With the opening (and re-opening of previously Jart controlled) gates, the human migrants gained access to remarkable technologies and abilities, and made possible habitation within the Way, and on the Flaw itself, in the newly created Axis Thoreau and Axis Euclid at 1.5 ex 7 (15 million km). They developed trading client-patron relations with the Frants of Timbl, and client-client relations with the Talsit. With development of memory technologies, City Memory was created, and humans not only became immortal, but also gained the ability to be reborn. Government changed, with the formation of the Hexamon and the governing Nexus. Del Rey Online | City at the End of Time by Greg Bear". Archived from the original on August 4, 2008 . Retrieved August 28, 2008. City at the End of Time ( Gollancz edition published July 17, 2008; [35] Del Rey Books edition August 2008 [36]) (Nominated for the Locus and Campbell Awards, 2009 [37]) Doris Lessing, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature, wrote, "I also admire the classic sort of science fiction, like Blood Music, by Greg Bear. He's a great writer." [20]

Gregory Dale Bear (August 20, 1951 – November 19, 2022) was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict ( Forge of God books), parallel universes ( The Way series), consciousness and cultural practices ( Queen of Angels), and accelerated evolution ( Blood Music, Darwin's Radio, and Darwin's Children). His last work was the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear wrote over 50 books in total. [4] Early life [ edit ] Robbins, Gary (November 22, 2022). "Greg Bear, prize-winning sci-fi author and Comic-Con co-founder, dies at 71". San Diego Union-Tribune . Retrieved November 26, 2022. Eon is a science fiction novel by American author Greg Bear published by Bluejay Books in 1985. Eon was nominated for an Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. [1] It is the first novel in The Way series; followed by Eternity. Within the universe of The Way, the Thistledown is an asteroid starship built by hollowing out Juno and fitting it with mass-driver (rail gun) engines and thermonuclear drives. Inside the asteroid, seven giant “Chambers” are built, of which one hosts a city for the inhabitants, while others host machinery. The asteroid is prepared 500 years in the future, as told in Bear's novel, Eon, and is engaged on a multi-generational journey to Epsilon Eridani, around which a habitable planet is known to circle.The rescuers are intercepted when they near Axis City and reunited with Vasquez, who is caught up in the politics of the Hexamon. It is presided over by a governing body, the Nexus, loosely divided into two social groups: Progressive Geshels, who embrace body-swapping and life-extending technologies, and conservative Naderites. The latter are named after Ralph Nader, who has become identified with empathy and opposition to nuclear war in the centuries since his death. The Hexamon is threatened by alien invaders called the Jart, who are more adapted to the physics of the Way and live beyond its 2x10

At the opening of the novel, in 2005, Judith Hoffmann, head of the commission that coordinates the exploration of the Stone, recruits a theoretical physicist. 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. Only some NATO science teams are privy to this information. Chinese and Russian science teams are present, but politically restricted. The story on which the novel Blood Music was based, published in the June 1983 issue of Analog, won the Best Novelette Nebula Award (1983) [15] and Hugo Award (1984). [16]Glyer, Mike (November 20, 2022). "Pixel Scroll 11/19/22 Scroll And Deliver, Your Pixels Or Your Life!". File 770 . Retrieved November 20, 2022. At the creation, and rejoining of the Way to the Thistledown, the character Konrad Korzenowski and his engineers designed and 'built' the Way out of the in-folded geodesics of the inertial dampening field of the 6th Chamber machinery. This is described in the books by first considering the inertial dampening field: Within the Thistledown, the field envelops the asteroid, effectively isolating it from the Einsteinian Metrical Frame, permitting relative inertia to be ignored. The Thistledown was, at the time of activation, isolated from its continuum, but only selectively. Its matter and energy anchored it to its continuum and relative time, but its geometry and quantum entanglement had been strained by the inertial dampener, thus making it susceptible to superspace distortions, and therefore it could be affected by them negatively. Juno has been hollowed out along its long axis, subdivided into seven cylindrical chambers, and rotates to provide artificial gravity. The chambers are terraformed, with the second and third containing cities that have been maintained by automatic systems for centuries. This small world is dubbed "the Stone" by the Americans, "the Potato" by the Soviets, “the Whale” ( 鲸) by the Chinese and “the Thistledown” by its absent makers. Explorers of its interior discover that the end of the Stone's seventh chamber opens into “the Way”, a corridor that extends beyond the size of the asteroid. The Stone’s original inhabitants have been evacuated into the Way at some time in its past, which is the explorers’ future. Greg Bear was born in San Diego, California. He attended San Diego State University (1968–1973), where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree. At the university, he was a teaching assistant to Elizabeth Chater in her course on science fiction writing, and in later years her friend. [ citation needed] Career [ edit ] Bear is often classified as a hard science fiction author because of the level of scientific detail in his work. [4] Early in his career, he also published work as an artist, including illustrations for an early version of the reference book Star Trek Concordance and covers for periodicals Galaxy and F&SF. [5] He sold his first story, "Destroyers", to Famous Science Fiction in 1967. [5]

An expedition is sent down the seemingly infinite seventh chamber (The "Way", as it is known) where it encounters the descendants of humanity. The high technology of this civilization, known as the Hexamon, has control over genetic engineering, human augmentation, and matter itself. The Hexamon includes several alien species who have come to live with humanity's descendants. The Hexamon itself is at war with an alien race known as the Jarts from further down the corridor still. Orthodox Naderites remained within the Thistledown for a century after the end of Jart Wars, but concerns over the safety of the Thistledown and the danger of interference with the Sixth Chamber machinery caused the Geshels to have the Naderites forcibly removed from Thistledown to prevent disaster. Violence erupted during the forced migration, and for acclimation of Naderites, forced occupation of Thistledown City (the Geshel enclave) for most Naderites took place for one year. Bear, Gregory Benford, and David Brin wrote a trilogy of prequel novels to Isaac Asimov's influential Foundation trilogy. Bear is credited with the middle book. The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1985. New York: Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc. 1984. p.415. ISBN 0-911818-71-5. In the early 21st century, the United States and Russia are on the verge of nuclear war. In that tense political climate, an asteroid appears out of near space after an unusual supernova and settles into an extremely elliptical orbit near Earth orbit. The two nations each try to claim this mysterious object, which appears to be a virtual duplicate of Juno. It is hollow and contains seven vast terraformed chambers. Two of the chambers contain cities long abandoned by human beings who seemed to come from Earth's future. The asteroid is called the Thistledown by its builders. A startling discovery is that it is bigger inside than outside. The seventh chamber appears to stretch into infinity.The journey is meant to take 60 years, as the ship can only maintain a velocity of 20% the speed of light. This limitation is removed after the technology of the Thistledown was improved to include inertial dampeners, allowing higher accelerations.