Light Of Other Days: A Novel of the Transformation of Humanity - Softcover

Clarke, Arthur C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765322870 ISBN 13: 9780765322876

Publisher: Tor Trade, 2009

Synopsis

From Arthur C. Clarke, the brilliant mind that brought us 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Stephen Baxter, one of the most cogent SF writers of his generation, comes a novel of a day, not so far in the future, when the barriers of time and distance have suddenly turned to glass.

When a brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses cutting-edge physics to enable people everywhere, at trivial cost, to see one another at all times--around every corner, through every wall--the result is the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy, forever. Then the same technology proves able to look backward in time as well. The Light of Other Days is a story that will change your view of what it is to be human.

About this title

Review

SF's grand old man Sir Arthur teams up with newer star Baxter to tackle a whopping science-fiction idea with ample scope for both their talents. Their "WormCam" video camera looks across any distance through tiny wormholes in space. Initially this seems no worse than a remote TV link, but it transforms the world as disquieting cans of worms are irrevocably opened. This gadget is a veritable WormCan.

Distance is no obstacle. Neither are walls. Early WormCams allow daringly invasive newspaper scoops--and once the general public can buy them, personal privacy vanishes forever. Anyone can spy on you anywhere. Or anywhen, because next-generation WormCams peer through time as well as space ... at your embarrassing old secrets, at mysteries of the past, at the truth about old murders, Princess Di, the Mary Celeste, Abraham Lincoln, and even Jesus.

As WormCams steadily improve, they probe into deep time: spying on early man, walking with dinosaurs, back and back to a poignant SF vision of what came before life as we know it. It builds towards an utopian dream of the wonders humanity could achieve if given total access to its past.

Clarke and Baxter ramble intriguingly in all directions, exploring every implication. Their imaginative set-pieces are linked by a slightly soap-operatic plot featuring the megalomaniac entrepreneur whose labs built the WormCam, the sons he's manipulated like puppets, and one son's girlfriend who becomes a spanner in (as the lab's nicknamed) the WormWorks. Wide-ranging, ambitious and enjoyable. --David Langford

Review

‘Not just good, but fun, capacious, and in parts brilliant’
GUARDIAN

‘Enjoyable, thought-provoking stuff, with the balls to pursue its speculations to mind-boggling extremes’
TIME OUT

‘Two titans of hard SF team up for a story of grand scientific and philosophical scope... The large-scale implications addressed are impressive in this potent story’
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

‘A sweeping, mind-boggling read’
BOOKLIST

Edition details

• Publisher: Tor Trade
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0765322870
• ISBN 13: 9780765322876
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320