Helpful Score: 1
Interesting plot. What would happen to our society if a technological discovery like this was made? Thought provoking.
In the early 21st century, industrialist Hiram Patterson isn't content with his multimedia conglomerate called OurWorld and dedicates himself to further innovation. While attending an OurWorld event, journalist Kate Manzoni prepares to break a major story on Hiram's latest invention, which is shrouded in secrecy. Her previous cutting-edge bit of news was the disclosure of the Wormwood, a comet which is set on a collision course with Earth and destined to destroy all life on the planet in 500 years. Drug use, suicide, and apathy are at an all-time high across the globe.
Still, that doesn't stop Hiram from doing what he does best: making money off scientific breakthroughs. His latest invention, as Kate learns, is a "WormCam": a stabilized wormhole of atomic size that is only large enough to send a radio signal through. His next call of order is to enlarge the wormhole until it is big enough to allow for visual images. Hiram's long-abandoned son, David, a top physics scientist and devout Catholic, is called back to OurWorld in order to oversee the WormCam project.
The debonair Bobby Patterson, Hiram's younger son, is soon wooing Kate even while she uses him to get closer to Hiram's secrets. Bobby learns that the brain implant he had embedded as a child was actually designed to make him lack emotion and religious faith, as well as allow him to be easily coerced by his father. When Kate helps him to shut down the implant, Bobby is opened to a whole new world of exquisite love, anger, and pain.
In the early 21st century, industrialist Hiram Patterson isn't content with his multimedia conglomerate called OurWorld and dedicates himself to further innovation. While attending an OurWorld event, journalist Kate Manzoni prepares to break a major story on Hiram's latest invention, which is shrouded in secrecy. Her previous cutting-edge bit of news was the disclosure of the Wormwood, a comet which is set on a collision course with Earth and destined to destroy all life on the planet in 500 years. Drug use, suicide, and apathy are at an all-time high across the globe.
Still, that doesn't stop Hiram from doing what he does best: making money off scientific breakthroughs. His latest invention, as Kate learns, is a "WormCam": a stabilized wormhole of atomic size that is only large enough to send a radio signal through. His next call of order is to enlarge the wormhole until it is big enough to allow for visual images. Hiram's long-abandoned son, David, a top physics scientist and devout Catholic, is called back to OurWorld in order to oversee the WormCam project.
The debonair Bobby Patterson, Hiram's younger son, is soon wooing Kate even while she uses him to get closer to Hiram's secrets. Bobby learns that the brain implant he had embedded as a child was actually designed to make him lack emotion and religious faith, as well as allow him to be easily coerced by his father. When Kate helps him to shut down the implant, Bobby is opened to a whole new world of exquisite love, anger, and pain.
A wonderful sci-fi co-written by the author of 2001:A Space Odyssey (Clarke) and The Time Ships (Baxter). An industrialist harnesses quantum physics to enable people everywhere to see one another at all times: around every corner, through every wall, into everyone's most private, hidden and even intimate moments. The new technology amounts to the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy - forever. Then they discover you can look BACK into the past w/the same technology and the plot evolves from there. A very good book and one that will make you think.
Not as good as the older Clark books. But okay in a pinch.
Couldn't finish it. Doesn't flow
A brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses cutting-edge physics to enable people everywhere, at trivial cost, to see one another at all times. It is the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy, forever. As society reels, the same technology proves able to look backward in time as well. This portrayal of a world when the walls of time and distance have turned to glass will change your view of what it is to be human.
(from back cover)
(from back cover)
The Light of Other Days tells the tale of what happens when a brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses quantum physics to enable people everywhere to see one another at all times; around every corner, through every wall, into everyone's most private, hidden, and even intimate moments. This new technology amounts to the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy--forever.
Then, as men and women scramble to absorb this shock, the same technology proves able to look backwards in time as well. Nothing can prepare us for what follows--the wholesale discovery of the truth about thousands of years of human history. Governments topple, religions fall, the entire edifice of human society is shaken to its roots. It is a fundamental change in the terms of the human condition...cause for despair, provocation for chaos, and--just maybe--opportunity for transcendence.
The Light of Other Days is a tour de force, an SF event for the millennium, and a story you will not soon forget.
Then, as men and women scramble to absorb this shock, the same technology proves able to look backwards in time as well. Nothing can prepare us for what follows--the wholesale discovery of the truth about thousands of years of human history. Governments topple, religions fall, the entire edifice of human society is shaken to its roots. It is a fundamental change in the terms of the human condition...cause for despair, provocation for chaos, and--just maybe--opportunity for transcendence.
The Light of Other Days is a tour de force, an SF event for the millennium, and a story you will not soon forget.
