THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS

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I was going to ask you anyhow before the old fool jumped in. Come have dinner. And maybe we can have a little fun, get to know each other better…" Shaw produced several highly-regarded collections, including Ship of Strangers (a fix-up novel, 1978) and Cosmic Kaleidoscope (1979). His most famous short story is still fondly remembered today: the Hugo and Nebula nominee “Light of Other Days,” originally published in John W. Campbell’s Analog Science Fiction and Fact in August 1966. The central concept of ‘slow glass’— which slows down light so that it takes years or decades to pass through — was simple and enormously compelling, and Shaw returned to the idea several times, most notably in his 1972 fix-up novel of slow glass stories, Other Days, Other Eyes. As Kate Manzoni approached the OurWorld campus, she wondered if she had contrived to be a little more than fashionably just-late-enough for this spectacular event, so brightly was the Washington State sky painted by Hiram Patterson's light show.

The rest of the book I loved. I can understand why the style might seem too 'choppy' for some readers, jumping forward months at a time without warning and switching between different people, places, times, applications of the 'WormCam'... all seemingly at random. But I felt like this actually worked as a representation of the broad reaches of such a hypothetical technology. It gave the impression of a chaotic world in which the new WormCam technology was being applied in every direction at once, and it also represented how people's interests differ - what's the first thing you'd want to see? It probably isn't the same as the next person's priorities. In some ways it's like an analogy for the spread of the internet; once it took off and became public domain, its uses were applied in a million different directions at once. I'm not sure how else the authors could represent a similar phenomenon with the WormCam WITHOUT jumping from snippet to snippet to give this impression of chaotic advancement - to create separate books to delve into each of these ideas would ruin the effect of many things happening simultaneously, of the overwhelming flood of information and truth that would come crashing down all at once in a world newly introduced to their proposed WormCam technology.Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Justified in this case. The invention of Wormcam makes surveillance possible on anything, anywhere, including retroactively. If you want to observe something, you can.

It was very obvious to Vitaly that he was the oldest person here. The last survivor of the old days, perhaps. That thought gave him a certain sour pleasure. Other Days, Other Eyes is advertised as a novel, but it’s really a fix-up composed of four related stories and some connecting material: The Light of Other Days took me by surprise, it starts off as a story about super surveillance then morphs into an almost time traveling story. Fortunately, the scientist cannot find a way to affect the past in any way, only passive observation is possible. This saves the book from becoming just another time traveling tale. In addition to the main plotline about the WormCam the novel is also set in the near future when most species of animals are extinct, food is becoming scarce and nations go to war over water supplies. Worse still a giant asteroid is heading for Earth and is projected to arrive in 500 years, the impact is expected to be a mass extinction event. The main characters are also going through personal crises of their own but I won’t go into that. She gravitated toward one of the larger knots of people nearby, trying to see who, or what, was the center of attention. She made out a slim young man with dark hair, a walrus mustache and round glasses, wearing a rather absurd pantomime-soldier uniform of bright lime green with scarlet piping. He seemed to be holding a brass musical instrument, perhaps a euphonium. She recognized him, of course, and as soon as she did so she lost interest. Just a virtual. She began to survey the crowd around him, observing their childlike fascination with this simulacrum of a long-dead, saintly celebrity.

References

Answer: The time when the poet realises that his childhood, his friends, and the time he spent sharing his love with those who have passed on are all over and gone. Misplaced Retribution: May Wilson's agenda against Hiram is so convoluted that describing it is an exercise in spaghetti logic. To wit: years ago, her son was murdered, and her husband was convicted and executed for the crime. When the Wormcam became available, it was discovered that May's daughter had actually committed the murder and she's subsequently executed as well. Having now lost her entire family, and utterly destroyed by the process, she blames Wormcam for revealing the truth and blames Hiram for inventing it. Blames him so thoroughly, in fact, that she's determined to kill him in revenge.

One can't help but link the worm cam and it's impact to current events. I'll leave it to the reader to make the connection, but it's so obvious once you start this story, that the reader can't help but think about the state of our world today. He smiled, and his teeth were like rows of pearls. "You intrigue me, Kate Manzoni," he said. "You're accessing the Search Engine right now, aren't you? You're asking it about me." Wormhole technology has advanced to the point where information can be passed instantaneously between points in the spacetime continuum. 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. Close your eyes. Imagine the most boring teacher you had in high school or college. Now that person is the lead narrator for the most interesting times you've had in your life. See how they make everything worse? You just read this book...There was a heavy arm around her shoulder, a powerful scent of cheap cologne. It was Hiram Patterson himself: one of the most famous people on the planet. A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children. The book is a fix-up, three short stories set within the frame of the novel, covering slow glass from invention through all its implications and exploitations, and similarly covering the collapse of the marriage of its inventer (sic), Alban Garrod… And at the height of that summer, on 25 June 1967, a global television show was mounted to demonstrate the power of the nascent communications network." Behind Hiram the V-Fab drummer counted out a beat, and the group started playing, a dirgelike parody of the Marseillaise that gave way to finely sung three-part harmony. "This was Britain's contribution," Hiram called over the music. "A song about love, sung to two hundred million people around the world. That show was called Our World. Yes, that's right. That's where I got the name from. I know it's a little corny. But as soon as I saw the tapes of that event, at ten years old, I knew what I wanted to do with my life."