this book 2 stars, but added an extra 0.75 because the concept and moral metaphors at the end were brilliant.