I started off loving this book, and then grew a bit bored, and then interested again, until the ending which was a slight disappointment. The first third of the story, which really sets the scene for what follows, is the most captivating, as Bear really imagines and discusses what our future might look like, even though parts of this future have already happened. ( )

Billed as the greatest Science Fiction novel of our time, it is perhaps a slight exaggeration. It certainly hasn't aged well, but for 1985 maybe it was among the best.

Eon follows 4 main characters experiences of a world that in 1993 suffered a limited nuclear war, and the arrival of an extra-terrestrial object in 2004 which triggers the full blown thing. The war was of course against the evil communist stereotypical cold-war closed minded bureaucratic Russians. And so we follow the American administrator Lanier, and dimensional mathematician Patrician the free thinking Russian general Minsky and the humanoid Omey from the artifact. It turns out that the Stone comes from another future and has traveled into our now. It's past features the Death some millenia ago, but still scarring the inhabitants' psyches but there was no Stone in it's own past, and so there is hope of avoiding the Death in this one. When that hope becomes void all the inhabitants of the Stone, the Way and the survivors must deal with the consequences and decide on their futures.

It's quite fun with some interesting concepts, particularly the higher dimensions creating the Way, but nothing significantly original. Specifically the advanced humans are still very parochial and despite their implants, bogged down in internal politics. The plot moves along quite well with some introspection and depth from the various characters, something Bear has always been good at. It suffers quite a bit from the Cold War mentality of when it was written, which today seems stilted. He only touches very briefly on morality and spiritual matters which given their influence today seems unusual, although his foresight regarding the influence of Ralph Nader is quite amazing.

Enjoyable, but better when it was written than it is now.
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Near future meets far future science fiction. Aliens, multiverse, manipulation of space-time. Moderate doses of politico-cultural SF commentary.

A well-developed "big picture" idea. Motivations and personalities of several main characters could have been a little more fleshed out. ( )

What a shame the jacket blurb of the Tor 1986 paperback gave the main surprise of the plot away... ( )

Unbelievably good book. The pacing was great and the revelations even better. The horror of watching events just plough on to their apopalytic end still haunts me. The characters were believable and interesting. I am glad I finally decided to read this one after putting it down several times. ( )