Eternity (Paperback)

Should one not have the time, one can eventually figure out what Bear is talking about through context clues, but it took me about a good half of the book until I was confident I understood what all of these things were. Once I got past this, I really could appreciate the book more.

The book takes place at some future date, presumably several hundred years or so from now, after a nuclear war with Russia. This nuclear war is referred to as both the Death and as the Sundering. Apparently an extremely large hollowed out asteroid called Thistledown, which is also referred to throughout the book as the Stone and also as the Potato, is in orbit around Earth. Humans have colonized this asteroid and it seems as if most of the wealthier humans, known as the Geshels, live there. Thistledown holds the gateway to a faster than light highway of sorts, that allows transportation between planets, galaxies, universes, and even through time. This "highway" is known as the Way.

Humans, however, aren't the only ones interested in the Way. A hostile species of aliens known as the Jarts also uses the way for transport and for conquering other planets. At one time the Way was open for public use, but at the time the book starts, it has been closed since the nuclear war with Russia. The entire plot of the book revolves on the debate with the Hexamon, the global government, on whether or not they should reopen the Way.

One aspect of the book that is really interesting is that in the story people can receive age regression therapy and live for a virtually infinite number of years. People's minds can even be downloaded in to City Memory, which is something similar to the internet, and then put into a new body. I think that?s where the book gets it's title from, because as a result of this people can live for all eternity if they choose to do so.

The people in the book also have an interesting way to reproduce. Their children's minds are created in City Memory long before they ever have a body. Their children's minds are usually parts of their parents minds combined and then sculpted to perfection. When the online mind has reached a certain age, it takes tests to see whether or not it qualifies to be a human. From their the mind designs it's own body, which is grown for it and then the mind is downloaded into the body.

The book also takes on a religious aspect as people return as angels from the "Final Mind", also known as God, to try to influence whether or not the Way should be opened. They want the Way to be destroyed because they claim that it interrupts the Final Mind's plan. One thing that I found particularly annoying was that the angels never mention why, or how the Way interrupts the Final Mind's plan. When people ask them they respond that they simply don't know. This really [inhales with force] the purpose out of the plot because it is never really explained to the reader why the Way should be destroyed.

Once I got past the lack of description as to what Bear is talking about however I found this to be a rather interesting book. After all there have been many great novels throughout history that have been far more vague, leaving interpretation or even translation entirely up to the reader (i.e. Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange). I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes reading about politics or science fiction.