City at the End of Time

''City at the End of Time'' is a 2008 science fiction novel by American writer Greg Bear. It was published in August 2008 by Del Rey in the United States, and Gollancz in the United Kingdom. The story follows three drifters in present-day Seattle who are tormented by strange dreams of the Kalpa, a city one hundred trillion years in the future. The Kalpa is attempting to ward off the Typhon, an inexplicable entity that has consumed the rest of the ancient universe and broken down the laws of physics.

The novel belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre. It is rooted in hard science fiction, but also incorporates several other genres, including fantasy and horror. Bear called it science fiction "stretched to the nth degree". He said that in the novel he honors those writers who changed the face of science fiction and fantasy, including William Hope Hodgson and Arthur C. Clarke, and pays homage to Hodgson's 1912 novel, ''The Night Land'', with which ''City at the End of Time'' shares a number of plot elements.

The novel received a mixed reception from critics. Some reviewers were impressed by the novel's scope and grandiosity, while others felt that the characters were underdeveloped and the story was difficult to follow. ''New Scientist'' described the first half of the book as "a gripping, original tale", but complained that in the second half Bear over-complicates the story with "too many ideas, images, mythologies and distractions". ''City at the End of Time'' was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2009.

Plot summary

''City at the End of Time'' is about the Kalpa, the last city on Earth, one hundred trillion years in the future. The novel's backstory describes how the aging universe continued expanding and its spacetime fabric weakened. With the galaxies burnt out, humanity dispersed across the cosmos, where they encountered the Typhon, an inexplicable entity that was destroying the decaying universe. It consumed matter and replaced space-time with emptiness and inconsistencies beyond the laws of physics. The resulting Chaos spread rapidly, driving some humans back to ancient Earth with its rekindled sun. In an attempt to fend off the approaching Typhon, leaders of the dying Earth sent for Polybiblios, a human living with the Shen, an ancient alien race. Polybiblios returned to Earth with his adopted daughter, Ishanaxade, a being he had constructed from "fate-logs" of intelligent species collected by the Shen. After the Shen system fell, and the Chaos surrounded Earth, its leaders instructed everybody to convert themselves from primordial (real) matter to noötic (virtual) mass. As each city fell, its inhabitants retreated to the last remaining cities, the Kalpa and Nataraja. Using knowledge he had gleaned from the Shen, Polybiblios built reality generators to protect the Kalpa. Nataraja, which had rebelled against the instruction to convert to noötic matter, was left to fend for itself.

The novel alternates between the Kalpa and present-day Seattle, where three drifters, Ginny, Jack and Daniel are in possession of sum-runners, small stone-like talismans that give them "fate-shifting" abilities, whereby they can jump between fate-lines (world lines in a multiverse). Ginny and Jack also have disturbing dreams of the Kalpa, and are inexplicably connected to Jebrassy and Taidba, two "breeds" living in the future city. Fate-shifters and their sum-runners are hunted by "collectors" working for the Chalk Princess, an entity controlled by the Typhon from the future. These hunters place adverts in local newspapers inviting "dreamers" to contact them for "help".

In the future, the Typhon is destroying history and world-lines are being broken, merging the past and the present. With the Chaos closing in on the Kalpa, the inhabitants (all noötic) are unable to venture outside the city walls. Under Ishanaxade's instructions, they create "breeds", copies of ancient humans, using primordial matter. They send them in groups into the Chaos to find out if Nataraja still stands, but none return. Ishanaxade herself ventures out, but is not heard from again. As the Typhon starts breaching the Kalpa, the last batch of breeds, including Jebrassy and Taidba, leave the city in search of help. Armed with portable reality generators, they slowly progress through the unreal landscape in search of the rebel city.

Meanwhile, the Chaos has reached all the way back to the present day, and an event called the Terminus hits Seattle: the past, present and future collide and world-lines are severed. Ginny, Jack and Daniel, having evaded the hunters, trek across a degenerating Seattle. Protected by their sum-runners, they are drawn to Nataraja, where Ishanaxade is waiting. While still in the Kalpa, Ishanaxade had instructed Polybiblios to create the sum-runners containing "fragmented Babels", and in the Chaos she had sent them back to the "beginning of time". The sum-runners were programmed to lead the bearers to Ishanaxade when the expected Terminus occurred. The breeds, programmed to see Ishanaxade as their "mother", are also drawn to Nataraja, and Jebrassy and Taidba find their counterparts Jack and Ginny in the ruined city. The Kalpa falls to the Chaos, but in Nataraja, the sum-runners and their Babel fragments are united and history is recreated, causing the Typhon, now a failed god, to implode.

Background

Greg Bear is a science fiction writer from Seattle. He has won three Nebula Awards, including the 1995 Award for Best Novel for ''Moving Mars'', and two Hugo Awards, including the 1983 Award for Best Novelette for '' Blood Music''. ''City at the End of Time'' was his first novel since '' Quantico'', which was first published in 2005. Bear's early influences included science fiction authors Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Poul Anderson.

Bear called ''City at the End of Time'' his "longest and most ambitious science fiction novel" he has written for a while. He said it is a "significant departure" from any of his previous works, and that it has a future history unlike anything he had tackled before. In an interview with ''Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine'' in September 2008, Bear said that what inspired him to write ''City at the End of Time'' was the question, "What if we're still primitive in our thinking bout physics and cosmology", and this led to the idea for a story of "a Universe that goes on and on and on, and how reality might have to be changed by that circumstance."

Bear told ''Locus'' magazine in August 2008 that he had found what appears to be a "continuity" in British science fiction: H. G. Wells

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