Eon (1985)
Greg Bear (1951)
504 pages
I came across Greg Bear’s science fiction novel Eon on a shelf of used books at a local secondhand store a few months ago. I recognized Bear as a well-known sci-fi author, and the summary tease on the back cover sounded intriguing, so I figured I’d give it a go. The story certainly didn’t disappoint.
It opens as astronomers discover a huge, roughly cylindrical asteroid heading toward Earth. They are surprised to discover that it’s on a course to go into orbit around Earth, which it turns out, as one of the lead characters notes in the opening pages, “is not a fluke.” Further analysis reveals the asteroid to have half its expected mass, and when the Stone, as it comes to be called, finally goes into Earth-orbit, the US and their NATO allies quickly launch an expedition to figure out why; also important for them is to claim first rights of exploration.
Once on the Stone, the scientists quickly discover the explanation for the missing mass: the interior has been hollowed out and replaced by a series of constructed chambers, including a pair that contain huge, abandoned cities. As they find ways to access information from the empty, but still functioning city libraries, and come to understand the origin of the Stone’s builders, the surprises begin multiplying for the scientists, quickly overwhelming their ability to process and accept the reality of what they are learning.
The psychological challenges mount when they learn from the library information that the nations of Earth could be on the verge of a devastating nuclear war. As US and NATO politicians back on Earth frantically try to prevent the conflict, while at the same time keeping the public, and other governments, in the dark about what has been found on the Stone, tensions climb. For the scientists on the Stone, however, even the horrifying knowledge about an apparently inevitable war pales in comparison to what they learn as they move deeper into the Stone, making discoveries with even more staggering implications for the future of humanity.
Bear’s ambition in the novel encompasses vast expanses of time, and also space. As one of the characters points out late in the book, “an [eon] is indeed a billion years. But the Greeks who coined the world were not so specific. They used it as a pointer to eternity, the lifetime of the universe, far more than a billion years. It was also the personification of a god’s cycle of time.” (415) In his story, Bear eventually points toward eternity, borrowing heavily from the cutting edge physics of multiple universes and their potential implications, as well as exploring the logical implications of current technological and biological advances on the future of humanity. In that sense, his story ages well, if anything seeming even more plausible now than when he originally wrote it in the early 1980’s.
That said, his detailed explanations (through his characters) of the mysteries of the Stone --- how it came to be formed, how its wondrous technologies function, where its builders have gone --- can be tough sledding at times. I tend to be a stickler when I read for making sure that explanations make sense to me, and are consistently applied with the book, so I tried to following the particulars of his descriptions. In the end, however, I must admit that I gradually gave up on the details of the physics and biology explanations, and focused instead on the action-adventure aspect of the story.
The seemingly up-to-the-minute physics in the story contrast sharply, however, with how dated the political outlook in the plot has become since its publication in 1985. Bear set the story in the early 2000’s --- so, for a current day reader, in our past --- and one of its central conflicts is the extension of mid-20th century cold war tensions and conflicts into space, between the US dominated NATO coalition and the Soviet Union. Eon was first published six years before the fall of the Soviet Union, and Bear could hardly have been expected to anticipate what no one else did. Unfortunately, for all the wild physics and technology, it is the constant references to the hardline Soviet political and military protocols of the cold war that a current-day reader trips over, since that reality --- the political officers accompanying the military leadership, for example, and the distrust and in-fighting between them --- feels the most “unreal."
Ultimately, however, these are minor quibbles. Read past the detailed descriptions of the physics and biology that support the stunning world Bear has created, and imagine as an alternative history the translation into space of the deadly cold war game of cat-and-mouse US and Soviet forces, and a reader has no problem enjoying the wild ride of a plot that Bear has created.
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