Light of Other Days, The

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!

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.

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.

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 Niño.' '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.

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.