The Eschaton Sequence
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The Eschaton Sequence
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The Other End of Time
by
Frederik Pohl
With aliens on the way to Earth, an oddly assorted group gathers at a New York observatory. Against the backdrop of a grim and finely detailed near-future world, a secret agent, the observatory director, a Chinese astronaut, a retired professor, and a general from the sovereign State of Florida become involved in international intrigue, personal conflicts, and the long-awaited first contact with aliens who may be the direst enemies of humanity. Held in captivity by the aliens (who seem both friend and foe to Earth), the humans must maintain their sanity and their purpose under puzzling and repugnant conditions, including their captors' ability to construct duplicates of them. The aliens' involvement, along with their human prisoners, in an appalling interstellar war brings the story to an unresolved climax; more is to come. Pohl's sf mastery is again evident, as his deceptively simple style carries the action easily and hypnotically to a nonconclusion that has us gasping for more. |
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The Siege of Eternity
by
Frederik Pohl
Sequel to The Other End of Time (1996), Pohl's new saga in which an unsuspecting Earth has become the object of a galactic war waged between the Beloved Leaders, or Scarecrows, and the Horch over who controls the ``eschaton,'' a time in the remote future when every being that has ever lived will rise again. Spook Dan Dannerman, astronomer Pat Adcock, and others were abducted from the orbiting Starlab, cloned, and subjected to horrid experiments by alien ``Dopeys'' and ``Docs,'' controlled by the Beloved Leaders. They manage to escape and return to Earth, where they find other copies of themselves with altered memories already in residence. The returnees have also captured a Dopey and two Docs who promise to help them understand Beloved Leader technology. Colonel Hilda Morrisey of the National Bureau of Investigation takes charge of the clones. Then the Docs break free of their Dopey's control and warn of imminent invasion by the Beloved Leaders, and maybe Horch too--until Hilda's assistant, a religious fanatic mole, attempts to blast Hilda, Dan, and the Docs. Pohl does a seamless job of reintroducing readers to the convolutions of his black-comic future tussle. |
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The Far Shore of Time
by
Frederik Pohl
The conclusion to the Eschaton Sequence resumes with the original Dan Dannerman stranded on a distant prison planet. His clones have made their escape back to Earth, leaving Dan to be interrogated by the terrible Horch. Also captive is Dan's erstwhile captor, the grumpy, jingoist alien Dopey. With no hope of escape and no way for him to return to Earth, Dan's situation looks bleak. But in typical Pohl fashion, a subtle reversal of attitudes and understanding leads Dan to consider the Horch a potential ally of humanity, particularly after he discovers the internal controls that the Dopey placed in Dan's brain. Longing for the colleague he fell in love with, who has also been cloned and is on Earth, Dan jumps at the first opportunity to return to Earth and damage his enemies at the same time. Besides his stock-in-trade of genuinely alien aliens and matter-of-fact heroes, Pohl gives readers something to chew on concerning the nature of individuality and self-determination. |
