The Light of Other Days

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 and other recent works by the two, specifically Baxter’s and Clarke’s .

The Light of Other Days

For Baxter’s part, the develops another aspect of ’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 ’s anti-gun ray, speculates on how a revolutionary technology can change the world forever.