Science fiction authors typically share the stock motifs of alien contact, time travel, life and battles in space.

Eon falls within the conventions of hard science fiction. The novel follows precedents established by such hard science fiction pioneers as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, H. G. Wells, and Olaf Stapledon.

The awesomeness of the strange world called the Stone is standard science fiction fare, developed from Stapledon's depictions of the universe in his Last and First Men (1930) and Star Maker (1937). Eon's "spaceship" the Stone and its off-Earth battle draw from "space opera" pulp adventure stories of the 1930s by authors such as E. E. Smith and John W. Campbell. Like Asimov, however, Bear tones down the sensationalism and explores ideas.

The nuclear war in Eon and efforts afterward to assist victims bears some resemblance to a plot in Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles (1950), by which...