Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher HarperVia for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

I really did think I'd love this book because of the premise but by 33% I was struggling with the detached perspectives and the lack of descriptions.

ANTON HUR. IF YOU EVER WANT TO TALK IMPACT OF LANGUAGE ON SOCIETY OR METAPHYSICS, I AM FREE WHENEVER. I don't know if there are enough words to explain how much I enjoyed this book. I've actually been in a slump for a while now. A few audiobooks have been able to keep my attention but for the most part, I haven't picked up a book. While I have picked up and put down the book, it's because I spent time thinking about how I understand the reality we exist in and how some of the themes of this book are relevant in our society.

If you want an extremely well written book that uses poetry to explore the intergration of AI and technology into humanity itself, what it even means to be human or a being, a bit of the Theseus Paradox, and the importance of language in society, RUN to your nearest library or store and get this book.

The summary is basically we as readers are reading the journal that explores the evolution of technology in medicine that basically makes people immortal but has an extremely negative side too that isn't known until it's already begun. This negative side critically impacts humans (as we in 2024 know the definition of) and we watch over an indefined time period how this changes society's view on existence.

I may have gotten an arc of it but I will certainly be getting me a copy of the book too. I know that Anton Hur is a translator, but I am excitedly looking forward to any future books he writes too.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was such an interesting book!

"What else can we be but stories about ourselves that we tell ourselves?"

Toward Eternity poses the question of what it means to be human in a dystopian future in which nanites are used to cure terminal cancer patients, substituting the cancerous cells with android cells. The consequence of this is immortality and so many questions about what makes someone a human - their performance as one, their cells, what? The book is as poetic as the poetry it quotes and establishes dialogue with. It discusses love, AI, the power of language, progress (and what that actually means), and so many other topics in such a sensible way.

I'm a huge fan of Anton Hur's work as a translator, so it was really exciting to read his debut novel. It was as amazing as I thought it would be and I cannot wait to read more books by him.

Thank you so much to HarperVia and Harper360 UK for my e-ARC and proof, respectively!

Toward Eternity was such a beautiful and indescribable book that I'm unsure how to formulate a fitting review. This story feels, in part, like a love letter to language and it's importance in humanity. While on the other hand, it's a cautionary tale of our growing reliance on artificial intelligence. The author incorporates several different genres (speculative, sci-fi, literary fiction, poetry) into a short-length novel that will surely entice many readers and reignite the flame in older readers.

Toward Eternity is an excellent choice for your next speculative sci-fi read. Hur does a masterful job of weaving together a multigenerational story, propelled by a creative take on modern AI concerns. At just under 300 pages, it’s long enough to host a complex narrative, but not so lengthy that it loses focus. While some of the sharp perspective changes felt a bit abrupt, I believe they ultimately complement the nature of the story. Overall, it’s a quick and engaging read that I’ll be mulling over for some time.

Thank you Anton Hur, HarperVia, and NetGalley for my advanced review copy. My opinions are my own.

Toward Eternity is out now!

Plot - 4
Writing and Editing - 4
Character Development - 4
Personal Bias - 3
Final Score - 3.75

toward eternity is a narrative that is difficult to articulate my thoughts about. in simplest terms, its a beautifully written and deeply contemplative story about the nature of what it means to be human. it takes a sci-fi spin to paradox of the ship of theseus — how do the versions of “you”represent “you” — and cranks it to 11.

but it’s also a story about the poetry and language, about recorded history, inheritance between generations and lifetimes. when it questions what it means to be human and what is the nature of humanity, the answer is warm and gentle, filled with more hope than cynicism about what the future of eternity for humanity could mean. our existence of all that was and all that will be are accumulations of our pasts, our collective memory carried on through time and space and poetry. our humanity is based on not only what we can give to others but what we receive from others. even when humanity hurdles towards horrible endings, the answer the narrative lands with is one of love and compassion as a possible future that transcends both the physical body and time to persist to eternity.

that is to say, toward eternity is lovely and is everything to me.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC of Toward Eternity, I felt that this novel was a little hit and miss for me. The premise of the novel was great and it really showed promised, a lot of the subject was really developed well and the concept was created well, however I felt it was heavy with descriptions, I felt sometimes it was too bogged down with things that I felt weren't important or relevant to the storyline. That aside it is written well and the whole novel itself is put together very cleverly.

Toward Eternity is a love letter to language and music. It explores a future where nanotechnology forces us to confront what makes us human.

There were ideas and passages in this book I really enjoyed. And it did get me to think about the future of art and humanity as technology continues to progress. Upon finishing the book, however, I wished it had been a bit more subtle in the way it explored its themes. Some of it felt a bit heavy handed.

I thought it was a solid debut, though. And I look forward to what Anton Hur writes next!

I hadn't read anything by Anton Hur before, so I didn't know what to expect. However, that didn't even matter because the novel was really interesting and I found it to be quite unique. Was it perfect, no, but what is? I liked the creativity in setting and imagining the future how he did. Will definitely purchase for our branch!

"Toward Eternity" by Anton Hur is a thought-provoking and eloquent exploration of human existence and the quest for meaning in a transient world.

Toward Eternity by Anton Hur is an interesting book about immortality, ghosts in the machine, and sorrow. It’s got a bevy of well developed characters, and engaging mystery, and an engaging pace, making the story one that, for the most part, you want to keep reading.

However, while Hur has interesting ideas, unfortunately his original fiction falls into the same pitfalls as his translation work. It’s frankly just kinda boring. While this has nothing to do with the plot or characters themselves, Hur struggles to make one sentence all that different from the next. While they may vary in length, they don’t really vary in structure, tone, or energy. No single sentence stands out as being particularly clever, no single sentence stands out as being particularly funny, no single sentence stands out as having a voice. And unfortunately this leads to a rather tired and rote reading experience. Especially as the book features multiple characters. While the characters are distinct in their personality, motivations, cares, and dialogue, unfortunately their inner monologues all sound exactly the same.

Tldr; Despite a really strong everything else, Hur needs to workshop his prose.

This book is absolutely incredible. It is the intersection between speculative fiction and speculative literature. Speculative poetry? I was simultaneously heartbroken and restored reading this.

I haven’t read a story this reinventive in a very long time. It begins with humans having developed a cure for cancer; nanites are able to replicate organs. The twist is that since nanites never die, the person who is cured of cancer or whatever disease the nanite eradicate, also never die. There are personal, familial, societal consequences to the nanite therapy and Towards Eternity plays these out from one generation to the next. The timeline starts in the near future and extends by a couple generations, then a couple hundred years, then a millennium and then beyond. The book is an examination of a type of evolution and the interconnection of scientific discovery and humanity.

There were two things I really liked about this book and one is that Hur allows the story to come to the reader. There are ethical questions that surface in the story. There are questions as to the definition of what it means to be human and what makes a being a human being. Or what is the tipping point to artificial humanity? These questions are there but I never felt that Hur constructed the story with deliberation to raise these questions. There is no consciousness by the reader of an author in the background manipulating the characters or storyline so that we are forced to reach a certain conclusion. I didn’t feel like Hur had a moral to the story that he wanted to convey, just a very interesting and thought-provoking tale. It’s the kind of story that’s good for deep discussions with friends.

The other thing I really liked about this book is that the United States was not central to the story in any way. I’m not sure it was ever mentioned - the primary characters are South African and Korean and then the timeline of the world moves on and the nations we know today are no longer defined - other powers have taken their place. I feel I am as patriotic as anyone. I am proud of my country and the constitution and the possibilities of what this country can still be. But it’s an election year and frankly election years are tough on the psyche the last couple decades. There’s a a weight being carried by U.S. citizens that I don’t recall being so heavy in my younger years. So it was nice to be in a world where the United States is not central - where people are thriving or struggling, discovering and creating, without thought to U.S. politics and influence.

This review in no way does justice to Toward Eternity. It’s a good book - one that I’d recommend to a wide variety of people. Thanks to #Netgalley, the author and HarperVia for the free ebook copy.

I know that the word "triumphant" is overused when talking about books, but to call this anything short of triumphant would do it a disservice.
I'm a great believer in the fact that every great translator must also be a great writer, and Hur's English language literary debut very much proves that. TOWARD ETERNITY reads like the work of a seasoned, skilled writer.
TOWARD ETERNITY expertly treads the line between litfic and genre. The book starts off in a quiet way, deeply rooted in a near-present not very different from our own, only to slowly build and expand its scope. I'm not normally a sci-fi reader, but I found this approach to make it so easy to dive into the story and be willing to follow it to any place it chooses to go, regardless of how outlandish.
This novel is a posthumanist's dream, as it explores the essence of what makes us humans, the things that help us preserve or create this humanity, and the limits of evolution and how far evolution can go while we can still preserve some sense of humanity. It is a book about the contrast between the permanence of art vs. the ephemerality of our human condition, about poetry and music and what lives beyond language, in the gaps we leave behind. It is a story about hope and survival and creating new versions of ourselves to live on. Ultimately, it is a story about love, and it being the thing that will outlive us and keep some version of ourselves alive.
It's marvelous how such a tender, quiet story can pack such a punch.

Anton Hur is best known as a translator of Korean literature (e.g. of Bora Chung), and Toward Eternity is his debut as a novelist.

It is an ambitious mix of sci-fi and literary fiction, spanning many generations deep into the distant future. It starts with Yonghun, a PhD in 19th century poetry turned AI-programmer, developing an AI that reads poetry. As he and his husband move to South Africa, he is employed by the Beeko Institute who work on a technology to replace body cells with so-called nanites and thus achieve immortality. When Yonghun is diagnosed with cancer the Institute selects him as guinea pig and he becomes Patient One.

I found it beautifully done, Hur's love for poetry shines through even of the plot remains central. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I got halfway through this book and finally decided that it just wasn’t for me. Maybe it’s just too much science or over my head, but I found myself drifting off each time I was reading it.

I love the concept of this book, but it’s just not for me.

Thank you for the ARC. Unfortunately, this book just couldn’t capture my attention. I get that a hook is sometimes to be vague to keep people curious. However, in this case, I feel that too much was vague, making it hard to follow.

An interesting read by the end but I wasn't drawn in at the beginning.

If you enjoy poetry and philiosophy I think you would like the first part of the book. Unfortunately, I found it confusing and difficult to relate to. I also didn't feel I got to know the characters that well and sometimes struggled to understand who they were and how they knew each other. It might have been mentioned or hinted at and I missed it but it added to my confusion.

However, further into the book I found it more interesting. I wanted to read on and discover how the future would pan out and I was pleased I'd struggled through the first part of the book.

It's a good book, just not for me.

This is a brilliant book. Speculative sci-fi based in a near-future world progressing to eternity. A new technology has been developed which permits replacing human cells with nanites and this helps in the cure of terminal disease practically making humans immortal. One of the beneficiaries of this treatment develops an AI unit infused with emotion and an appreciation for literature, language and poetry called Panit. The fusion of Panit with a human body sets the ball rolling for a series of evolutionary beings. An autocratic AI managed corporation meanwhile is trying to use the technology for its own war-oriented policies. The story is told from multiple points of view spanning centuries. The beautiful melding of prose and poetry is lyrical. The author delves into concepts of human consciousness vs physical body, the lasting echoes of love and a concept of immortality through memories. There is a lot to gain from each subsequent reading of this book. It is not hardcore sci-fi but one with a strong philosophical twist. Not for everyone but I loved it.
Thanks you HarperVia, Netgalley and Anton Hur for the ARC

I had a great time with this story, but the pacing is slow. It’s told in journal entities over the span of centuries. Therefore, it becomes distant. I cared about the characters, but wasn’t actually connected to them. That’s not really the point in my opinion. This book is for those who love poetry, language, and questioning what makes us human. It’s introspective and esoteric, but so beautiful. Take your time with this one and think about what the future can hold. While this story speaks of world destruction it remains hopeful as humanity moves constantly toward eternity.