City at the End of Time
Encyclopedia
City at the End of Time is a 2008 science fiction novel by American Hugo
and Nebula Award
-winning writer Greg Bear
. It was published in August 2008 by Del Rey
in the United States, and Gollancz
in the United Kingdom. The story follows three drifters in present-day Seattle who are tormented by strange dreams of the Kalpa, a city one hundred trillion years in the future. The Kalpa is attempting to ward off the Typhon, an inexplicable entity that has consumed the rest of the ancient universe and broken down the laws of physics.
The novel belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre
and is a homage to William Hope Hodgson
's 1912 novel, The Night Land
, with which it shares a number of plot elements. City at the End of Time was nominated for both the Locus
and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award
s in 2009.
describes how the aging universe continued expanding and its spacetime
fabric weakened. With the galaxies burnt out, humanity dispersed across the cosmos, where they encountered the Typhon, an inexplicable entity that was destroying the decaying universe. It consumed matter and replaced space-time with emptiness and inconsistencies beyond the laws of physics. The resulting Chaos spread rapidly, driving some humans back to ancient Earth with its rekindled sun. In an attempt to fend off the approaching Typhon, leaders of the dying Earth sent for Polybiblios, a human living with the Shen, an ancient alien race. Polybiblios returned to Earth with his adopted daughter, Ishanaxade, a being he had constructed from "fate-logs" of intelligent species collected by the Shen. After the Shen system fell, and the Chaos surrounded Earth, its leaders instructed everybody to convert themselves from primordial (real) matter to noötic (virtual) mass. As each city fell, its inhabitants retreated to the last remaining cities, the Kalpa and Nataraja. Using knowledge he had gleaned from the Shen, Polybiblios build reality generators to protect the Kalpa. Nataraja, which had rebelled the instruction to convert to noötic matter, was left to fend for itself.
The novel alternates between the Kalpa and present-day Seattle, where three drifters, Ginny, Jack and Daniel are in possession of sum-runners, small stone-like talisman
s that give them "fate-shifting" abilities, whereby they can jump between fate-lines (world line
s in a multiverse
). Ginny and Jack also have disturbing dreams of the Kalpa, and are inexplicably connected to Jebrassy and Taidba, two "breeds" living in the future city. Fate-shifters and their sum-runners are hunted by "collectors" working for the Chalk Princess, an entity controlled by the Typhon from the future. These hunters place adverts in local newspapers inviting "dreamers" to contact them for "help".
In the future the Typhon is destroying history and world-lines are being broken, merging the past and the present. With the Chaos closing in on the Kalpa, the inhabitants (all noötic) are unable to venture outside the city walls. Under Ishanaxade's instructions they create "breeds", copies of ancient humans, using primordial matter. They send them in groups into the Chaos to find out if Nataraja still stands, but none return. Ishanaxade herself ventures out, but is not heard from again. As the Typhon starts breaching the Kalpa, the last batch of breeds, including Jebrassy and Taidba, leave the city in search of help. Armed with portable reality generators, they slowly progress through the "unreal" landscape in search of the rebel city.
Meanwhile the Chaos has reached all the way back to the present-day, and an event called the Terminus hits Seattle: the past, present and future collides and world-lines are severed. Ginny, Jack and Daniel, having evaded the hunters, trek across a degenerating Seattle. Protected by their sum-runners, they are drawn to the Nataraja, where Ishanaxade is waiting. While still in the Kalpa, Ishanaxade had instructed Polybiblios to create the sum-runners containing "fragmented Babels", and in the Chaos she had sent them back to the "beginning of time". The sum-runners were programmed to lead the bearers to Ishanaxade when the expected Terminus occurred. The breeds, programmed to see Ishanaxade as their "mother", are also drawn to Nataraja, and Jebrassy and Taidba find their counterparts Jack and Ginny in the ruined city. The Kalpa falls to the Chaos, but in Nataraja, the sum-runners and their Babel fragments are united and a new history is created causing the Typhon, now a failed god, to implode.
is a Hugo
and Nebula Award
-winner science fiction writer from Seattle. He called City at the End of Time his "longest and most ambitious science fiction novel" he has written for a while. He said it is a "significant departure" from any of his previous works, and that it has a future history unlike anything he had tackled before.
In an interview with Locus
magazine Bear said that in this novel he honors those writers who changed the face of science fiction and fantasy, including William Hope Hodgson
, Arthur C. Clarke
, J. R. R. Tolkien
and C. S. Lewis
. In particular Bear pays homage to Hodgson's 1912 novel, The Night Land
, with which City at the End of Time shares a number of plot elements. Both books include characters who dream of cities ("the Last Redoubt" in Night Land) in the far future surrounded by encroaching chaos. The Kalpa also draws on Clarke's future city, Diaspar in his 1956 novel, The City and the Stars
. Influences of other past works on City at the End of Time include H. P. Lovecraft
's novella The Shadow Out of Time
(1936) and Olaf Stapledon
's Last and First Men
(1930).
described City at the End of Time saying "this complex, difficult and beautifully written tale will appeal to sophisticated readers who prefer thorny conundrums to fast-paced action." Sara Rutter reviewing for the Library Journal
said the novel "plunging readers into a visceral experience of cosmological theory and the big creation stories of mythology, this challenging and imaginative work will receive critical attention." A review in New Scientist
described the first half of the book as "a gripping, original tale" with the portrayal of the fate-shifters's talents as "nothing short of brilliant", but complained that in the second half Bear over-complicates the story with "too many ideas, images, mythologies and distractions". The reviewer said that a promising story "whips itself up into a virtually incomprehensible final act". Science fiction critic John Clute
described the book as "cosmological [science fiction] without a net", and complained that Bear rushes through the story too quickly and does not dwell long enough on venues like the Kalpa to make it memorable. He said that the flight to future of Ginny, Jack and Daniel "gets a touch Frodo-in-Mordor
at places".
In a review at Strange Horizons
, an online speculative fiction
magazine, Tony Keen was critical of Bear's novel, saying that the present and future passages "do not mesh terribly well", and that it is "too long" with "too many ideas". He complained that the book was difficult to follow and that Bear keeps "moving the goalposts as it suits his narrative". Keen said that for a science fiction novel, he was surprised at its "lack of consistency", and called it more a work of fantasy than science fiction. He said the "revelations" at the end still did not help explain what had happened, but that "by this point, it was for me hard to care".
Science fiction critic Paul Kincaid
had mixed feelings about the novel. In a review at a webzine
, the SF Site he said that while the novel is rooted in hard science fiction, it has a strong elements of fantasy in its plot and style. He criticized the characterisation saying that he could not always separate the main characters. Kincaid questioned the need for the supernatural entity, the Typhon, which is never developed. He described the "end of time" sequence as "the most powerful science fictional moment in this entire book", saying that he found it "far more scary, far more gripping, than any supernatural intervention". Kincaid said that while he found the book "ambitious" and "intellectually satisfying", "somehow the whole feels less than the sum of its parts".
In another review at the SF Site, Greg L. Johnson wrote that while City at the End of Time provides plenty of "wonder, awe, and a sense of humanity in the face of an implacable universe", he feels that Bear does not quite succeed with this ambitious story of the fate of reality and the universe at large. Johnson described it as "an immensely complicated story" that unfolds by means of "hints and allusions". He said that even the book's ending only hints at what the gathered role players had achieved. Johnson wrote that while Bear's depictions of events on a grand scale, like the decay of Seattle, are good, his portrayal of the key players against this backdrop is not as strong.
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
and Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
-winning writer Greg Bear
Greg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear is an American science fiction and mainstream author. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict , artificial universes , consciousness and cultural practices , and accelerated evolution...
. It was published in August 2008 by Del Rey
Del Rey Books
Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn since 1998, by Bertelsmann AG. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy...
in the United States, and Gollancz
Victor Gollancz Ltd
Victor Gollancz Ltd was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century. It was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz and specialised in the publication of high quality literature, nonfiction and popular fiction, including science fiction. Upon Gollancz's death in 1967, ownership...
in the United Kingdom. The story follows three drifters in present-day Seattle who are tormented by strange dreams of the Kalpa, a city one hundred trillion years in the future. The Kalpa is attempting to ward off the Typhon, an inexplicable entity that has consumed the rest of the ancient universe and broken down the laws of physics.
The novel belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre
Dying Earth (subgenre)
The Dying Earth subgenre is a sub-category of science fiction or science fantasy which takes place in the far future at either the end of life on Earth or the End of Time, when the laws of the universe themselves fail...
and is a homage to William Hope Hodgson
William Hope Hodgson
William Hope Hodgson was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction and science fiction. Early in his writing career he dedicated effort to poetry, although few of his...
's 1912 novel, The Night Land
The Night Land
The Night Land is a classic horror novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912. As a work of fantasy it belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre...
, with which it shares a number of plot elements. City at the End of Time was nominated for both the Locus
Locus (magazine)
Locus, subtitled "The Magazine Of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field", is published monthly in Oakland, California. It reports on the science fiction and fantasy publishing field, including comprehensive listings of all new books published in the genre. It is considered the news organ and trade...
and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for best science fiction novel was created in 1973 by writers and critics Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss to honor Campbell's name...
s in 2009.
Plot summary
City at the End of Time is about the Kalpa, the last city on Earth, one hundred trillion years in the future. The novel's back-storyBack-story
A back-story, background story, or backstory is the literary device of a narrative chronologically earlier than, and related to, a narrative of primary interest. Generally, it is the history of characters or other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start...
describes how the aging universe continued expanding and its spacetime
Spacetime
In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space as being three-dimensional and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions...
fabric weakened. With the galaxies burnt out, humanity dispersed across the cosmos, where they encountered the Typhon, an inexplicable entity that was destroying the decaying universe. It consumed matter and replaced space-time with emptiness and inconsistencies beyond the laws of physics. The resulting Chaos spread rapidly, driving some humans back to ancient Earth with its rekindled sun. In an attempt to fend off the approaching Typhon, leaders of the dying Earth sent for Polybiblios, a human living with the Shen, an ancient alien race. Polybiblios returned to Earth with his adopted daughter, Ishanaxade, a being he had constructed from "fate-logs" of intelligent species collected by the Shen. After the Shen system fell, and the Chaos surrounded Earth, its leaders instructed everybody to convert themselves from primordial (real) matter to noötic (virtual) mass. As each city fell, its inhabitants retreated to the last remaining cities, the Kalpa and Nataraja. Using knowledge he had gleaned from the Shen, Polybiblios build reality generators to protect the Kalpa. Nataraja, which had rebelled the instruction to convert to noötic matter, was left to fend for itself.
The novel alternates between the Kalpa and present-day Seattle, where three drifters, Ginny, Jack and Daniel are in possession of sum-runners, small stone-like talisman
Talisman
Talisman have several meanings:*TalismanBooks and novels* The Talisman , a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott* The Talisman , a novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub...
s that give them "fate-shifting" abilities, whereby they can jump between fate-lines (world line
World line
In physics, the world line of an object is the unique path of that object as it travels through 4-dimensional spacetime. The concept of "world line" is distinguished from the concept of "orbit" or "trajectory" by the time dimension, and typically encompasses a large area of spacetime wherein...
s in a multiverse
Multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...
). Ginny and Jack also have disturbing dreams of the Kalpa, and are inexplicably connected to Jebrassy and Taidba, two "breeds" living in the future city. Fate-shifters and their sum-runners are hunted by "collectors" working for the Chalk Princess, an entity controlled by the Typhon from the future. These hunters place adverts in local newspapers inviting "dreamers" to contact them for "help".
In the future the Typhon is destroying history and world-lines are being broken, merging the past and the present. With the Chaos closing in on the Kalpa, the inhabitants (all noötic) are unable to venture outside the city walls. Under Ishanaxade's instructions they create "breeds", copies of ancient humans, using primordial matter. They send them in groups into the Chaos to find out if Nataraja still stands, but none return. Ishanaxade herself ventures out, but is not heard from again. As the Typhon starts breaching the Kalpa, the last batch of breeds, including Jebrassy and Taidba, leave the city in search of help. Armed with portable reality generators, they slowly progress through the "unreal" landscape in search of the rebel city.
Meanwhile the Chaos has reached all the way back to the present-day, and an event called the Terminus hits Seattle: the past, present and future collides and world-lines are severed. Ginny, Jack and Daniel, having evaded the hunters, trek across a degenerating Seattle. Protected by their sum-runners, they are drawn to the Nataraja, where Ishanaxade is waiting. While still in the Kalpa, Ishanaxade had instructed Polybiblios to create the sum-runners containing "fragmented Babels", and in the Chaos she had sent them back to the "beginning of time". The sum-runners were programmed to lead the bearers to Ishanaxade when the expected Terminus occurred. The breeds, programmed to see Ishanaxade as their "mother", are also drawn to Nataraja, and Jebrassy and Taidba find their counterparts Jack and Ginny in the ruined city. The Kalpa falls to the Chaos, but in Nataraja, the sum-runners and their Babel fragments are united and a new history is created causing the Typhon, now a failed god, to implode.
Background
Greg BearGreg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear is an American science fiction and mainstream author. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict , artificial universes , consciousness and cultural practices , and accelerated evolution...
is a Hugo
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
and Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
-winner science fiction writer from Seattle. He called City at the End of Time his "longest and most ambitious science fiction novel" he has written for a while. He said it is a "significant departure" from any of his previous works, and that it has a future history unlike anything he had tackled before.
In an interview with Locus
Locus (magazine)
Locus, subtitled "The Magazine Of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field", is published monthly in Oakland, California. It reports on the science fiction and fantasy publishing field, including comprehensive listings of all new books published in the genre. It is considered the news organ and trade...
magazine Bear said that in this novel he honors those writers who changed the face of science fiction and fantasy, including William Hope Hodgson
William Hope Hodgson
William Hope Hodgson was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction and science fiction. Early in his writing career he dedicated effort to poetry, although few of his...
, Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
, J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
and C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
. In particular Bear pays homage to Hodgson's 1912 novel, The Night Land
The Night Land
The Night Land is a classic horror novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912. As a work of fantasy it belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre...
, with which City at the End of Time shares a number of plot elements. Both books include characters who dream of cities ("the Last Redoubt" in Night Land) in the far future surrounded by encroaching chaos. The Kalpa also draws on Clarke's future city, Diaspar in his 1956 novel, The City and the Stars
The City and the Stars
The City and the Stars is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. It is a complete rewrite of his earlier novella, Against the Fall of Night.-Overview:...
. Influences of other past works on City at the End of Time include H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
's novella The Shadow Out of Time
The Shadow Out of Time
The Shadow Out of Time is a novella by Americanhorror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between November 1934 and February 1935, it was first published in the June 1936 issue of Astounding Stories.-Plot summary:...
(1936) and Olaf Stapledon
Olaf Stapledon
William Olaf Stapledon was a British philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction.-Life:...
's Last and First Men
Last and First Men
Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future is a "future history" science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon. A work of unprecedented scale in the genre, it describes the history of humanity from the present onwards across two billion years and eighteen...
(1930).
Reception
Publishers WeeklyPublishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
described City at the End of Time saying "this complex, difficult and beautifully written tale will appeal to sophisticated readers who prefer thorny conundrums to fast-paced action." Sara Rutter reviewing for the Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
said the novel "plunging readers into a visceral experience of cosmological theory and the big creation stories of mythology, this challenging and imaginative work will receive critical attention." A review in New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
described the first half of the book as "a gripping, original tale" with the portrayal of the fate-shifters's talents as "nothing short of brilliant", but complained that in the second half Bear over-complicates the story with "too many ideas, images, mythologies and distractions". The reviewer said that a promising story "whips itself up into a virtually incomprehensible final act". Science fiction critic John Clute
John Clute
John Frederick Clute is a Canadian born author and critic who has lived in Britain since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part of science fiction's history."...
described the book as "cosmological [science fiction] without a net", and complained that Bear rushes through the story too quickly and does not dwell long enough on venues like the Kalpa to make it memorable. He said that the flight to future of Ginny, Jack and Daniel "gets a touch Frodo-in-Mordor
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
at places".
In a review at Strange Horizons
Strange Horizons
Strange Horizons is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry in every issue....
, an online speculative fiction
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
magazine, Tony Keen was critical of Bear's novel, saying that the present and future passages "do not mesh terribly well", and that it is "too long" with "too many ideas". He complained that the book was difficult to follow and that Bear keeps "moving the goalposts as it suits his narrative". Keen said that for a science fiction novel, he was surprised at its "lack of consistency", and called it more a work of fantasy than science fiction. He said the "revelations" at the end still did not help explain what had happened, but that "by this point, it was for me hard to care".
Science fiction critic Paul Kincaid
Paul Kincaid
Paul Kincaid is a British science fiction critic. His writing has appeared in a wide range of publications including New Scientist, Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review, New York Review of Science Fiction, Foundation, Science Fiction Studies, Interzone and Strange Horizons. He is a former...
had mixed feelings about the novel. In a review at a webzine
Online magazine
An online magazine shares some features with a blog and also with online newspapers, but can usually be distinguished by its approach to editorial control...
, the SF Site he said that while the novel is rooted in hard science fiction, it has a strong elements of fantasy in its plot and style. He criticized the characterisation saying that he could not always separate the main characters. Kincaid questioned the need for the supernatural entity, the Typhon, which is never developed. He described the "end of time" sequence as "the most powerful science fictional moment in this entire book", saying that he found it "far more scary, far more gripping, than any supernatural intervention". Kincaid said that while he found the book "ambitious" and "intellectually satisfying", "somehow the whole feels less than the sum of its parts".
In another review at the SF Site, Greg L. Johnson wrote that while City at the End of Time provides plenty of "wonder, awe, and a sense of humanity in the face of an implacable universe", he feels that Bear does not quite succeed with this ambitious story of the fate of reality and the universe at large. Johnson described it as "an immensely complicated story" that unfolds by means of "hints and allusions". He said that even the book's ending only hints at what the gathered role players had achieved. Johnson wrote that while Bear's depictions of events on a grand scale, like the decay of Seattle, are good, his portrayal of the key players against this backdrop is not as strong.
External links
- Official website.
- City at the End of Time at Worlds Without End.
- Kirkus Reviews