Isaac
Asimov’s The End of Eternity, along
with being one of the author’s few enduring works, dealt with the paradoxes of
time travel and the long term meaning of time to humanity. An openly admitted adaptation, Charles
Stross’ 2009 novella Palimpsest spins
the idea of Platonic Guardians of humanity’s future into a unique story loaded
with imagination, cohering into a mature thought regarding the fundamentals of
human existence. Phenomenal.
Palimpsest is the story of Pierce, an agent-to-be
in the Stasis. The Stasis governing and
guiding mankind’s cycles of evolution by accessing wormholes of time, Pierce is
trained to observe, and if necessary, intervene to ensure humanity survives,
even if it means decimating thousands or millions of people. Part of a botched mission in which mysterious
assailants suddenly appear on the Medieval scene with weapons far more capable,
Pierce, while convalescing, is introduced to Xiri, a student from real-time who
has received permission to make his life the subject of her doctoral thesis. His recovery scheduled to take some time, the
young man falls in love. But it is when
fully recovered that things with the Stasis begin to fall apart. And it all starts with the Library at the End
of Time. Not finding what he expected,
Pierce’s mission in life takes an unexpected turn.
Simply
put, Palimpsest is amongst Stross’
best work, if not the best. His stories so often shooting off on wild
tangents after building from engaging premises (see Missile Gap or Glasshouse),
in Palimpsest he wholly benefits by
working within the framework of a structured idea, i.e. Asimov’s The End of Eternity. This is not to say ‘order is good/correct and
chaos is bad/wrong’, rather that the unconstrained imaginings often lead to
many interesting ideas, but ideas which do not always collapse into a concept
that amounts to anything greater than eccentric genre material. Stross’ rewrite of Asimov’s tale fills the
numerous sterile moments of The End ofEternity with glowing description, making the reader aware that Asimov may
be Asimov, but Stross’ skills as a writer at a technical and imaginative level
are much, much better.
What makes
Stross better? The first reason is the
sensuality of the descriptions. The End of the Eternity often feeling
like a monochrome mouse in a labyrinth, Palimpsest
never seems to occupy the same setting twice, the scenes through time all colored
in unique terms. The mechanics behind it
are described in relevant enough details, but by and large Stross focuses on
tactility, not logic, as Asimov tried.
The best examples of this are the intermittent slide shows. Each describing the stages of the solar
system’s evolution, eons of time (comparable to Stapledon’s Star Maker) are fired off in relation to
humanity’s survival. The inclusion of
fleshed out details and the lack of continual rationalizing makes Palimpsest more of a story and less of
an A to J to E to P and eventually to Z exercise, as was often the case with The End of Eternity, and as a result,
far more rich and textured.
The second
major reason Palimpsest is better is
the denouement. Where Asimov closed the
ending, sending Harlan toward a focused compass point, Palimpsest ends along more expansive lines. To the benefit of the story, one line in
particular provides the perfect counter-point to The End of Eternity, hinting beautifully (yes, beautiful can describe Stross!)
at the entropy described in the vignettes.
This ambiguity leaves everything hanging, like the last drop of wine in
a bottle.
In the
end, Palimpsest is an acknowledged
remix of a classic sci-fi story which does nothing but benefit from Stross’
singularity-minded imagination. Human
evolution viewed through both creative and sentimental lenses, it is among
Stross’ best works. Sensual yet
thoughtful, dynamic yet cohesive, I can only hope Stross displays more of his
humanist side in such engaging fashion in the future.
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