Eternity (novel)
| Author | Greg Bear |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Ron Miller; design by Don Rackey |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Way |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Warner Books |
|
Publication date
|
1988 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 367 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 20664896 |
| Preceded by | Eon |
| Followed by | Legacy |
Eternity (1988) is a science fiction novel by Greg Bear. It is the second book in his The Way series, dealing largely with the aftermath of the decision to split Axis City and abandon the Way in the preceding book, Eon.
In Eon, Axis City split into two: one segment of Naderites and some Geshels took their portion of the city out of the Way and through Thistledown into orbit around the Earth; they spend the next thirty years aiding the surviving population of Earth heal and rebuild from the devastating effects of the Death. This effort strains their resources and the government of the Hexamon. As time passes, sentiment grows to have Korzenowski reopen the Way. Firstly, to learn what has happened to the Geshels' long-sundered brethren (who took their portion of Axis City down the Way at relativistic near-light speed). And, secondly, to benefit from the commercial advantages of the Way (despite a very real risk that the Jarts will be waiting on the other side).
In a parallel Earth, known as Gaia, the mathematician Patricia Vasquez (who was the primary protagonist of Eon), dies of old age; she never found her own Earth where the Death did not happen and her loved ones were still alive, but remained on the one she discovered (in which Alexander the Great did not die young and his empire did not fragment after his death). She passes her otherworldly artifacts of technology to her granddaughter, Rhita, who appears to have inherited her gifts. Rhita moves away from the academic institute the "Hypateion" (a reference to Hypatia) which Patricia founded and to that world's version of Alexandria. Patricia's clavicle claims that a test gate has been opened onto this world of Gaia, and that it could be expanded further.
Ser Olmy is distracted by three concerns; the growth of his son, the prospects of the Way being re-opened (which he believes inevitable) with the attendant consequences, and by the revelation to him by an old friend that one of the deepest secrets of the Hexamon was a captured Jart whose body died in the process but whose mind was uploaded. Its mentality was alien and powerful enough that it took over or killed many of the researchers who attempted to connect to and study it, so it was hidden away deep in the Stone. As he studies the Jart, Olmy comes to believe that the Jart had been captured on purpose, that it was in fact a Trojan Horse. The Jart reveals tidbits about the Jart civilization: in essence, they are a hierarchical meta-civilization that ruthlessly modifies itself, attempting to absorb all useful intelligences and ways of thinking that it encounters, in the service of the Jarts' ultimate goal - to transmit all the data they can possibly gather to "descendant command". Olmy investigates further and discovers that descendant command is the Jart name for what they know as the "Final Mind" - a Teilhardian (or Tiplerian) conception of an ultimate intelligence which will be created at the end of the universe when all intelligences merge themselves into a single transcendent intellect which will effectively be a god.
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