Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 496 pages
- Published by: Del Rey August 5, 2008
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0345448391
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0345448392
-
Book Dimensions:
9.3 x 6.6 x 1.5 inches
- Weighs: 1.6 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In his triumphant return to large-scale SF, Nebula and Hugo–winner Bear (
Quantico) links three young drifters in present-day Seattle with an unimaginably distant future. When the drifters answer an odd newspaper advertisement, they soon find themselves caught up in a war between mysterious and powerful forces. Two not-quite-humans, creations of a million-year experiment, have discovered that their ancient fortress/city, perhaps the last refuge of intelligence in a dying universe, is about to fall before the onslaught of chaos. They have been chosen by beings evolved far beyond mere matter to undertake a dangerous mission to preserve the universe's last vestiges of consciousness. Somehow the two groups engage in telepathic communication despite the eons that separate them. Something of an homage to William Hope Hodgson's classic
The Night Land, this complex, difficult and gorgeously written tale will appeal to sophisticated readers who prefer thorny conundrums to fast-paced action.
(Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Review
PRAISE FOR GREG BEAR
City at the End of Time
“Lyrical, gorgeous, and set one hundred trillion years after the heat death of the universe.”
–Jeff Bezos, chairman and CEO, Amazon.com
“Bear is one of our greatest science fiction writers.”
–Vernor Vinge, award-winning author of Rainbows End
Quantico
“An adrenaline-amped thriller that will scare the hell out of you.”
–Robert Crais
“As impossible to let go of as a live wire.”
–The Seattle Times
Dead Lines
“A really great novel.”
–Stephen King
Darwin’s Radio
“A frightening new wrinkle in human evolution . . . Darwin’s Radio delivers the kind of narrative kick that distinguishes such novels as Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End and John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos.”
–San Francisco Chronicle
“A masterpiece . . . Fascinating.”
–USA Today
Reader ReviewsGreg Bear's "City at the End of Time" is an interesting book (perhaps "weird" (in a good way) might be a better word). The way Bear writes in this novel and his cosmological (almost theistic) theme reminds me somewhat of Roger Zelazny's old work. The only quibble I have with the book is that there's a bit too much "slogging through the wilderness" type of activity in it. Of course, Bear needs that slogging time to finish up the linkage between his two groups of people in the present and the future. Overall, I rate this book at a Very Good four stars out of five.
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