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This is my first re-read of Asimov's "End of Eternity" in nearly forty years. It was interesting to see what I misremembered and how my perception of the book may have changed since my first reading in my mid-teens.****Spoiler Warning****Andrew Harlan is a "Technician" in "Eternity." "Eternity" is an organization/environment that stands apart and outside of "Time" during all the centuries running from the 27th Century up to the 70,000th Century. Eternity is given to making changes in history in order to cause "reality changes" in a given century. These reality changes are designed to improve the human condition by editing wars, disasters and dysfunctional social customs out of history. Under Asimov's rules, "reality changes" tend to wash out after a few centuries so that a change in one century doesn't really have much effect on a century more than a few centuries "upwhen," i.e., in the future.Technicians are the personnel in Eternity who actually implement the changes in Time that are determined by "Computers" and "Sociologists" and other "Specialists." Because of their "grim reaper"-like occupation - reality changes cause people to disappear or for personality changes or the elimination of great works of art and scientific progress - Technicians are the scape-goats of Eternity, and are ostracized but feared.Harlan is, to put it simply, something of a "dick." He's arrogant and prickly and not-likeable. And, yet, he's taken as a protege by the head Computer, Twissel, who is one of the most powerful men in Eternity. One of Harlan's queer interests is his study of the Primitive, i.e., the period before time-travel was invented by a rare genius named Vikkor Mallanson in the 24th Century. Along with other tasks given to him by Harlan is given to him by Twissel, Harlan is told to tutor an odd young man named Cooper in the history and customs of the Primitive eras.Harlan also meets a woman named Noyes Lambert, who, frankly, seduces him. Harlan flips from being a total misogynist - Eternals are generally celibate, and very few Eternals are women because extracting women from Time is much more disruptive of Reality than extracting men. So, Harlan has all the social graces and emotional maturity of a twelve year old. He falls hard, and starts committing crimes because of his infatuation for Noyes.There is also the overriding mystery of the "hidden centuries" - an 80,000 century period into which the Eternals can traverse but not enter, but at the end of which, when the Eternals can re-enter time, humanity has gone extinct. There is also the overriding theme of the futility of space travel. In fact, the only reality change we observe is when Harlan moves a cup by four feet in 5284th Century and eliminates space travel from the Reality of that era.Who is Cooper? Why are there the "hidden centuries"? Why the heck does the lovely and uninhibited Noyes seduce the cold-fish and unlikable Harlan?***End Spoilers ***Assessment:Asimov resolves all of the questions he sets for himself with near mathematical precision. The story moves along, and we do get a resolution of the questions. The story is entertaining.But...It may be the pespective change after forty years, but I found that Harlan was a jerk. A point that Asimov was making, of course, was that Harlan was, in fact, a jerk, but I found it harder to engage with the story in my fifties when I didn't like the insufferable Harlan, than in my teens when I was all about the *gosh, wow* storyline. That is certainly not accidental, since, in many ways, Asimov and science fiction of the '50s was about appealing to teenage males with flashy, *gosh, wow* ideas.Another issue that kept recurring to me was "how does Eternity work?" Why don't Eternals run into themselves when they return from their missions? There are apparently many "generations" of Eternals working in their various sections of Eternity - Eternals age and die like Timers - but apparently one generation from a later "time" in "Eternity" does not meet the members of prior generation. How does that work? Asimov simply assumes that this is not a question and moves from there. Fine. He's the author, and there probably is not an answer, so he's entitled to his "McGuffin." I don't recall being concerned with this forty years ago, but today it kept recurring in my mind.Another thing is that Harlan's flip from misogynist to infatuated teenager seemed unreal and unappetizing. Again, though, this is classic Asimov and the fact that his strength was ideas and not characters.On the other hand, I always remembered that "The End of Eternity" was the true prequel to Asimov's Galactic Empire stories. I have always made a note in my mental schema of Asimov's writings that the fundamental choice offered by Asimov was Eternity or Galactic Empire.That choice is the thought-provoking idea that we expect from Asimov, and it is the idea that give the book its motive power and entertainment value, as well as the fact that this quick read has remained in my memory for four decades."The End of Eternity" is a must-read for anyone interested in Asimov or "classic" science fiction. It is worth reading for anyone looking for a plot-driven science fiction book that delivers a single big idea in a quick, entertaining read.Post-Script:Something occurred to me after I put this review to bed, and it seemed too interesting not to note somewhere.On reflection it occurred to me how much Eternity resembles the milieu of Asimov's primary occupation - academia in a university from the 1930s through the 1950s.Consider, for example, the absence of women from Eternity. Certainly, that would approximate what Asimov saw when he attended department meetings at Boston University. Likewise, Eternity is broken down into departments and specializations, such as "Sociologist" and "Computer" and "Life Plotter" and "Observer." The rigid limits of these specializations look like university departments.Then there is Harlan's odd reflection on the role of "Maintenance." Harlan reflects that no one notices Maintenance workers, but without Maintenance workers - who are really not Eternals in some sense - Eternity couldn't last more than a few days. It sounds almost as if Asimov is reflecting on the nameless, forgotten university staff that changed the lighbulbs in his classroom.And, then, there is the distinction between thinking and doing. Eternity exists to critique what others have done. Eternals review the reality produced by people really doing things in Time. When the Eternal's "criticism" of Reality find reality lacking with respect to the standards set by Eternity, then Eternity changes the reality of Timers without consulting the Timers for their desires. Timers are like students in a classroom who will accept the curriculum provided by their intellectual "professors" in Eternity.There is also the disdain of the other professional classes for the "men of action" - the Technicians. The Technicians do things - they don't merely critique. They are the professors involved in applying science; they aren't engaged in pure abstract research. I wonder if Asimov exprienced a kind of similar ostracism at the hands of other professors on account of his involvement in writing science fiction.Finally, Eternity is the antithesis of the Galactic Empire. One thing that a Galactic Empire is essentially is that it is a thing made by "doers" not "critics." The ascendent elite of a Galactic Empire will be people who do things - make things - conquer - invent - rather than set back and critique others who do those things. Again, I wonder if Asimov's view of Eternity ruling out the Galactic Empire, and vice versa, does't in some way arise from the uneasy sense of academia that there was a world "out there" that viewed academic values with disdain.I'm not saying that this interpretation is essential to an understanding of "The End of Eternity," but, on reflection, I'm now wondering how much of Asimov's personal experience went into shaping his view of Eternity.My first reaction to The End of Eternity as soon as I finished the book was one of discomfort with its many flaws. I instantly ranked it as one of Asimov's minor works for the reasons I describe below. But as I let my thoughts about the book settle down, I started enjoying it more and more, and finally concluded it is a quite important piece in Asimov's complex universe, especially after revisiting Foundation's Edge and finding in it a direct reference to Eternity and Eternals and how these help explain why in the Reality of the Galactic Empire, the whole universe is only inhabitted by human beings--not by chance but by careful selection made by the Eternals among the infinite possible Realities. I'm always learning more about how Asimov managed to connect all of his books in a single context, which is not a small task considering how prolific he had been. And in the particular case of EoE this is even more of an accomplishment, as the themes here are much more apart from the thematic environs of the Robot and Foundation series.Still, there are many plot holes and logic loopholes in this book that are difficult to digest. The way Asimov describes how Time is structured and can be manipulated is somehow undeveloped if not primitive, especially if compared with shorter but much more compelling stories like Heinlein's "All You Zombies--", Borges's "The Garden of Forking Paths" or even PKD's "Adjustment Team". Those, imho, are much more interesting stories about time travel and time paradoxes, even though Asimov as well strived to enrich his story with time paradoxes. The whole concept of time manipulation, which is central to the very existence of Eternity, seemed fragile to me. Eternity appears in the beginning of the book as something monastic, just like Castalia in Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game (and Andrew Harlan becoming Twissell's pupil reminded me of Josef Knecht befriending Father Jacobus, which initially seemed quite promising). But later on, the plot moves towards a time paradox not much different from John Connor's sending his father Kyle Reese back in time in Terminator (a kind of paradox that is much more thrilling in Robert Heinlein's "All You Zombies--"). The time travel rules in EoE seem not to resist a more careful logical scrutiny either, and even after lifting the veil of verisimilitude I found myself stopping and thinking: "wait a minute, this does not fit into the rest of the picture because…"Asimov's simple and sometimes even clumsy writing style also shows in EoE. His limited and somewhat amateurish style makes this book sound very much like a low-budget sci-fi movie. For instance, the extensive use of dialog to convey details of the plot, which is only annoying in Foundation, here in EoE gets to the point of even being comical, particularly when Twissell speaks. He, who is described as gnome-like, immediately seemed to me like Mel Brooks as Yogurt in Spaceballs. All that becomes even more salient in this book because Asimov really strives to enrich Andrew Harlan's character with a more complex personality than usual (he is, indeed, an above-average emotionally complex character to Asimov's standards): there are many vivid descriptions of Harlan's dreams, and even a direct quote from the Bible: Proverbs 28:1, but all that seems to miss its purpose in a loose, awkward way.The trouble is that Harlan's inner motivations are key to make the whole plot move on, and they were not convincing to me. The incentives seemed all wrong. Although many dystopian sci-fi stories use romance to crack the rigidity of the system, here in EoE Harlan's obsession for Noÿs is almost caricature-like. Harlan's incentives lack weight, and that is rather disappointing because I can see how much effort Asimov has dedicated to make them credible. Even the plot twist at the end, which attempts to redeem Noÿs's futility, is not enough to move the needle, imho.Notwithstanding all that, I remain a big Asimov fan. So even here in EoE, where things don't seem to add up, the connection with Foundation's Edge is more than enough to make me view the whole novel from a different, maybe more indulgent perspective. Asimov's style is in many instances shaky and precarious, the plot may have loopholes and its logic may be flawed, but as in the case of the weakest parts of Foundation here again I end up forgiving it all in favor of the strength of Asimov's whole, impressive corpus.I'd forgotten that Asimov actually learned how to write. Having most recently read his original Foundation books and I, Robot I was expecting successive scenes with one person talking to another about ideas. Instead we get a high-concept mystery thriller with a complex narrative structure. It's almost a noir SF novel, with a hero disintegrating under pressure as convincingly as any Simenon or Highsmith central character.The Eternals, a near-monastic organization that lives outside regular time, are like the Time Lords except that instead of standing aloof they constantly tinker with alterations to the course of history. I liked that because usually these organizations set great store by preserving the "original" timeline spawned by random events. This policy of active interference proves to be a major plot point.Time travel novels always require the writer to set up some rules. It's the nature of the genre that those rules may not hold up if you scrutinize them too closely, but at one point Asimov seems to forget his own rules anyhow. He has an alteration in Reality change some old magazines stored in Eternity (the zone outside time where the Eternals live). Yet the whole point of the novel up till now is that if a person is brought into Eternity then they are unaffected by changes to their original timeline. If that weren't so, the Eternals themselves would be a constant risk of disappearing. The protagonist even uses this rule to protect a non-Eternal from the effects of a change in their century. So the magazines should have been brought into Eternity after the change -- yet Asimov says that the pages physically alter every time a change is made outside Eternity, violating his own rule.That aside, I liked it a lot. You might find the the all-male nature of Eternity contrived and a bit dated (in The Machine Stops fifty years earlier, Forster assumed the far future would have just as many leading women as leading men) but that's no different from the all-male college of magicians in Earthsea, say. (Although admittedly something like that makes more sense in fantasy than in SF, which we expect to abide by other rules than just the author's.) Anyway, bear with that as Asimov is fully aware of it and we discover that he's not propounding this as the natural and inevitable state of all human organizations.Asimov is one of SF legendary writers, having written some classic works. Unfortunately I don't count this as among them.The End of Eternity explores time travel and resultant paradoxes and changes in Reality that can occur through manipulation of history. However this novel is at times messy and confusing. I had to read several sections over again to ensure I'd got what was going on as the custodians of Eternity step in and out of Time at various different centuries.I couldn't help wondering at the conclusion whether the whole thing really gelled, but gave up worrying about it....Isaac Asimov is certainly one of the most reliable sci-fi authors. He infallibly provides clever plots, full of intelligent twists, scientific knowledge and unexpected reasoning. And The End of Eternity does not stain this unblemished record. For a quite short story (190 pages) it puts together an interesting proposition for time travel and discusses its obvious implications and potential paradoxes.The plot is centered around the existence of an organization, Eternity, outside regular temporal flow. This organization can access every century of human history since its creation on the 24th century (before that are the primitive centuries where temporal flow is immutable), until the 70.000th century (the hidden centuries, blocked by some kind of barrier). It also assumes an active role in shaping human history by conducting surgical modifications in its normal course (or the one with maximum probability of happening), thus creating multiple realities. Eternity is run by Eternals, mostly male humans that are subtracted from their realities in childhood to live almost as disciples of time.The End of Eternity introduces many of the most obvious time-travel paradoxes, such as one meeting with oneself, or a Bootstrap Paradox. But perhaps the most important discussion resides on the actual good of performing changes in time, even if with best intentions. Asimov, as usual, provides clear explanations of the assumptions behind his sci-fi constructs. One that I found particularly interesting is the limited impact of timeline modifications. Asimov considers that any change will wear out in a couple of centuries, and not exponentially increase its effects across human history.Of course the narrative also includes a human side, even a love story that will decisively change the course of history. And, as always, Asimov provides an unexpected finale where everything comes together quite nicely.I first read Asimov's time-based novella in my late teens. I'd re-read the Foundation trilogy (none of the later add-ons thank goodness) several times and was looking for something new from such a great sci-fi master. The story didn't disappoint.Over the years, the ideas behind The End of Eternity have stayed firmly imprinted in my mind - it was a slow burner, but I came to understand what a visionary work of genius it was. Recently I re-read the book and found myself awed by the brilliant simplicity of the idea behind it, and the fabulous architecture of the story.The book is perhaps an attack on utilitarianism (the greatest happiness for the greatest number), claiming that, to be our very best, humans must have room to breathe, spread out and create. The discussion of the need for or dreadful waste of resources that space exploration represents is as important and relevant now as it was in 1955 when first published.The main protagonist, Andrew Harlan, is a very special member of the human society known as Eternity. He's a technician, responsible for tweaking history here and there to constantly improve humanity's lot. Depending on your point of view, it's his own human frailties that either jeopardize his hard work or threaten to put a stop to this meddling with time.The imagination is five star as is the plot construction. The quality of the actual writing doesn't reach those dizzy heights and is clunky at times, but it's well worth persevering with to leave you with a memory that will last for ever, or at least until the next reality change...The novel is great, but this Panther edition is over-priced (£7 for a pretty short book published in 1955 is crazy). And to add insult to injury, it is also very poorly proof-read. It feels like at least once or twice a page there is an error (including missing words, or a completely different word being chosen to the one intended) that makes you have to stop, read the sentence again and work out the error to know what was meant.