The Light of Other Days
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Amazon.co.uk 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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
‘Arthur C. Clarke is the prophet of the space age’
The Times
‘Arthur C. Clarke is the colossus of science fiction’
New York Times
‘A major new talent’
Arthur C. Clarke on Stephen Baxter
Reviews of Titan by Stephen Baxter:
‘Buy Titan, read it – and then go out and buy everything else that Baxter has ever written’
New Scientist
‘This is a tale of equivalent scope to 2001, while the visions of Titan life have that sense of Clarke-style cosmic sorrow’
SFX
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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This book revolves around the invention by a power hungry business fat cat of the WormCam - a wormhole camera. The development starts as a way of linking points in space so that everything can be witnessed in real time and just as people are getting used to this concept, the technology is developed further to link points in time. To be precise, to view any point, anybody, anywhere in history. And the technology is available to all.
Now humanity has to suffer the escalating consequences of knowing every secret ever kept and the horrific realisation that people of the future are watching them, now.
This is a clever book of unravelling horror. Not for those already pre-disposed to paranoia.
This book revolves around the invention by a power hungry business fat cat of the WormCam - a wormhole camera. The development starts as a way of linking points in space so that everything can be witnessed in real time and just as people are getting used to this concept, the technology is developed further to link points in time. To be precise, to view any point, anybody, anywhere in history. And the technology is available to all.
Now humanity has to suffer the escalating consequences of knowing every secret ever kept and the horrific realisation that people of the future are watching them, now.
This is a clever book of unravelling horror. Not for those already pre-disposed to paranoia.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It is strange how two people's opinion of a book can be so different. Granted this book is not hardcore SciFi and may not appeal to the majority of 'techies' out there, but I must say that it is quite visionary in it's approach to the social impact of 'wormcams' and how society can be influenced so profoundly be such a technology.
All in all a great read, and certainly worth the price.
All in all a great read, and certainly worth the price.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
This book epitimizes the aspects of a thought provoking book. It is a rare to find fiction that that is concurrently scientifically, sociologically, historically, and politically intelligent. It takes a technological breakthrough and illustrates in a believable way how the world would react. In a more progressive minded world this would be an instant classic. I recommend this book very highly, easily the equal of any classic on the so-called human condition that I've read and enjoyed. The worst part of this book is that it has to end at some point despite it getting more and more interesting as you go on.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Ignore the fake histories
A very interesting take on what could be close to ALL the implications could be of having the ability to remote view the past and everywhere in the present. Read more
Published 5 months ago by P. J. Dunn
The best of all possible worlds
With the best possible pedigree in Arthur C Clarke and his natural successor Stephen Baxter, this book was always destined to be a modern classic of British SF. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Robert Beard
Sense of wonder
This book begins where Isaac Asimov's short story "The Dead Past" ends - with the invention of a device that lets anyone see any other point in time or space, the ultimate... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Kai-Mikael Jää-Aro
"Visionary" is probably not a strong enough description
I'm a die hard Sci-Fi fan and therefore I know what I'm going to say will shock some people. I don't like Clarke's solo work that much. There I said it. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mo8ius
Loved this book....
I got into the Clarke-Baxter collaborations via the Time's Eye trilogy (which I also enjoyed) and devoured this one during the course of a few days on a sun lounger while on... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Newbonic
Simply dazzling
This is the best book I've read in a long time.
Whether it's straight-forward high quality science fiction you're after, or just a good story that you can't put down, or... Read more
Whether it's straight-forward high quality science fiction you're after, or just a good story that you can't put down, or... Read more
Published on 30 Nov 2006 by Jean Paul
Science fiction without character is just scientific speculation
I felt I had to write this review to counteract Robert Holmes' fairly damning comments about the characterisations in this book. Read more
Published on 10 Sep 2006 by Lesley Hunt
Thought provoking
The wealth of ideas in this book are so expansive and in a sence magnificent that it makes the outlook of even religons seem quite small.
Published on 9 Feb 2006
Disturbing light of other days
The Light of Other Days is a science fiction novel written by Stephen Baxter, based on an outline, ideas, and extensive editorial input by Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Read more
Published on 4 Oct 2003 by Robert Holm
intriguing examination of the slide down the slippery slop
I read this book several years ago while on a cruise and found it hard to put down. I agree with the other editorialist, that you read such books not because of the compelling... Read more
Published on 29 Aug 2003
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