Eon by Greg Bear
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Rest In Peace, Mr. Bear.

I decided I had to re-read at least one of his better works right after I learned of his passing. The moment I learned of it, I was in shock. I've been singing Bear's praises for many, many years.

Eon is one of those bigger-than-life Hard SF books that never slow down with those big ideas. It eases us into the WOW factor, the awe, and then changes tacks several times in the telling, giving us more... so much more. And then it gives us even more.

It's easy to point a finger at Clarke's Rama or high-level topography math/physics or any number of alternate universe novels or time-travel tomes, but it's something else entirely to pull all of these rabbits out of a single hat. And not only that, it includes a version of the Singularity, a vast space battle across a vast number of realities, a closer-to-home apocalypse, and massive geo-political rivalries right here on Earth.

When I look for SF, it's BECAUSE of this book that I found a love of SF as the literature of IDEAS. The characters, not even poorly drawn, inevitably take a back seat to the IDEAS. It's overwhelming the way I love to be overwhelmed by authors like Stephen Baxter, Kim Stanley Robinson, Cixin Liu, and even Adrian Tchaikovsky. There are more, of course, but for me, personally, Greg Bear blew my mind first.

Rest In Peace, king.

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