Subplot Kudzu

I think The End of Eternity is one of Asimov's most interesting novels. Viewed in terms of standard literary criticism, where characterization and character interaction are the focus of literature, it's much more substantive than most of his writing. And in terms of the "literature of ideas" aspect of sf, it shows Asimov doings something really interesting with his own ideas. Normally he's very much an adherent of the classic technocratic vision of the sfnal future, where a board of enlightened scientists plan rationally and disinterestedly for the good of the entire community, rather along the lines of the old Chinese mandarinate; this shows up especially in the Second Foundation. Donald Kingsbury gave a brilliant critique and deconstruction of this in Psychohistorical Crisis. But in The End of Eternity Asimov gave a deconstruction of his own ideas, showing the failure modes of a rational bureaucracy, not in terms of corruption, but in terms of the bureaucracy producing perverse and undesirable effects by doing exactly what it was designed to do. I've seldom seen an sf writer do such a solid job of questioning his own ideas.