read by Paul Boehmer
So humanity has found a way to time travel, and to edit
history (and therefore the future) for the good of humanity. But it’s run by a
cadre of chest-thumping nerd boys who live together with next to no female
companionship (and no female colleagues at all) outside of time, in a no-place
called Eternity.
Eternity is meant to be a safe bubble of idealism and
intellectual stimulation, free from distractions and the sorts of personal prejudices
that would lead to bad decisions… but which, in reality, is a seething cauldron
of bitter competition, thwarted desire, unexamined privilege, and unchecked neurosis.
Basically, if you put a bunch of Silicon Valley bros in charge of all of
time, it would look something like this.
I spent a lot of time gnashing my teeth at the obvious error
of putting a bunch of putatively meritocratous hormone-soaked monks in charge of humanity’s
destiny, and trying to tell myself that Asimov grew up when and where he grew
up and so had some serious but understandable blind spots when writing this.
And then, when the main character (duh) becomes willing to mess up all of
history and therefore the entire future of everyone purely because he wants to
get laid, I gnashed my teeth even harder.
But I kept reading… because it was a classic that I’d never
gotten around to, and it’s not that long, and I figured what the heck.
And then it turns out that Asimov was taking all of this
into account… but if I tell you how, I’ll spoil the book for you.
Verdict: read it. But only if you can stand to grit your
teeth for the first 90% of the book. In my opinion, it was worth it.
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