SEE YOUR PAST - DON'T GO THERE!!. Review on Light of Other Days, The - Arthur C Clarke

Hi Friends,

This is a science fiction novel, my first science fiction in fact.

Arthur C. Clarke – the author of this novel is a very renowned science fiction author and he has written a great, interesting and most of all an intellectually stimulating story in ‘The Light of Other Days’.

The concept and basis of story was again what most of science fiction novels and movies are based on – TIME. There is a difference, however, in this novel because here the story is based of ‘Time Viewing’ (Using Past viewing cameras) rather ‘Time Travel’.

The Concept

The concept is quite simple to understand. Hiram Patterson (previously known as Hiradamani Patel) is the owner of OurWorld – a company as huge and powerful (in monopolistic terms) as Microsoft is in current times – perhaps more powerful than that.

Scientists in OurWorld, led by David – the elder son of Hiram, create a technology called WormHole. By this they can see anything, anywhere in space. Further developments of this technology results in a WormHole that can be opened in past.

When this technology was offered to public – it created dark times – the same which resulted after Charles Darwin published his ‘ORIGIN OF SPECIES’.

Past TENSE

At first people used this revolutionary technology for the purpose a common man is most expected to use it – voyeurism. But gradually people started to use it to view their history – their origin, some people used worm-cams to see the time they were conceived (in a lay man’s language watching their own parents have sex!). Later they started using this to see events that shaped history.

All this in backdrop of one thing – that a comet named WormWood is going to his planet Earth in 500 years from the date past viewing worm-cams were out in market. Everything will be destroyed when the comet hits Earth.

Such acts resulted in complete loss of privacy. People were keeping an eye on their spouses, they started watching their parents and grand parents having sex – in past, started looking at their younger selves – the works!

THIS THING CHANGED THE ATTITUDE OF SOCIETY.

Changing Norms

The societal norms started changing. People hid nothing because it wasn’t possible to hide anything anymore. They became more honest. Kids started having sex on streets. People started going around nude in society because even in the privacy of their bedrooms – it wasn’t sure some peeping tom is peeking or not – possibly yes!

David and Bobby (the other son of Hiram) – together they started to trace back their origin. Using DNA sequencing – a technique that David developed for FBI – they traced back their origin to almost 1200 generations – to chimps and even further to Algae.

Survival of the Smartest

David and Bobby discovered that Billions of years before – something same happened on Earth as is expected now. At that time – the seeds of life were buried deep inside that sea to save the species and the species gradually originated from there – deep inside from sea – where they survived the impact of the comet – and man eventually evolved.

Learning from this experience – the mankind was saved by transferring the life on MARS and its moons while a technology was developed to trace the DNA of every man that ever lived so that a huge bank can be developed, for existence of man as a species.

Episodes Left

This was a bird’s-eye-view of the story. Certain important episodes in the story have been intentionally left – for you to read them. These are – invention of the WormCam – past viewer, invention of the internet of minds – whereby brains of people are connected to each other by a minute worm-cam which is implanted into their brains, the episode of Kate – the girlfriend of Bobby, Bobby – the clone, death of Hiram etc.

The Final View

It is a great novel – makes you think of the impact of such technologies on society. In this novel – the impacts of a past viewer on society have been discussed in detail. The change in our thinking and behaviour is discussed brilliantly.

And the ‘ORIGIN OF SPECIES’ has been fictionalized in the end of novel, using the WormCam and quest of David and Bobby to track down his origin is a delightful read. The author has tried to create another Dark Age all over again – this time it’s no Darwin but the WormCam.

Recommended to all you futuristic techno freaks.

Happy Reading,

Khagesh Gautam