Continuing with my little mini series of blog posts about time travel narratives, this week I decided to talk about one of Asimov’s lesser-known works. (I had briefly considered writing about Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut first, but as with The Time Machine, I decided that that novel was well-known enough that it probably didn’t need my endorsement or opinion). Isaac Asimov is, of course, very famous and many of his books are so well-loved they’ve been made into movies and television (I, Robot and Foundation, as just two examples). But this standalone time travel novel is one of his works that has not had quite the longevity of readership that so many of his others have had.

But first, I have to talk about Asimov himself for a second, because good lord this man’s legacy is mind blowing, and his life was truly fascinating.

Isaac Asimov was born sometime between October 1919 and January 1920 in Petrovichi, Soviet Russia. Due to the uncertainties of the time and the severe lack of records, no one (not even his own family) knows precisely when he was born, but Asimov himself decided to celebrate his birthday as January 2, 1920. He came from a family of Jewish millers, who all immigrated to the US when he was 3 years old, where they lived in Brooklyn and owned a candy store.

He started college at the age of 15, and published his first short story, “Marooned Off Vesta” at 19. He attended Columbia University for graduate school and earned a bachelor’s and master’s in Chemistry, and a PhD in biochemistry in 1948. Between his degrees he briefly served with the US Army during WW2 and narrowly avoided participating in the atomic bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll in 1946. After earning his PhD, he went on to teach at the Boston University of Medicine where he remained in some capacity until his death. And he wrote nearly non-stop.

A few fun facts about Asimov: he was afraid of flying and flew only twice in his life; he also never learned to swim or ride a bicycle. He had a wide array of interests from opera to Sherlock Holmes, and he was one of the founding members of the Committee for the Scientific Investigations of Claims of the Paranormal (now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). He was friends with Kurt Vonnegut and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenbury.

He died in 1992 from heart and kidney failure at the age of (approximately) 90 years old.

While Asimov is most famous for his science fiction novels, he actually wrote in many other genres including mystery, fantasy, children’s, and nonfiction. He was one of the most prolific writers of any time or genre, ever. In fact, his career includes over 500 books on various subjects, many many short stories, and approximately 90,000 letters, and his books have been categorized in 9 out of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal system.

His science fiction career could be split into essentially two periods of time and focus: the first started with his first publications in 1939 and ended in 1958 with the publication of his novel The Naked Sun. From about 1952 onward, his attention became focused on his nonfiction writing, during which time he co-authored a textbook called Biochemistry and Human Metabolism, and wrote an enormous collection of books on topics ranging from physics to the historical contexts of the Bible. Then, in 1982, he picked up his science fiction career again, and wrote a number of continuations and sequels to previous works, starting with Foundation’s Edge.

His most well known works are his Foundation series, Robot series, and Galactic Empire series. Later in life, he wrote a number of books that connect each of these series to each other, thus creating one unified (if somewhat inconsistent) Story Universe. In 1964, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted for his short story, “Nightfall,” published in 1941, as the best science fiction story of all time. He is credited with coining the words: positronic, psychohistory, and robotics. And possibly his most enduring contribution is the “three laws of robotics,” which are still used today.

He was awarded honorary doctorate degrees, won 7 Hugo Awards, 2 Nebulas, and many other awards besides. An asteroid, a crater on Mars, a Brooklyn elementary school, and a literary award have all been named in his honor. Few writers in any genre have received the kind of respect, accolades, and adoration that Isaac Asimov did both during his lifetime and after his death.

All of that said, (and sorry that bio got a bit long, but the man was truly FASCINATING), I want to talk about End of Eternity, written in 1955. This is a standalone novel that does not connect to any of his larger series canons. It offers a particularly fascinating take on time travel, elements of which may have influenced contemporary works like the Time Variance Authority in the Loki tv series, and the two competing time factions in the novella This Is How You Lose the Time War.

End of Eternity is a complex novel, with elements of mystery, that centers around a time travel organization called Eternity (its members called Eternals), which was created in the 27th century and aims to improve human happiness and protect humans from harm or danger. To do so, they observe human history, analyze their options, and then make small “reality changes” that mean to reduce suffering at the (in their minds, justifiable) cost of losses in technology, art, and other cultural endeavors that they judge to have a harmful effect in the long run. Safety is prioritized over creativity, discovery, or excitement.

Members, the Eternals, are recruited throughout time from their “homewhens” and trade is even established between various time periods in order to help the times that need it the most. The Eternals can travel “upwhen” and “down when” in time — imagined as almost physical structures like elevators or corridors — and can enter various time periods in devices called “kettles.” 

However, no one can travel to times before the 27th century, when the temporal field that powers Eternity was created. This limit is called the “downwhen terminus.” Furthermore, they cannot access the time periods between years 7 million to 15 million for reasons they do not know. These are called the “Hidden Centuries.” Again, these are described as physical structures, as if Eternity has built corridors up into the Hidden Centuries but cannot open any of the doors to actually ACCESS those centuries.

The main character, Andrew Harlan, is a respected and excellent Technician — a specialist in reality changes and an expert in the “Primitive times.” Senior Computer Laban Twissell [please note that “computer” here is used in its original meaning as a person who computes, as this was written before the creation of computers as we know them now], the Dean of the Allwhen Council, assigns Harlan to teach a newcomer, Brinsley Cooper, about the Primitive times to prepare him for an assignment.

At the same time, Harlan’s direct boss (with whom he has an antagonistic relationship), Assistant Computer Finge, orders him to spend time in the 482nd Century. There, Harlan stays with a woman named Noys Lambent, a non-Eternal member of that time period’s aristocracy, and falls in love with her. When Harlan learns that a coming reality change will affect that century and likely change or erase Noys, he breaks Eternal law, removes her from her time period, and hides her in the empty sections of Eternity that exist in the Hidden Centuries.

From this point on, Harlan is confronted with one mystery after another, as his bosses and colleagues all seem to be working against him, and even the woman he loves might have dangerous secrets. Everything he thought he knew about time is put into question. And the choices he must make may change everything.

It is very very difficult to talk about this book without revealing all kinds of spoilers. Which I generally prefer not to do. I really advocate for being able to experience the plot twists and the big reveals and the endings first hand without having any forewarning. That means that I can give you only the barest hints at why this book is so fascinating. The first third of the novel can be a little slow moving, but once the twists start popping up (and there are several big plot twists) the momentum does not let up.

This novel explores some really fascinating questions about fate and inevitability (within the context of a closed time loop), the power of love to defy societal expectation and law, and what the point of humanity even is — safety or creativity? Stability or discovery? Some characters come to one conclusion. Harlan comes to another. And the conflict between the two gives the ending tension and ambiguity.

If you are not familiar with Asimov’s writing style, it’s important to be aware that his style is, in a word, unadorned. In a lot of ways he is the exact opposite of Jack FInney, the writer I discussed last week. Where Finney’s writing is complex and highly descriptive, Asimov’s is clean and spare and utilitarian. This is not at all a bad thing, just a very different style that will appeal to some people and turn off others. If you’ve read any other work by Asimov, you’re already aware of this, and you’ll know what to expect. Asimov is basically an ideas writer, not a prose writer. And the ideas are compelling.

I will also add that throughout his entire career, Asimov had a bit of a woman problem. There are few women in his novels, and when they are there, they are often… problematic. This is true in End of Eternity as in any of his other works. I think there is enough value in everything else the novel has to offer (as with all of his work), to make it worth to deal with a less-than-stellar woman character, but it’s something readers should be aware of.