Something got me thinking about time travel fiction, and I decided to pull out my old (and I mean pretty old...the cover price is 2.50) copy of THE END OF ETERNITY by one of the masters - Isaac Asimov.

I think this is an underrated work by Asimov. It's a pretty interesting take on time travel - namely that the Eternals (humans who sort of step "outside" of time) travel through time in a sort of temporal elevator shaft, stopping at the centuries they wish to study. And they are constantly "tweaking" Reality, to prevent disasters and provide for the securest, easiest future for mankind. And those changes they make sometimes reverberate through time to have larger, unnoticed effects.

One of the Eternals, a technician named Andrew Harlan, becomes the focal point of this story as, due to his interest in primitive (read: 20th-25th Century) history, he is asked to tutor a new "Cub", Brinsley Sheridan Cooper, in the ways of those centuries. Technicians are the instruments of the "changes" made to tweak Realities, and one of Harlan's assignments is to make observations in the 475th Century, as a guest of a noblewoman, Noys Lambent. (I love Asimov's odd sounding, yet plausible, names.) He of course falls in love with the woman, and things get complicated with his assignment and with the change being proposed for her century.

Time travel was discovered back in the 23rd century (or thereabouts, I'm a little fuzzy without the book in front of me on some of the exact "dates"), and not fully realized until the mathematics are refined two centuries later, when Eternity (the "out of time" area where the Eternals live and work) is established. And Eternity extends practically infinitely "upwhen", until the Sun goes nova (which also provides the energy to maintain Eternity). But in another twist, some centuries are blocked from Eternity's intrusion, above the 70000th century, till around the 130000th, when they can again access "time", but where there are no humans to be found. Who's blocking their access, and why?

Anyway, I was sort of pleasantly surprised by this re-read. Asimov was always a favorite of mine, but it's been awhile since I've picked up anything by him, as there is always something new out and of course the good Doctor is no longer with us to write new novels (sadly). I for some reason had this impression that he was a good plotter, his tales fitting together like a complicated puzzle, but not much of a writer. Yet the writing was surprisingly good in this book. Yes, his style is sort of sterile, but it fits the analytical tales he tells.

It makes me want to go back and reread the FOUNDATION books, start to finish...not to mention his Robot stories and his empire stories...