City at the End of Time
by Greg Bear
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Book Summary Information
Author: Greg BearEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Format: Import
Published: 2008-07-19
ISBN: 0575081899
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Gollancz
Book Reviews of City at the End of Time
Book Review: The End of Everything?
Summary: 5 Stars
City at the End of Time (2008) is a standalone SF novel. It is set in the present and at the end of time. And that end is much further than predicted. The city at the end of time exists more than a trillion years in the future.
In this novel, Jeremy (Jack) Rohmer is a busker currently living in Seattle. He juggles mice and hammers on street corners and rides his bicycle throughout the city. He dreams of Kalpa, a city at the end of time.
Virginia (Ginnie) Carol is eighteen years old. She is fleeing the people in a gray Mercedes. She also dreams of Kalpa.
Daniel Patrick Iremonk is a scholar of physics. Like Jack and Ginnie, he is a fate shifter -- capable of wrenching his mind between timelines -- but he does not dream of Kalpa. Always before, he has arrived in a new timeline within another version of his own self, but this time he resides in the body of someone else.
Conan Arthur Bidewell is a twelve hundred and fifty-three year old collector of written material. Lately he has been collecting books. Not popular books, but odd and erroneous editions of obscure manuscripts. He has been tracking the termination of time through the errors within the volumes.
Max Glaucous is a Chancer, able to change the fall of cards and dice. He is also a collector of dreamers for the Chalk Princess. Today, he is stalking Chandler -- another collector -- and his partner, who are working within Max's territory. Max intends to dispose of his competitors.
Jebrassy is a breed -- a protoplasmic entity -- living within Kalpa. His kind is relatively new, only a million years or so since their creation by the higher entities. Jebrassy is very curious and strongly aware of his own ignorance.
Tiadba is a glow -- a breed female -- who is determined to become a marcher. She takes Jebrassy to meet her fellow marchers. When they meet the leader of the group, Jebrassy is surprised to recognize her as a sama from whom he has asked questions.
In this story, Ginnie finds a place to stay in Seattle in a warehouse owned by Bidewell. The warehouse is stuffed with over three hundred thousand volumes. She does some of the physical labor of moving around the cartons and other such jobs. But Ginnie is also reading books selected by Bidewell to train her in his techniques.
Ginnie spends most of her time in the warehouse, for she has already had one brush with Chandler and his partner and knows they were lately in the neighborhood. But she does take one trip to the Busker Jam, where she sees Jack for the first time.
Jack has not had any brushes with the collectors. His biggest problem is getting people to remember him. If he didn't move around objects in the apartment, his room mate would advertise for a new roomer.
Both Jebrassy and Tiadba are occasionally possessed by the dreamers. Jack and Ginnie take over part or all their minds while dreaming. Ginnie has learned more about Tiadba than has Jack about Jebrassy, probably because she sometimes sits behind Tiadba's mind and observes.
Jebrassy and Tiadba are slated to march through the Chaos to find the lost city of Nataraja. Two persons had gone to the city in the far past and only they can save the Kalpa. Yet Jebrassy is taken by the Tall Ones and cannot leave with the others.
Max tracks down Jack, stuffs him in a bag, and takes him to meet the Chalk Princess. But fate intervenes. Penelope -- Max's partner -- is carried away by a freak tornado and the van is flipped. Jack gets away and flees to Bidewell's warehouse.
Daniel also has a close call. Other collectors surround him and force him into the rundown house where he has been staying. Only the appearance of Max enables him to escape the other collectors.
This tale involves the collapse of this timeline between its creation and its terminus. Both the past and the future close into the present. Elsewhen, Kalpa is being overrun by the Typhon Chaos.
This story invokes some exotic speculative physics to explain the plot. Of course, some of the background is sheer imagination. Apparently humans and their descendants -- and something called the Shen -- have greatly extended the universe, but Typhon Chaos is threatening to undo everything. Enjoy!
Highly recommended for Bear fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of speculative physics, human evolution, and a touch of romance.
-Arthur W. Jordin
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