We are two weeks into the month of September now. I think this might be a reasonable amount of time for some readers to have completed this book if they started early this month. At least I finished it last week. I'll leave this thread pinned for the rest of the month and next weekend I'll create the poll for the next book of the month. That poll will end on the last day of the month and the cycle will continue.

Feel free to include as many spoilers as you want in your comments as the post itself is marked as containing spoilers.

I'm hoping someone else could get started or else I will have to. 😅

Jazz Hands ♫ ♪ ♪ ♬

I'm at a bit of a loss at what kind of posts to make here so I'm going to start posting reviews for books I've read on occasion. Feel free to do the same or discuss the book.

This is the first book I’ve read by Isaac Asimov. I decided it was a good idea to go back to some of the classics and this seemed like a great place to start. It might have made more sense to start with The Foundation Trilogy, but I vaguely remember reading somewhere that End of Eternity was potentially a prequel of sorts to it. I’m also in the middle of the Foundation TV adaptation that is very loosely based on the book. I didn’t want to get those two stories mixed up in my head so I’ll likely wait for it to end before beginning the books.

The premise of this book is that humanity has built an organization called Eternity. There is a facility that exists outside of the regular flow of time with machines that allow them to travel as far forward in time as they like. However, they can only travel as far backwards as the establishment of the field that maintains the Eternity facility. The organization reminds me of an early 20th century university that primarily consists of wealthy privileged men. Which happens to be a rule at Eternity. There are no woman allowed at Eternity. Perhaps this premise was more readily accepted at the time this book was written, but feels a bit dated now. Especially considering the primarily conflict of this story ends up revolving around our protagonist Andrew Harlan falling in love with a woman which happens to be strictly forbidden. Despite being an incredibly talented technician of Eternity who skillfully implements reality changes in order to maintain some kind of stability he feels incredibly naive and childish. I didn’t like any of the characters in this book. Their motivations seemed a tad ridiculous most of the time and they consistently refused to consider the implications of their actions in order to drive the story further into disarray. Ultimately the science fiction part of the story was well conceived and exciting to think about. Every story that involves time travel has its own way of implementing its rules, but this one involved what I know as the Butterfly Effect. I think this book might predate the story that coined that term, but I don’t think End of Eternity defined this concept either. Effectively the plot of the story sets in motion a predetermined loop of time that can’t be undone no matter what any of the characters do. Even the characters knowing this might be the case appears to have no effect on their predetermined destiny.

I think it is important to keep in mind when a book was written to try and get in the right frame of reference that the author intended. The book might be a bit dated, but if you read it from the perspective of being in 1955 it makes a lot more sense. I look forward to reading The Foundation Trilogy so I can see if these books are at all related to one another.

3 / 5 Stars

A pretty vague question I know, but I'm not looking for any specific answer. I'm just curious what peoples thoughts are on audiobooks. Perhaps how you think they compare to paper books or how listening compares to reading. Any thoughts you have on the subject is welcome.

Why are so many things on Ebay even more expensive then what the item would be brand new from the store?

I was searching for a Motorola MA1 Wireless Android Auto which is $80 brand new in a store, but on Ebay they are anywhere from $100 to $200. Even if it is pre-owned. It seems impossible that anyone is ever going to buy this so what is the purpose of these listings?

Aside from Project Hail Mary which I assume every /c/sciencefiction subscriber is going to read what have you been reading or plan to read?

Here is last months post. What are you Reading? (August 2023)

Hello again fellow /c/sciencefiction peoples. What have you been watching lately and what do you plan to watch?

Here is last months post. What are you Watching? (August 2023)

Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir

We had a pretty good turnout for our first book of the month vote. To be honest I did not anticipate the problem of there being a tie. I took the liberty of flipping a coin which came out heads for Project Hail Mary. In the future I might have to come up with a better method of tie breaking. I'm figuring this out as I go and it is all just for the fun of it anyway so please don't take this too seriously.

I intend to read this book over the month of September and then near the end of the month I will create a discussion thread for it where people can discuss it without worrying about spoilers. Follow along if you want to.

👽🚀

1. Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir - 20 votes
2. Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky - 20 votes
3. Neuromancer - William Gibson - 17 votes
4. Hyperion - Dan Simmons - 13 votes
5. Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey - 13 votes
6. A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine - 11 votes
7. Wool (Silo Series Book 1) - Hugh Howey - 10 votes
8. Red Rising - Pierce Brown - 4 votes
9. 22/11/63 - Stephen King - 1 vote

https://bookwyrm.social/user/ScienceFiction

This is a peculiar situation, but basically I have been transferred primary mod status on a community from a community squatter. Because they were just squatting on the community name they never made any posts. Is there any mobile app or web app that implements a way to remove someone as a mod if they have never made a post?