Eon: 1

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The exploration of long abandoned cities from Humanity’s far future, the discovery of the Way, and the elements of transhumanism all combine to make this one of my favorite books. It is later determined that the asteroid may have traveled from another time and may be a sort of homemade generation ship for a fleeing civilization. It eases us into the WOW factor, the awe, and then changes tacks several times in the telling, giving us more. The sheer number of characters, minor story arcs, and mind boggling concepts explored was too much for a single book.

She acts like a spoiled kid who occasionally goes into a trance-like stance and emerges with a breakthrough mathematical solution. As a result of commerce through the gates, several alien species have come to be partners of the Hexamon as well. A sizable portion exist as “neomorphs”, embodied but in forms far more diverse and bizarre than that of the human body; more still exist only as personalities within the City Memory.It seems to him that the author just makes us discover what he wants to be the case at an unnatural rate so he doesn't sacrifice pacing. These themes are further explored as we learn more about the rivalries between the two major factions of the "Stoners"—the more radical, pro-technology Geshel, and the more conservative and predominantly anti-technological Naderites, named in honor of 20th century consumer rights advocate Ralph Nader (who, in Bear's fictional future, was martyred in the nuclear war). The physicist, Patricia Vasquez, arrives at the Stone and receives clearance for all the information discovered by the existing science teams, including libraries that describe a nuclear holocaust—“the Death”—taking place in 2005.

I generally don't like books that have maps inside; like maybe if the author was better at conveying a complicated story, then we wouldn't need a map? I was there, in the Thistledown, one of the team, ready to explore and learn and add to scientific knowledge and grow closer to myself and my teammates. The detailed description of how to open a new doorway just hammers home the point of scale: a single millimeter along the infinite Way can open numerous very different universes. Probably things that are bigger inside than they are outside are just metaphors for the human brain. he can't seem to keep from following every thread to a conclusion at the expense of good story telling.Eon is quite well written and the characters are developed to some extent but they never really come alive for me, perhaps there is too much plot and world building to cover to allow room to flesh out the characters. They discover that the interior has been hollowed out, and is full of equipment and even has people living in it. This sounds like a distillate of the worst YA tropes wrapped up in a “serious” cloak… I know what you mean when you say that having read many books in the genre it takes something exceptional to keep your interest focused, and this one clearly is not.

And yes, if you're wondering, I do believe that nuclear weapons, so long as we allow them to exist, pose a very real threat to the survival of our civilization. I own a true first edition hardcover in fine condition—actually pretty rare, especially in such good shape—and it will remain one of the prized pieces of my book collection for a long time. The big cataclysmic event that takes place while our POV characters are on the Stone is so coldly rendered that it might as well have not even have happened. Time travel, parallel universes, megastructures in space and the continuation of aggressive territorial behavior in space are thematized.The book would be much shorter if they were and the plot would make more sense but the nonsensical technology and settings are really very fantastic, wonderful to imagine but ultimately empty.

Most of it is very well written and most of the characters are if not likeable then interesting and real enough to work. Apparently the inside of the asteroid is hollowed out and contains seven chambers wherein lie different "cities" or abandoned settlements. I get the impression that the human POV characters here are secondary to the technology and the alien characters.

The Stone is a hollowed out asteroid; containing seven chambers each with their own landscape and cities. On the other hand, more time could have been allowed to develop the many characters and their own story lines, the esoteric concepts more carefully explored if it was spread out over several books.