Customer Reviews

The Light of Other Days (Nova Audio Books)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I've been a fan of Sir Arthur Clarke's science fiction for most of my life. I haven't read anything by Stephen Baxter before, but after this I will. They've produced a real winner here.

As they say in the afterword, the idea of a machine that can see into the past and through walls is an old one (I especially recommend "E for Effort," by T. L. Sherrard, if you can find an old copy of the ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION ANTHOLOGY). Clarke and Baxter managed to make it new and different.

The key to their achievement was to anchor it to a rigorously imagined physics. The "wormhole camera" turns out to have uses and implications that its inventors don't expect, and it leads off in many strange directions.

I don't want to give away surprises, but I started this book expecting to be able to predict everything that would happen, and I was repeatedly taken by surprise.

There are a few flaws in this novel (for instance, the POW camp scene, which apparently has no purpose whatsoever), but almost everything is topnotch. The characters are mostly believable, the future world is interesting, and the ending was a delight.

Highly recommended.

An entrepreneur in the spirit of the old guy in Jurassic Park proudly unleashes an invention that will have worldwide consequences. His "worm cam" allows the user to open a portal anywhere in the universe, at any time in the past. The invention and its effects on humanity are explored as they eventually unravel the secrets of the past, and alter the evolution of humans. Interspersed with this background is a human story involving a beautiful journalist, and the family of the entrepreneur including divorced wife, two sons, and their half-sister.
The Good and the Bad:
Clarke hits a home run with the science fiction end of it, and this is purely where the good rating comes from. The futuristic world seems believable, and the technology is put to use to answer a whole host of questions that we have fun asking-what really happened to Jesus? What is the track of human evolution? What would the response be to a sudden and total lack of privacy?
The human stories, however, are cartoonish and leave much to be desired. The entrepreneur is like the guy from Jurassic Park, and none of the characters achieve more depth than the characters of that movie. An attempt is made, but it is ultimately poorly done, as is a plot involving a kidnapping and a physical struggle in the climax.
What I learned:
The book is thought-provoking, and raises interesting hypothetical questions. What would it be like to strip away the lies we tell ourselves of our own past? Where in history and outer space would I travel? How much shame would I endure for my own past?

Science Fiction, from its earliest days, has been decried by its critics as immature, pulp fantasy. Often this has been a well-deserved comment, as all too much science fiction is neither good science nor good fiction. Take an intelligent twelve-year-old to the movies with you and you are likely to hear, "Well, the alien was cool, but space is a vacuum and you couldn't hear the explosion, and the fire wouldn't have burned like that cause there's no atmosphere to burn, and anyway, why weren't they all floating around, cause everyone knows there's no gravity in outer space!", or some such. But many modern day science fiction writers, following the lead of such giants as Arthur C. Clarke and Issac Asimov, now incorporate good science into their works--thus the term "hard science fiction." Stephen Baxter is one of the hardest of these hard sci-fi writers, and his co-authorship with Clarke of "The Light of Other Days" fulfills its potential as the book is rich with the consequences of a speculative technology. In this case, we have, not time-travel, but time-vision and omni-vision. With the development of the "WormCam", a videocamera that can see macroscopic images anywhere in the universe and anywhere in the past, humanity faces a crisis of self. Compounding the issue is the impending crash of a gigantic asteroid into the Earth, which seemingly cannot be averted and which will almost surely destroy all intelligent life. (That the asteroid is called the Wormwood, the camera is the WormCam, the place the camera was developed is the Wormworks, and the phenomenon on which the technology is based is the Wormhole is all a bit much, and leads to some confusion on the part of the inattentive reader. But that's another can of worms...) Clarke and Baxter relentlessly pursue the consequences of the total loss of privacy, the abuse of power, the subsequent counter-measures, the demise of society's most cherished myths, the effect on religion, and so forth. I can easily imagine a brain-storming session between the two writers--it must have been quite exciting, with ideas and their consequences flying fast and furious. Hard sci-fi fans will love this book, and as an exploration of ideas, it is very good indeed.

But there is another side to science fiction, and that is the personal side, the fiction more than the science. And here, frankly, like so much "hard sci-fi" writing, I feel that Clarke and Baxter have let their readers down a bit. It is one thing to say "society will be affected this way by this development" and another thing entirely to write a tale with characters who are caught up in those developments that the readers care about. The first is *telling,* and it is the domain of dissertations, newspapers, science journals. The second is *showing,* and it is the true ART of fiction writing. There are so many good writers of fiction now, who create very compelling characters that truly grip us with their dilemmas--James Lee Burke, James Hall, Michael Connelly (none of these are sci-fi writers, admittedly) to name but a very few. It seemed to me a great shame that the ideas of this book, which were very interesting and well-thought out, were hung on such weak characters. Indeed, at times the story-line, such as it was, was abandoned just for such "telling" writing as "quotes" from books and journals, etc. published about historical or sociological research. I should have been prepared for this when the first character to appear apparently dies of a heart attack at the end of the first chapter and no mention of him is ever made again. Although I often decry the lack of good editing, as so many of today's writers seem to me to "over-write", and a compact book of 200 pages or so is a rarity today, in this particular case I think the authors simply needed more space to tell their tale in a more compelling way. If this had had the characterizations of Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land it would have been an instant classic. But I'm afraid that in its current state it will not gain a wider appeal beyond hard-core hard sci-fi fans.

Imagine you own a piece of technology that allows you to view any event, in the present or the past. This technology, and its effects on society are made real through "The Light of Other Days" by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. This book is set about fifty years from present, when the Earth is inundated with advanced technology but still retains the basic problems man has endured for all time - war, famine, water availability. A visionary company and researcher invents a WormCam - a device that opens a wormhole anywhere in the past or present. Through this wormhole anything can be viewed exactly as it happened (or is happening). At first this "time viewer" is used for news stories, voyeurism, spying, etc, but as the public gets hold of it, sweeping changes begin to occur in society. I have heard this book labeled as "hard SF" (hardcore science fiction) but I believe that even people mildly interested in science fiction would enjoy this book very much. What really captivated me was how the book started out fairly close to modern times, but then showed the rapid, awe-inspiring change in the human race as the wormhole technology finds new applications. Perhaps even bringing humanity to a kind of transcendence. As the FBI agent Michael Mavins of the book argues: "I have the feeling that wherever we're going, wherever the WormCam is taking us, it's somewhere much stranger." This process and the trials of the human race along the way make for an exciting and a thought-provoking read.

There aren't many books that will make me put my life on hold to finish it, and this was one of them. It's not just the great writing technique, it's not just the highly-creditialed authors, and it's not just the interesting action. Like all Arthur Clarke books, this one makes you think. In this case, you're left in a deep state of distraction about the sociological consequences of a radically invasive and dangerous technology. Did anyone see the articles about Bill Joy, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems who said, "We are dealing now with technologies that are so transformatively powerful that they threaten our species"? (Washington Post, 4/16/00) This book is right on the money; it could easily be the grist for a hundred serious PhD dissertations. BUY IT! You're not often going to read such a well thought-out and relevant work of science fiction.

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS is populated by such canonical cardboard sci-fi characters as a 15-year-old girl who becomes a world-class computer programming genius, apparently within a few months and with no formal training; a detestable media mogul with absolutely no redeeming qualities; a theoretical physicist who is plucked from obscurity to helm a project of unprecedented importance; and a careerist woman reporter who accepts employment from a villain who she knows has vowed to destroy her. Characters this extreme just can't fall into believable fiction, and it is as a work of fiction that this book is weak.

Why four stars? you might ask. Well, this is such an excellent exploration of the ramifications of a scientific breakthrough that it is impossible to (figuratively and literally) put down this book. Imagine a discovery by which, through quantum wormhole technology, anyone can spy on anyone else in space or in time. It's very easy to imagine some of the results of this capability, but trust me: you will not have thought of half as much as have Clarke and Baxter. They leave no stone unturned in examining what wormhole technology could lead to, from the mundane to the awe-inspiring. Typically, my experience with sci fi written around a single tech advance has been that the author's speculation is incomplete and unsatisfying. This is not the case with this book; the authors don't miss a trick.

The fairly linear plot is superficially an easy read, but many readers will find themselves pausing often to consider all the implications of each new advance in the wormhole technology. This book also reminded of E. E. 'Doc' Smith's LENSMAN series, where the scale of the action becomes progressively grander, ultimately reaching epic proportions.

I think the best science fiction compels you to contemplate the possibilities. With THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter have written a book that is terrifying.

My humanities-based education does not offer the expertise to determine if the 'hard sci-fi' component of the book is adequate or accurate enough for those who focus on that aspect of the genre. My primary concern is not to have my luggage suspended in the time/space continuum. OTHER DAYS is speculative social commentary in the most classical sense, set not too far in the future. It poses the question of the exigencies relating to the elimination of all privacy, where the only security from your peers' inquisitiveness is non-verbalization of one's thoughts and considerations. It looks at a world where the very basis of everything we believe about religion, morality, government, politics and any other aspect of man's existence past or present, is open to intensive scrutiny, by anyone with the initiative to look. A society where trust is no longer an issue, it is an irrelevancy because truth is the only realistic alternative.

Neither the premise nor the story are flawless. The characters are not well developed; the vision is that of Clarke and Baxter and represents but one possibility. Devout Christians may be troubled by some sections. Yet, for me this is a tale of the human spirit, a story that must be considered in the context of existent technological advances that inexorably adjust our values.

I was expecting to be completely blown away by this collaboration by two of sci-fi's most illustrious wordsmiths. How could authors that have given us the marvellous Rendezvous with Rama, Songs of Distant Earth, Titan, Moonseed etc, fail to produce a masterpiece? And yet why then did I find this novel quite heavy going?

The basic concept of the "wormcam" is a sound and fascinating one, supported by plausible snippets of technological data. The early chapters, where the wormcam's potential is gradually being realised, are certainly extremely satisfying and hint at greater things to come

And yet, the chapters - the sometimes excessively long chapters, devoted to the political intrigue and human interest, utterly failed to grab my imagination. I simply couldn't get worked up at all about what happened to the stereotypical fat-cat empire-building capitalist, the flashy playboy, the religious fundamentalist, the weak-willed wormcam addict, or even our feisty (yawn!) lady investigator. These paper-thin characters were simply far too cliché'd for me to empathise with.

All things considered, certainly not a bad novel; if TLOOD had been a first book from some young sci-fi hopeful author, it would probably be hailed as a marvellous debut. Clarke and Baxter however have, hitherto, set such very high standards, that, in my humble opinion, TLOOD does not quite live up to them.

At least as early as his classic novel Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke has been imagining what the human race will become when it finally grows up. In The Light of Other Days, humanity is advanced not by evolution, but by the invention of the WormCam, a device that eliminates all personal privacy as well as allowing the whole of human history to be viewed as it actually happened. It's Clarke's imaginings of the truth behind major historical events as well as his character's personal histories that makes this a book worth reading. Much of the other action is less compelling.

The story of the life of Christ is revealed, but the centerpiece of the book occurs when David traces his brother Bobby's DNA backward to witness his family tree (or, rather, his grandmother's tree), leading ultimately to the origins of life on Earth, complete with the requisite startling evolutionary jump we've come to expect from Clarke.

This is a classic work of science fiction, for it examines how the development of a new technology radically affects society. The new technology is a wormhole that allows viewers to see over immense distances and periods of time. Yes, that's right; one may not only check-out the surface of Titan, but also dial up the past and see what really happened at the sinking of the Titanic, or the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

As you can imagine, since the authors are not Christians, the chapters highlighting the "real" life of Christ are from a naturalistic perspective. Christ was simply a well-educated Jew who combined Greek mystery religon, Jewish culture, and an enlightened moral system to form a new expression of man's understanding of the nouminous. I can see how these chapters may be interpreted as an agenda against religion, but the ideas are presented intellectually and are nothing different than what modern, nonfundamentalist scholars are writing.

The book's strength is its examination of how younger generations change their values because of the wormhole cameras. Anyone may see anyone, anywhere at anytime. There is no privacy, and no forgetting, for the past can be dialed up at a moment's notice. Because of this, younger generations throw-off traditional morals.

The one part of the book I found recycled was Clarke's idea of a group mind. Using the wormhole technology as a basis for a group mind, Clarke resurrects the plot of Childhood's End by having the younger generations form a group mind. It was a stale and recycled plot that detracted from the more interesting effects of wormhole technology.

The group mind, as well as the weak ending to the novel kept me from giving it five stars. Overall, the crips writing, intersting characters, and well thought out technology kept the book interesting and enjoyable. Man's struggle to re-interpret religion in light of the past, and his struggle to find meaning in the nouminous were subtle and enjoyable themes. I recommend this book for any Clarke/Baxter fan, and to any reader who is interested in how technology can be a force for good, a force for great change, but ultimately, a force that may have consequences we find alien, uncomfortable, and inevitable.