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What... the heck... was THAT?!?

Customer Rating:
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 strange powers that belie the "science" part of sci-fi. They navigate through an arcane, nightmare world, one with little regard for reason or familiarity.

The book resembles nothing so much as a long, unpleasant, mushroom-induced hallucination. It's creative, sure, and Bear does a great job bringing the strange world to life, making you feel the fear and strangeness the characters are experiencing. Unfortunately, I don't like Salvador-Dali-like fantastic craziness. I like stories to make a modicum of sense; that's one of the reasons I read science fiction. I expected this one to become clearer by the end, but it actually veered even more into the murk. It might make for a good, if morose, fantasy, but sci-fi lovers will be left scratching their heads.

A simple idea, a challenging read

Customer Rating:
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 were hazy, but I filled them in from my own imagination, sometimes based on my reading in physics. I was always delighted when something familiar, either in physics theory or from myth, presented itself. And therein lies the beauty of this work. I guess I've grown tired of having everything spelled out for me. I liked moving in realms that left enough to my imagination that I could be an active reader.

It did have some repetitive elements that detracted from the overall experience, but looking at it from a structural standpoint I'm not sure that the repetition was avoidable. I would have liked to have seen more variety nonetheless. I think, like the characters, at some points Mr. Bear grew fatigued with the immensity of the universe and the contortions he put it through. Also, much as I like some of the heroes in this work, the importance placed on these elements/sets of things seemed a little too transparently aimed at me as a marketing tool rather than making actual sense. But I was willing to buy into it so that I could discover the true nature of the Chaos, Typhon, etc. or at least get enough hints to develop my own satisfying ideas about those things.

Some of the grotesques and the dire nature of the approaching end of the universe made me wonder if there would be enough payoff to make it all worthwhile. For the first portion of the book I couldn't imagine a positive outcome that would also be satisfying. It turned out to be a strange end, quiet and almost as sparsely defined as much of the rest of the book, but it gave me huge freedom as far as my own imagination making a beast from the bones. Despite the fact that he didn't pull any of the typical and predictable tear-jerker tropes that make for emotional endings, I ended up on the edge of tears for reasons I don't want to state because they might be considered spoilers. But those reasons made the book for me.

A simple idea developed into a challenging read. Definitely not for everyone, but absolutely the book for me.

Very hard going

Customer Rating:
Look, I tried hard to finish this; I really did. I've liked many of Bear's earlier works, but this was very unrewarding.

Long, dull and repetitive. I got 300 pages into this before finding that I was losing the will to live. Another 170 pages? No sir.

Clearly read a different book

Customer Rating:
After finishing the best novel I've read in a long time, I came to Amazon to pull a link to pass on to friends - and was shocked to see a set of bad reviews.

City at the End of Time is vividly atmospheric, demanding and rewarding, eerie, beautiful, haunting and bold in scope. Far too few SF writers dare to evoke a sense of wonder anymore; Bear dreams big.

No, he doesn't spoon-feed explanations and answers. Much remains shrouded, known to the protagonists but not disclosed to other characters or the audience. It's not a textbook and it's not pulp; the work requires some attention and sophistication.

It's been a long time since I read anything that required me to stretch my imagination, rather than just consume the work of someone else's. I like it, and I want more.

Best novel of 2008.

Extremely well-written futuristic parable of Creationism

Customer Rating:
One thing is for sure, Greg Bear really knows how to write. This novel was a real page-turner and I enjoyed the settings, the characters etc. I really can't call it science fiction though, since religion and science are polar opposites, but he definately has a way with words. I guess you can label this book a futuristic fantasy novel, with some horror elements.