The Light of Other Days - Hardcover

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

ARTHUR C. CLARKE was the most celebrated science fiction author of the twentieth century, the author of more than sixty books, and the winner of all the field's highest honors. He coanchored the Apollo 11, 12, and 15 missions with Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra for CBS. He died in 2008.

STEPHEN BAXTER is the author of many major SF novels. He has won the Philip K. Dick Award, the John W. Campbell Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award, the Lasswitz Award (in Germany), and the Seiun Award (in Japan).