
Eon
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Buy Now for $33.99
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Narrated by:
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Stefan Rudnicki
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By:
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Greg Bear
About this listen
Perhaps it wasn't from our time, perhaps it wasn't even from our universe, but the arrival of the 300-kilometer long stone was the answer to humanity's desperate plea to end the threat of nuclear war. Inside the deep recesses of the stone lies Thistledown: the remnants of a human society, versed in English, Russian and Chinese. The artifacts of this familiar people foretell a great Death caused by the ravages of war, but the government and scientists are unable to decide how to use this knowledge. Deeper still within the stone is the Way. For some the Way means salvation from death, for others it is a parallel world where loved ones live again. But, unlike Thistledown, the Way is not entirely dead, and the inhabitants hold the knowledge of a present war, over a million miles away, using weapons far more deadly than any that mankind has ever conceived.
©1985 Greg Bear (P)2012 Audible, Inc.By the middle it gets rather good but there are many rather forgettable characters so it's hard to keep up. Also there is much "hard sci-fi" but really it's just physics terms used in a gobeldigook kind of way so it's rather confusing. It's not hard to keep up, just that a lot of it is superfluous to the readers needs so you find your self almost stuck in literary mud, making needlessly slow progress.
At this point it's still mostly good and enjoyable. But then it goes full star wars prequels and hits you with alien politics. You don't care about what is happening or who it's happening too so you don't end up caring what is happening, which can be hard to discern due to the laborious descriptions that really don't help you understand anyway.
All up there are some god ideas but it really is hard work and not satisfying. There are many, many better books worth your time.
Fwiw I read a lot. I loved Ubik, catch 22, the forever war and I'm a rather fast reader and I enjoy physics.
Starts so well then, not so much.
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Ending was messy
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meh
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