# Furthest future SF



## DyingUniverse (May 31, 2011)

I'd love to read some SF in any form that's set as far into the future as possible. Can anyone help me out?


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## Ursa major (May 31, 2011)

Greg Bear's _City at the End of Time_ is set (at least in part) about as far in the future as you can go. It wasn't really my cup of tea, but you might enjoy it.


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## Vertigo (May 31, 2011)

It's a very short short story but if you haven't read Asimov's The Last Question then you really should. It'll only take 15 minutes and there's even a copy of it on the web (don't know how legal but it's been there a while) http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html. Asimov described it as his favourite story:

_



This is by far my favorite story of all those I have written

Click to expand...

_


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## jojajihisc (Jun 1, 2011)

*Star Maker* by Olaf Stapledon goes over the entire life of the Universe and does so pretty quickly.


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## J-Sun (Jun 1, 2011)

Charles Sheffield's _*Between the Strokes of Night*_. Baxter's _*Ring*_ (and general Xeelee sequence). IIRC, there's a Dozois anthology of four novellas called _*Far Futures*_: Sheffield, Bear, Haldeman, somebody, I think.

Maybe Poul Anderson's _*Night Face*_ and such would qualify.

What probably wouldn't be what you had in mind might be things like Vance's _*The Dying Earth*_ and Kuttner/Moore's _*Earth's Last Citadel*_ and so on: where it's so far future it's a fantasy of no-time.


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## Stephen Palmer (Jun 1, 2011)

_Star Maker_ for sure...


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## reiver33 (Jun 1, 2011)

You could try _The Dancers At the End Of Time_ trilogy by Moorcock, although its more about a jaded society with God-like powers in decay, and much of the narrative takes place in the past.


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## J-WO (Jun 1, 2011)

Star Maker even goes beyond the end of the Universe. Sort of.


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## HareBrain (Jun 1, 2011)

I don't read a huge amount of SF, so pay as little attention to this as you like, but the story that had the farthest-future "feel" to me was Arthur C Clarke's *The City and the Stars*.


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## Daisy-Boo (Jun 1, 2011)

Vertigo said:


> It's a very short short story but if you haven't read Asimov's The Last Question then you really should. It'll only take 15 minutes and there's even a copy of it on the web (don't know how legal but it's been there a while) http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html. Asimov described it as his favourite story:


 
I love that story. It seems simple and harmless right up until the very last sentence and then...wham.


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## Fried Egg (Jun 1, 2011)

*Gene Wolfe*'s "Book of the New Sun" quartet.


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## Vertigo (Jun 1, 2011)

Daisy-Boo said:


> I love that story. It seems simple and harmless right up until the very last sentence and then...wham.


 
yeah me too, ever since I read it as a teenager (mumble mumble years ago) it has always been my favourite SF short story and never fails to send shivers up my spine.


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## DyingUniverse (Jun 1, 2011)

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. Just read The Last Question there and really enjoyed it. The City and the Stars I also read last year and loved. Basically, the really imaginative, mind-blowing stuff is what I'm looking for.


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## Daisy-Boo (Jun 2, 2011)

Vertigo said:


> yeah me too, ever since I read it as a teenager (mumble mumble years ago) it has always been my favourite SF short story and never fails to send shivers up my spine.


 
What a coincidence Vertigo. I too was a teenager mumble mumble years ago! Ah, those were the days.


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## Vertigo (Jun 2, 2011)

Catches up with all of us eventually DB!


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## Vertigo (Jun 2, 2011)

Just stumbled on this on my way to pick up my monthly freebie from Phoenix Picks and I thought of your query DyingUniverse:



> *The Last Legends of Earth - A RADIX Tetrad Novel*
> ISBN 978-1-60450-421-7, 304 Pages, Trade Paperback 6”x9”
> *Rated 5/5 Stars on Amazon (38 Reviews)*
> Seven billion years from now, long after the Sun has died and human life itself has become extinct, alien beings reincarnate humanity from our fossilized DNA drifting as debris in the void of deep space. We are reborn to serve as bait in a battle to the death between the Rimstalker, humankind’s reanimator, and the zotl, horrific creatures who feed vampire-like on the suffering of intelligent lifeforms.
> The reborn children of Earth are told: “You owe no debt to the being that roused you to this second life. Neither must you expect it to guide you or benefit you in any way.” Yet humans choose sides, as humans will, participating in the titanic struggle between Rimstalker and zotl in ways strange and momentous.


 
and in the same series:



> *In Other Worlds - A RADIX Tetrad Novel*
> ISBN 978-1-60450-262-6, 204 Pages, Trade Paperback 5.5”x8.5”
> Schirmer spontaneously transforms into light.
> Then, 130 billion years later, when all of spacetime is collapsing into the vast nothingness of the cosmic black hole, Carl Schirmer is remade from the remnants of his light. He is reborn in time’s last world, the strangest of all—the Werld.
> ...


 
Both are by A A Attanasio, who I know absolutely nothing about so I can make no recommendation. You can buy them and download excerpts here: http://www.phoenixpick.com/catalogue/PPickings.htm


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## dask (Jun 3, 2011)

THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells. If I recall correctly, the time traveller goes all the way to the end --- or near end --- of the world. I found Wells's view from his own unique terminal beach stunning. You might also try another Gardner Dozois anthology, ONE MILLION A.D., with stories all taking place in the extremely far future.


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## J-Sun (Jun 3, 2011)

I did not 'Recall Correctly'--I conflated three books in my prior post. Dask tipped me off: the Dozois he mentions has Reed, Silverberg, Kress, Reynolds, Stross, and Egan.  _*Far Futures*_ is edited by Benford, not Dozois, and features five (not four) stories: Bear, Haldeman, and Sheffield (as I said) along with Anderson and Kingsbury. I got the 'four' from _*Futures*_, edited by Peter Crowther, which is a collection of stories originally published separately as chapbooks: Baxter, Hamilton, McAuley, McDonald.


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## dask (Jun 4, 2011)

Glad to know this type of thing doesn't happen only to me.


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## dask (Jun 4, 2011)

In fact, as if I needed to offer proof, it's happened again. Right here. When J-Sun mentioned FAR FUTURES above I could actually see, in my sorta grey matter, the book upstairs in the attic. When he later explained the "conflation" I got confused so I put my knee pads on and crawled up to where there is no room to stand and solved this riddle. The book I have is THE FURTHEST HORIZON, another arm load of stories hand picked by Dozois all taking place in "the really far future." And there appears to be a companion volume, EXPLORERS: SF ADVENTURES TO THE FAR HORIZONS. I'm basing this on a similarity of titles. The book was in the middle of a tall stack and I was too lazy to pull it out. A simple google search by anyone interested should clear this up.


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## clovis-man (Jun 6, 2011)

J-Sun said:


> I did not 'Recall Correctly'--I conflated three books in my prior post. Dask tipped me off: the Dozois he mentions has Reed, Silverberg, Kress, Reynolds, Stross, and Egan.


 
Right. As Dask mentioned: *One Million A.D.* Some interesting novellas. The Kress ("Mirror Image") and the Reynolds ("Thousandth Night") are particularly good. The latter is a prequel to his novel, *House of Suns*, which would also be a good "furthest future" tale.


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## jojajihisc (Dec 7, 2011)

Another to add to the list.

"Flight to Forever" - Poul Anderson


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## Metryq (Dec 7, 2011)

I haven't read _Flight to Forever_ yet. Another by Poul Anderson is _Tau Zero_, where a Bussard ramjet starship outlives the universe and navigates the next Big Bang into a new universe. The story is about the people trapped in the ship, as opposed to visions of distant futures and evolved people and societies.


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## Ökuþórr (Dec 8, 2011)

Vertigo said:


> It's a very short short story but if you haven't read Asimov's The Last Question then you really should. It'll only take 15 minutes and there's even a copy of it on the web (don't know how legal but it's been there a while) http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html. Asimov described it as his favourite story:



I had never read that before, but it was fantastic. I can see why it was his favourite story. Thanks for sharing.


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## richrock (Jan 2, 2012)

Flight to Forever is awesome, one of my favourite Poul Anderson stories.  

Have you considered 'The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe' by Douglas Adams?  That's as close to the end of the future as you can get


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## Galacticdefender (Jan 6, 2012)

Quite clearly The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is the farthest future book out there .   

As far as Space Opera goes, Warhammer 40,000 is set quite far in the future compared to most space operas.


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## DyingUniverse (Jan 28, 2012)

Thanks for all the replies. I've since read The Last Legends of Earth and it turned out to be _exactly_ what I wanted - full of mind-bending ideas and great writing. Next I'm planning on reading The Foundation Series (I'm a bit of a SF newb, clearly). Thanks again, more are very welcome.


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## Mirannan (Jan 22, 2013)

Stephen Baxter's books featuring the Downstreamers are one of the furthest-future ones out there. Although the action is not set all that far in the future for the most part, the Downstreamers come from somewhere in the Dark Era - beyond something like 10^120 AD.


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## j d worthington (Jan 23, 2013)

In addition to the "Dancers" series, Moorcock wrote a short story titled "Waiting for the End of Time", which can be found in the collection *Moorcock's Book of Martyrs* (USA title: *Dying for Tomorrow*).

Not really sf as such (though some have classed it as sf rather than fantasy or horror) is William Hope Hodgson's *The House on the Borderland*, which takes you through an entire cycle of the universe.

And, while not actually taking place at the end of time, Lovecraft's short story, "The Shadow Out of Time", does involve a sort of time travel which stretches from the very ancient past to the death of the solar system....


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