The Light of Other Days

This article is about the science fiction novel published in 2000. For the science fiction short story published in 1966, see Light of Other Days.
The Light of Other Days
Author Arthur C. Clarke
Stephen Baxter
Language English
Genre Science fiction novel
Publisher Tor Books
Publication date
16 April 2000
Media type Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages 320 pp
ISBN 0-312-87199-6
OCLC 43083483
823/.914 21
LC Class PR6005.L36 L47 2000

The Light of Other Days is a 2000 science fiction novel written by Stephen Baxter based on a synopsis by Arthur C. Clarke,[1] which explores the development of wormhole technology to the point where information can be passed instantaneously between points in the space-time continuum.

Plot summary

The wormhole technology is first used to send digital information via gamma rays, then developed further to transmit light waves. The media corporation that develops this advance can spy on anyone anywhere it chooses. A logical development from the laws of space-time allows light waves to be detected from the past. This enhances the wormhole technology into a "time viewer" where anyone opening a wormhole can view people and events from any point throughout time and space.

When the technology is released to the general public, it effectively destroys all secrecy and privacy. The novel examines the philosophical issues that arise from the world's population (increasingly suffering from ecological and political disturbances) being aware that they could be under constant observation by anyone, or that they could observe anyone without their knowledge. Anyone is able to observe the true past events of their families and their heroes. An underground forms which attempts to escape this observation; corruption and crime are drastically reduced; nations discover the true causes and outcomes of international conflicts; and religions worldwide are forced to re-evaluate their divine histories. As the underground movement grows, it utilises a direct neural interface coupled with the unlimited communication provided by the wormhole technology to develop a group mind.

One of the central themes of the novel is that history is biased towards viewpoints of the person who wrote it. Hence many great "historical" events often did not occur as they now are collectively remembered. For example, during the book's progression the time viewer technology shows that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman centurion (although the apocryphal story of his visiting Great Britain was proven to be true), and that Moses was based on a collection of stories rather than the actions of a real person.

In a climactic time-viewing experiment at the end of the novel a time hole is opened to the beginning of life on Earth and it is discovered that all existing life is descended from a biological sample placed by intelligent beings (labeled Sisyphans) who inhabited the Earth over three billion years ago, trying to preserve genetic samples when geological and climatic changes and a large bolide threatened an extinction level event.

Characters

Similar themes in literature

Release details

References

  1. Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible, Millennium [i.e., Second] Edition, Victor Gollancz – An imprint of Orion Books Ltd., 1999, p. 118: "the novel that Stephen Baxter has now written from my synopsis — The Light of Other Days."

External links

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