| Light of Other Days, The | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 93 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1265490
Category: Book
Authors: Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter
Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD Lib Ed
Studio: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD Lib Ed
Manufacturer: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD Lib Ed
Label: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD Lib Ed
Format: Audiobook, Mp3 Audio, Unabridged
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Library
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 1423330749
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781423330745
ASIN: 1423330749
Publication Date: May 28, 2007
Release Date: May 28, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The Light of Other Days tells the tale of what happens when a brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses the cutting edge of quantum physics to enable people everywhere, at trivial cost, to see one another at all times: around every corner, through every wall, into everyone's most private, hidden, and even intimate moments. It amounts to the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy - forever.
Then, as society reels, the same technology proves able to look backwards in time as well. Nothing can prepare us for what this means. It is a fundamental change in the terms of the human condition.
Amazon.com Review
The crowning achievement of any professional writer is to get paid twice for the same material: write a piece for one publisher and then tweak it just enough that you can turn around and sell it to someone else. While it's specious to accuse Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke of this, fans of both authors will definitely notice some striking similarities between Light of Other Days and other recent works by the two, specifically Baxter's Manifold: Time and Clarke's The Trigger. The Light of Other Days follows a soulless tech billionaire (sort of an older, more crotchety Bill Gates), a soulful muckraking journalist, and the billionaire's two (separated since birth) sons. It's 2035, and all four hold ringside seats at the birth of a new paradigm-destroying technology, a system of "WormCams," harnessing the power of wormholes to see absolutely anyone or anything, anywhere, at any distance (even light years away). As if that weren't enough, the sons eventually figure out how to exploit a time-dilation effect, allowing them to use the holes to peer back in time. For Baxter's part, the Light of Other Days develops another aspect of Manifold's notion that humanity might have to master the flow of time itself to avert a comparatively mundane disaster (yet another yawn-inducing big rock threatening to hit the earth); Clarke, just as he did with Trigger's anti-gun ray, speculates on how a revolutionary technology can change the world forever. --Paul Hughes
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| Customer Reviews: Read 88 more reviews...
 Great Plot and Premise - Right up my Alley! August 10, 2008
Another excellent sci-fi plot and premise. A total "what-if" scenario that opens your eyes and expands your mind. As a writer in this genre, I strive like Sir Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, to reach readers on a personal level. Certainly, uncovering the truth throughout history would be a humbling experience, as the WormCam does in the book. I wanted the ending to continue longer, and feel this was the core theme they discovered too late, and is the reason I only give 4 stars. Otherwise hats off to these two legendary writers and this great book!
 Excellent "What if?" novel September 16, 2007
This novel is a great example of the "what if?" variety of science fiction. It takes one or two simple premises and takes them to a great number of logical conclusions. This is one of those books that will stick in your head and leave you pondering the possibilities for a long time to come.
 Where oh where is the heart in science fiction? June 27, 2007
If you're an Arthur C. Clarke fan (and who isn't?) then you must surely purchase and read The Light of Other Days, if only to see what Clarke's been up to lately. The book starts well and reads well. The conceit - though scientifically unsound - is that humanity learns to master wormholes, first for spying around the world (bringing personal privacy to an end) and then for traveling back in time and even out into space.
But as the book went on, getting weirder and weirder in that peculiar way of some people, that way of being fascinated by toys and gizmos and one's own strange ideas ... I don't know. It began to leave me cold. I finished it, but only barely. I would love to see more science fiction forgo the toys and gizmos and go back to being more heart-centered. What ever happened to books like Alas Babylon, where we step into a make-believe world of the future, only to find that friends and family remain our most important concerns?
Still, ya gotta love Clarke. If you're a sci-fic fan, buy this book and read it. You might like it better than I did.
 Infodumping at its worst, but perhaps OK for young readers February 4, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The Light of Other Days, ostensibly co-authored by Arthur C. Clarke, is marketed as a philosophically intriguing tale of the transformation of Earth society in the not-so-distant-future, upon the advent of a remote viewing technology that removes all pretense of privacy from people's lives, and even allows observing events in the past. This is an enticing premise, but it's all downhill from page 1. In fact, the premise is all that's left after you discard the juvenile writing style, the paper-thin plot, the one-dimensional characters, and the Discover magazine-grade science.
I actually gave up on it halfway through, after enduring chapter after chapter of egregious exposition. Relentless, finger-wagging infodumps in dialogue and newscasts read like the following (paraphrased, but not the least bit exaggerated): "'As you know, David, the warning signs of global warming went unheeded way back in the early 2000s, and now there's a permanent El Nino.' 'Why yes, Kate, not only is England, which had to become the 52nd U.S. state after international trade collapsed, locked in ice, but more than 60% of the earth's land is no longer farmable.'" The most blatant morality plays in Star Trek aren't even this bad. These passages are also buffered by a superfluous sex scene that tries to appeal to women, but was clearly written by a man.
And then there's this gem of dialogue, at which point the book cannot be taken any less seriously: "It's like what happened to the copyright laws with the advent of the Internet. You remember that? ... No, you're too young. The Global Information Infrastructure--the thing that was supposed to replace the Berne copyright convention--collapsed back in the nought-noughts. Suddenly the Internet was awash with unedited garbage. Every damn publishing house was forced out of business, and all the authors went back to being computer programmers, all because suddenly somebody was giving away for free the stuff they used to sell to earn a crust."
Yeah, 2001 or Rendezvous With Rama this is not; it's nowhere near the quality of Clarke's own masterworks, or any others in the genre, for that matter. That said, though, had this been marketed as a teen/preteen volume, I think it would be tolerable. However, I expected far more sophistication from an adult work, especially one with Clarke's name on it. Save your cash and wait for the TV movie.
Light of Other Days...Excursion into an Opened Mind... January 30, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this book a few years ago twice, because it was so exceedingly different than anything that I have ever read. Actually it is the BEST book that I have ever read, and I have read thousands of books, everything else pales by comparison in imagination and creativity. You may not agree with the book in any way, shape or form, but isn't that the reason one reads? To be taken to places that are very different from the daily grind (and don't you see a hint of possibility in our future in this book?)? If I only read to have someone to agree with my life, why bother to read? I read several of the reviews you see, especially the ones that gave 1-2 stars. One review stated that this book was garbage!How very sad! I have read nearly all of Arthur C. Clarks writings, this is his best. I am looking for his latest book right now. I thought so much of this book that I lent it to my daughter, she was blown away by it and also says that it is the very BEST book that she has ever read. She lent my book to someone else and now we are looking for replacements to make sure it remains in our libraries of excellent books. If you love imaginative writing this is it. Give it a chance.
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