City at The End of Time - Reception

Reception

A review in Publishers Weekly described City at the End of Time as a "complex, difficult and beautifully written tale will appeal to sophisticated readers who prefer thorny conundrums to fast-paced action". A reviewer for the Library Journal said the novel "plung readers into a visceral experience of cosmological theory and the big creation stories of mythology". A review in New Scientist described the first half of the book as "a gripping, original tale" with the portrayal of the fate-shifters's talents as "nothing short of brilliant", but complained that in the second half Bear over-complicates the story with "too many ideas, images, mythologies and distractions". The reviewer said that a promising story "whips itself up into a virtually incomprehensible final act". Science fiction critic John Clute described the book as "cosmological without a net", and complained that Bear rushes through the story too quickly and does not dwell long enough on locations like the Kalpa to make it memorable. He said that the flight to the future of Ginny, Jack and Daniel "gets a touch Frodo-in-Mordor at places".

Writing in a review in Asimov's Science Fiction, science fiction and mystery author Peter Heck called City at the End of Time a "big, sweeping, heavily symbolic tale", and "one of Bear's most ambitious". He said that while the story could have focused more on the future city, "in the end, the plotlines come together, and the complexities merge into a satisfying unity". Speculative fiction writer Simon Petrie writing in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine was impressed by the book's "grandiosity to the total synthesis of cosmology and myth", and Bear's "ability to encapsulate a universal future history in just the one book", but found the mix of science, fantasy, horror, mythology and religion a little "incongruous" at times. Petrie also felt that the use of so many "viewpoint characters" results in these characters being underdeveloped, and tends to " the pathos as the plot edges towards climax".

In a review in the online speculative fiction magazine Strange Horizons, Tony Keen was critical of Bear's novel, saying that the present and future passages "do not mesh terribly well", and that it is "too long" with "too many ideas". He complained that the book was difficult to follow and that Bear keeps "moving the goalposts as it suits his narrative". Keen said that for a science fiction novel, he was surprised at its "lack of consistency", and called it more a work of fantasy than science fiction. He said the "revelations" at the end still did not help explain what had happened, but that "by this point, it was for me hard to care". A review in the Oakland Tribune complained that Bear, who it felt is not strong on "crafting memorable characters", "struggles" with the novel's multiple viewpoints. The review added that while he "takes a long time to get there, and arrives with a palpable scent of anticlimax, does deliver at the end", although with not enough to satisfy the reviewer.

Science fiction critic Paul Kincaid had mixed feelings about the novel. In a review at the SF Site webzine he criticized the characterisation saying that he could not always separate the main characters. Kincaid questioned the need for the supernatural entity, the Typhon, which is never developed. He described the "end of time" sequence as "the most powerful science fictional moment in this entire book", saying that he found it "far more scary, far more gripping, than any supernatural intervention". Kincaid said that while he found the book "ambitious" and "intellectually satisfying", "somehow the whole feels less than the sum of its parts".

In another review at the SF Site, Greg L. Johnson wrote that while City at the End of Time provides plenty of "wonder, awe, and a sense of humanity in the face of an implacable universe", he feels that Bear does not quite succeed with this ambitious story of the fate of reality and the universe at large. Johnson described it as "an immensely complicated story" that unfolds by means of "hints and allusions". He said that even the book's ending only hints at what the gathered role players had achieved. Johnson wrote that while Bear's depictions of events on a grand scale, like the decay of Seattle, are good, his portrayal of the key players against this backdrop is not as strong.