The 21st century was on the brink of nuclear confrontation when the 300 kilometer-long stone flashed out of nothingness and into Earth's orbit. NASA, NATO, and the UN sent explorers to the asteroid's surface...and discovered marvels and mysteries to drive researchers mad. For the Stone was from space—but perhaps not our space; it came from the future-but perhaps not our future; and within the hollowed asteroid was Thistledown. The remains of a vanished civilization. A human—English, Russian, and Chinese-speaking—civilization. Seven vast chambers containing forests, lakes, rivers, hanging cities... And museums describing the Death; the catastrophic war that was about to occur; the horror and the long winter that would follow. But while scientists and politicians bickered about how to use the information to stop the Death, the Stone yielded a secret that made even Earth's survival pale into insignificance.

A visitor from the end of time comes to take a handful of strangers into space, where they must destroy the ultimate marvel of science in this powerful sf classic."Modern mainstream SF of the highest order...Bear rockets the story ever onward and upward". — Chicago Tribune

Eon's infinitely long artifical universe, the Way, contains a multitude of worlds. In its early days a beautiful place, Lamarckia, has been found. Over four thousand dissidents emigrate there illegally and the young Hexamon agent, Olmy, is sent to investigate the people and their new world. Lamarckia's evolution is stunning and unimaginable. Like nothing Olmy has ever seen it leads him into the Heart of Darkness and beyond, to an understanding of Earth's legacy.

This saga of parallel universes from a Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author “may be the best constructed hard SF epic yet” (The Washington Post). One of the world’s preeminent New York Times–bestselling authors of hard science fiction mesmerizes readers with a mind-expanding, three-volume masterwork about the creation of an alternate universe that breaks down all barriers of time and space, and its consequences for future and past generations. In the stunning prequel to Eon and Eternity, an agent of the masters of the Way—a man-made tunnel through countless dimensions—follows a renegade fanatic and his four thousand acolytes to a remarkable world of flora/fauna hybrids, where he is plunged into the terrible chaos of a raging civil war. As nuclear tensions rapidly reach a breaking point in a volatile twenty-first century, a hollowed-out asteroid appears, mysteriously hovering above the Earth’s surface. The asteroid contains the remains of Thistledown, an abandoned city that was once home to survivors of a nuclear holocaust. Scientists must race to unravel its secrets before the human race is annihilated in the impending apocalypse. A devastating war has left Earth a nuclear wasteland. Orbiting the planet is an asteroid-starship containing the civilization of Thistledown, humanity’s future descendants. For decades, they have worked to heal their world and its survivors, but their resources are finite. They need to reopen the Way, a gate that would not only benefit Earth but also help the asteroid’s residents return home. Greg Bear’s classic Eon trilogy is an astonishing feat of the imagination that combines humanism, cutting-edge science, and brilliant extrapolation. This masterful science fiction saga has no equal in contemporary speculative fiction.