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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Other days,other eyes - Time travel by glass !!,
By John Gardner (Glasgow, Scotland United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Other Days, Other Eyes (Hardcover)
The discovery that a super toughened glass,first used in car windshields, actually delays the passage of light, is an intriguing concept for a s.f. story. Bob Shaw uses the "slow glass" to paint many different scenarios as to how this discovery changes the world for many different people. From its use as a window on different worlds (leave a large thick pane of glass, the thicker the glass the longer the light takes to pass through, beside a beautifull view for a couple of months/years then sell it to a householder - instant picture window) but beware glass is two way !! Say a crime is commited in a room with "slow glass" the cops take away the window and, after a period of time, the crime is replayed just like a movie. The possibilities are endless. A well crafted and enjoyable book by a much loved and sadly deceased author, one of my favourites.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A classic science fiction "what if..." story,
By
This review is from: Other Days, Other Eyes (Mass Market Paperback)
It all begins with a simple invention -- "slow glass", an improved version of regular glass that's better and stronger. Plus, its refractive index is so high that light travels much more slowly through it, allowing thinner lenses.
But, every improvement comes with unintended consequences. Windshields made of slow glass are incredibly stong; but images seen through them are slightly delayed, causing judgement errors and crashes. Efforts to improve or capitalize on effect this cause further surprises. In the end, this "simple" invention completely revolutionizes society! The story is told from the inventor's perspective, who sees technological advancements as fundamentally "good", even when they turn out to have huge consequences -- things that create a dystopian future that no one would consider good. The story is a thought provoking one; how can we balance the benefits of a new technology against its potential for harm?
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A fix-up too far?,
By flying-monkey (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Other Days, Other Eyes (Hardcover)
Bob Shaw's short stories about 'slow glass', were carefully crafted, moving and elegant. Unfortunately, this brilliance was somewhat subverted by the conversion of those stories into novel form. Whereas the themes of the stories are centred around memory and loss, the novel turns this on its head with a recycled plot about the inventor who accidentally destroys the world. In the novel's case, the basic idea is almost entirely ripped off Asimov's 'The Dead Past', in which a technology is unleashed on the world which allows everyone to spy on everyone else. In Shaw's novel, Alban Garrod's invention of a new form of glass which slows light, results eventually in the government deploying ubiquitous slow glass dust, turning everything into a potential surveillance device. The emotional development of the novel is also poor, not to say thunderingly misogynistic (a trait to be found in many of Shaw's novels of this period). Alban Garrod is held back by his nagging wife, Esther, whose father initially provided him with seed capital. He finds freedom with a beautiful, compliant, and vaguely oriental-looking secretary, while Esther is left blinded by an accident at his home laboratory. This blindness means she is able to hold on to Garrod and force him to act as her eyes, by making him wear a pair of slow glass 'lenses' which she can then wear the next day, so he is almsost literally forced to live in the past. It is all very heavy-handed and unpleasant, and there are similar strains of misogyny in other Shaw novels, especially 'Orbitsville'. It is odd, because I had never noticed this in his short pieces, and it unfortunately tends to lessen my appreciation of Shaw as a writer. Despite all this, there is an intriguingly poetic technology at the centre of this novel, and some insightful commentary on the politics of surveillance and privacy, and you still get the excellent original short stories included as 'sidelights' to the main plot.
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