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‘The End of Eternity’ by Isaac Asimov and the Manifest Destiny of America
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) was one of the central writers of the formative period of science fiction and among the very first to highlight the political and societal importance of the genre. The key works in Asimov’s oeuvre were the Robot and Foundation series published in the Astounding Science-Fiction magazine in the 1940’s and the 1950’s. In these Asimov dealt with themes of history, frontier expansion and guardianship. However these stories were all based in space. But with the publication of The End of Eternity in 1955 he placed his context not in space but in time. (It is interesting that the cover artwork to the 1975 Panther edition features a spaceship. How wrong can you get?) It is a stand-alone book and is considered by many to be his single best SF novel.
Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a member of the elite of the future. One of the few who live in Eternity, a location outside of place and time, Harlan’s job is to create carefully controlled and enacted Reality Changes. These Changes are small, exactingly calculated shifts in the course of history made for the benefit of humankind. Though each Change has been made for the greater good, there are always costs. In particular, space flight never happens because of the changes they make.
During one of his assignments, Harlan meets and falls in love with Noÿs Lambent, a woman who lives in real time and space. Then Harlan learns that Noÿs will cease to exist after the next change, and risks everything to sneak her into Eternity. Unfortunately, they are caught. Harlan’s punishment? His next assignment: kill the woman he loves before the paradox they have created results in the destruction of Eternity. But there is a twist at the end as Harlan discovers that he has been part of a much bigger plan. A plan that involves Noÿs and will affect the ultimate direction of humanity as Harlan will have to choose whether to save or end Eternity.
Asimov’s novel engages us on many different levels. We have a love story and a detective novel in one. On the next level we have an insight into how the interrelationship between men, computers and information were viewed by people of the mid-1950’s. On the next, a time-travel story that particularly at the end, involves philosophic considerations of free will, social…
