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Other Days, Other Eyes
Slow glass was an amusing scientific toy. Light traveled through it so slowly that, looking through a pane of it, you might see what had happened five minutes ago on the other side--or five years. It stopped being a toy when great new jeliners began to crash, caraccidents multiplied astronomically and a mounting toll of deaths and disasters revealed its true potential. And it was no toy at all when blackmailers discovered how to use it to see into the secret life of any victim--and government officials found it could permit surveillance of any person, any time, anywhere.
158 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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796 people want to read
About the author
Bob Shaw
210 books99 followersBob Shaw was born in Northern Ireland. After working in structural engineering, industrial public relations, and journalism he became a full time science fiction writer in 1975.
Shaw was noted for his originality and wit. He was two-time recipient (in 1979 and 1980) of the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. His short story Light of Other Days was a Hugo Award nominee in 1967, as was his novel The Ragged Astronauts in 1987.
Shaw was noted for his originality and wit. He was two-time recipient (in 1979 and 1980) of the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. His short story Light of Other Days was a Hugo Award nominee in 1967, as was his novel The Ragged Astronauts in 1987.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
December 5, 2010
Science-fiction writers often miss out on the credit they're due for correctly predicting the future, just because they got one niggling little detail wrong. No fan of hard SF should have been surprised by WikiLeaks: it was obvious that, sooner or later, technology was going to make it impossible to keep secrets. The only question was the nature of the technology used.
Well, T.L. Sherred probably got there first with his classic 1947 short E For Effort, and then there was Isaac Asimov in 1956 with The Dead Past. In both of these stories, people invent a gizmo ("time viewer" or "chronoscope" depending on the version), which allows you to view arbitrary scenes from the past. Of course, the past starts just a microsecond ago, so you can also see the present and spy on everyone. Both Sherred and Asimov see the government as grabbing the invention and using it for their nefarious ends.
Then, in this 1972 novel, Shaw comes up with a new method. The hero accidentally invents a form of glass which slows down light to a crawl. Light going in emerges days, months, or even years later. People quickly think up clever applications. You can have street-lights that don't need any power, just releasing at night the light that came in during the daytime. An industry springs up for slow glass picture windows. You put the sheet of glass in a scenic location, let it soak up several years of pretty views, and then sell it to city folks who are tired of looking at the parking lot.
Eventually, people realise that slow glass is the ultimate camera: no moving parts at all, so it can be microminiaturized and mass-produced at low cost. Yet another nefarious government sprays slow glass dust everywhere, so everyone is under constant surveillance wherever they are. Though, bizarrely, I think this turns out to be a Good Thing because it lets the hero leave his nasty wife and take up instead with his hot secretary. Well, it was the early 70s.
Anyway... for whatever reason, hardly anyone predicted the rise of the personal computer and the Internet, so they missed the obvious solution. No need to bend the laws of physics. Just make computers so cheap and easy to operate that everyone uses them to store all their sensitive information, then link them together in a fast network that allows a disgruntled employee to send a thousand pages worth of dirt around the world in a couple of seconds.
Amazing we didn't think of that. But honestly: does it matter? I think Sherred, Asimov and Shaw essentially figured it out before the rest of us even realised there might be a problem. A for alertness. And how come not one journalist this week has mentioned them?
Well, T.L. Sherred probably got there first with his classic 1947 short E For Effort, and then there was Isaac Asimov in 1956 with The Dead Past. In both of these stories, people invent a gizmo ("time viewer" or "chronoscope" depending on the version), which allows you to view arbitrary scenes from the past. Of course, the past starts just a microsecond ago, so you can also see the present and spy on everyone. Both Sherred and Asimov see the government as grabbing the invention and using it for their nefarious ends.
Then, in this 1972 novel, Shaw comes up with a new method. The hero accidentally invents a form of glass which slows down light to a crawl. Light going in emerges days, months, or even years later. People quickly think up clever applications. You can have street-lights that don't need any power, just releasing at night the light that came in during the daytime. An industry springs up for slow glass picture windows. You put the sheet of glass in a scenic location, let it soak up several years of pretty views, and then sell it to city folks who are tired of looking at the parking lot.
Eventually, people realise that slow glass is the ultimate camera: no moving parts at all, so it can be microminiaturized and mass-produced at low cost. Yet another nefarious government sprays slow glass dust everywhere, so everyone is under constant surveillance wherever they are. Though, bizarrely, I think this turns out to be a Good Thing because it lets the hero leave his nasty wife and take up instead with his hot secretary. Well, it was the early 70s.
Anyway... for whatever reason, hardly anyone predicted the rise of the personal computer and the Internet, so they missed the obvious solution. No need to bend the laws of physics. Just make computers so cheap and easy to operate that everyone uses them to store all their sensitive information, then link them together in a fast network that allows a disgruntled employee to send a thousand pages worth of dirt around the world in a couple of seconds.
Amazing we didn't think of that. But honestly: does it matter? I think Sherred, Asimov and Shaw essentially figured it out before the rest of us even realised there might be a problem. A for alertness. And how come not one journalist this week has mentioned them?
February 17, 2025
I have a feeling that with every Bob Shaw novel that I read, I will come away with a 3-star rating. Is it because Shaw constructs a hard-sf narrative with a brilliantly confounding idea that webs a global mystery with a speculative richness that betrays his juvenile delivery? Did a 16-year-old boy write this, or an aging man with a dusty engineering degree and a wife he wishes would die sooner than later? Could I really have read a book that feels like an episode of Dynasty or Falcon's Crest peaked with an earth-shattering technology such as 'slow glass', one of the most unique technologies to be put to the page in the 1960s (re: expanded from the short story, 'Light of Other Days', a sentimental classic of the genre)? And can you really empathize with a main character who treats everybody around him like a business call, and treats his rich wife with the disdainful marital disgust that Richard Burton and Liz Taylor embellished, and drained, as quickly as midday cocktails?
In the end, Bob Shaw must be in a class of his own. He's a breakneck read actually, relishes that big-dick, dirty-martini bravado of the old space opera, and he surely entertains while properly speculating future paranoia that feels like Big Brother has infiltrated the everyday glass in which we look through. Forensics will never be the same, nor will privacy. But at its climax, 'Other Days, Other Eyes' is a hot mess. At one point in the last pages, it goes into a mystery where a Senator was found incinerated in his car after a fishing trip in Maine, and then fumbles into a sub-story where our dubious hero, Alban Garrod, tries to leave his blind wife for a hot little number, Joan Sason, who so happens to be a secretary (complete with form-fitting scintillating spandex). Will he find true love in a world he had helped deep-six with his goddamn slow glass? Can an asshole truly find happiness when he turned a mistake into millions, and alter the world forever?
If you want to read of ill marriages, and how Alban Garrod is the worst husband under the sanctimony of marriage, then you will enjoy this slim novel. If you're going to get on ebay and drop $50 on a dog-eared copy of this, please be forewarned. The rarity of the novel doesn't equal its overall entertainment. At least to me. I'm glad I read this, no doubt about it, but I wonder how other UK authors would use the slow glass in their own fiction. Christopher Priest nearly achieved his own version of the glass with the novella, 'The Watched', in 1978. This story shows how paranoia, microscopic surveillances, and a bad relationship can transcend into far more haunting territories.
In the end, Bob Shaw must be in a class of his own. He's a breakneck read actually, relishes that big-dick, dirty-martini bravado of the old space opera, and he surely entertains while properly speculating future paranoia that feels like Big Brother has infiltrated the everyday glass in which we look through. Forensics will never be the same, nor will privacy. But at its climax, 'Other Days, Other Eyes' is a hot mess. At one point in the last pages, it goes into a mystery where a Senator was found incinerated in his car after a fishing trip in Maine, and then fumbles into a sub-story where our dubious hero, Alban Garrod, tries to leave his blind wife for a hot little number, Joan Sason, who so happens to be a secretary (complete with form-fitting scintillating spandex). Will he find true love in a world he had helped deep-six with his goddamn slow glass? Can an asshole truly find happiness when he turned a mistake into millions, and alter the world forever?
If you want to read of ill marriages, and how Alban Garrod is the worst husband under the sanctimony of marriage, then you will enjoy this slim novel. If you're going to get on ebay and drop $50 on a dog-eared copy of this, please be forewarned. The rarity of the novel doesn't equal its overall entertainment. At least to me. I'm glad I read this, no doubt about it, but I wonder how other UK authors would use the slow glass in their own fiction. Christopher Priest nearly achieved his own version of the glass with the novella, 'The Watched', in 1978. This story shows how paranoia, microscopic surveillances, and a bad relationship can transcend into far more haunting territories.
November 14, 2022
Well, so help me, there a re-read by me of one of my favourite novels by one of my favourite SF writers - the result being that I have bumped the book down from 5 stars to 4 stars. This is why I don't re-read books that give me fond memories.
Despite not adoring this novel quite as much as I did decades back, I assert that it's still quite impressive. As a 1970s version of worrying about surveillance culture becoming the norm, I have to say I recommend it as alarming prophecy done well...but I can undeniably assert that it actually inspired an even better book: The Light of Other Days, by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, which borrows its title from the Bob Shaw short story that got this all started, and which is dedicated to Bob Shaw. Similar book, more up to date, and less scattered in its approach.
(Incidentally, Arthur C. Clarke seems to have gone through a true Bob Shaw Appreciation phase, late in his writing career, because - even though I never got around to reading it - the book he did called The Trigger, co-authored this time with Michael P. Kube-McDowell, sounds like nothing more or less than another nod to a Bob Shaw book...Ground Zero Man (aka The Peace Machine). And it came out, I think, just after The Light of Other Days. I must get to The Trigger and see if my suspicions are correct...)
If I have concrete reasons for enjoying Other Days, Other Eyes just a teeny bit less than I did as a teenager, I would say (a) Bob Shaw has trouble with female characters (I don't mean to single him out; I would say this is one of the biggest problems on display from male SF authors, from, let's say, 1870 until at least 1995. And the worst period may well be 1930-1965, and we can't pick on Bob Shaw for that, because his books came later.). This problem spills right over into how the male characters behave around women, how often they get horny, and of course any scenes of intimacy or sex that crop up. This book is not a prime offender - would you like some suggestions? - but Bob Shaw definitely fails to avoid these problems.
And (b): this book reads like a fix-up novel, even if, officially, it ain't one. It is a novel inspired by a short story, the short story shows up within this longer version, and extending from that, all the chapters function as short stories, but linked. This is never going to be my favourite format in a novel, despite how though-provoking this book can be, as Shaw takes his "slow glass" concept and comes up with every idea, every angle, one could attach to slow glass.
So with the dust settling (the way slow glass could settle on everything and destroy all privacy), it is now clear to me that Orbitsville, and The Ragged Astronauts, are my favourite Bob Shaw novels, and the biggest reasons he is my favourite SF author. There are others by him, too, that are well worth a read...including this book.
Despite not adoring this novel quite as much as I did decades back, I assert that it's still quite impressive. As a 1970s version of worrying about surveillance culture becoming the norm, I have to say I recommend it as alarming prophecy done well...but I can undeniably assert that it actually inspired an even better book: The Light of Other Days, by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, which borrows its title from the Bob Shaw short story that got this all started, and which is dedicated to Bob Shaw. Similar book, more up to date, and less scattered in its approach.
(Incidentally, Arthur C. Clarke seems to have gone through a true Bob Shaw Appreciation phase, late in his writing career, because - even though I never got around to reading it - the book he did called The Trigger, co-authored this time with Michael P. Kube-McDowell, sounds like nothing more or less than another nod to a Bob Shaw book...Ground Zero Man (aka The Peace Machine). And it came out, I think, just after The Light of Other Days. I must get to The Trigger and see if my suspicions are correct...)
If I have concrete reasons for enjoying Other Days, Other Eyes just a teeny bit less than I did as a teenager, I would say (a) Bob Shaw has trouble with female characters (I don't mean to single him out; I would say this is one of the biggest problems on display from male SF authors, from, let's say, 1870 until at least 1995. And the worst period may well be 1930-1965, and we can't pick on Bob Shaw for that, because his books came later.). This problem spills right over into how the male characters behave around women, how often they get horny, and of course any scenes of intimacy or sex that crop up. This book is not a prime offender - would you like some suggestions? - but Bob Shaw definitely fails to avoid these problems.
And (b): this book reads like a fix-up novel, even if, officially, it ain't one. It is a novel inspired by a short story, the short story shows up within this longer version, and extending from that, all the chapters function as short stories, but linked. This is never going to be my favourite format in a novel, despite how though-provoking this book can be, as Shaw takes his "slow glass" concept and comes up with every idea, every angle, one could attach to slow glass.
So with the dust settling (the way slow glass could settle on everything and destroy all privacy), it is now clear to me that Orbitsville, and The Ragged Astronauts, are my favourite Bob Shaw novels, and the biggest reasons he is my favourite SF author. There are others by him, too, that are well worth a read...including this book.
July 7, 2024
Garrod hat eine Firma, die extrem widerstandsfähige Scheiben herstellt. Dank einiger Unfälle entdeckt er, dass die Scheiben das Licht bremsen. Bald hat er das "langsame Glas" so weiterentwickelt, das man die Zeit wählen kann, von Minuten bis Jahren.
An Bob Shaw schätze ich u.a., dass er starke, originelle Ideen hatte. Es ist ja ein klassisches SF-Ding: der Autor denkt sich eine originelle wissenschaftliche oder technische Idee aus, deren Konsequenzen er dann in allen Varianten durchspielt. Unzählige Stories und auch Roman funktioneren nach diesem Schema.
Doch die Charaktere sind auch nicht so unwichtig. Hauptfigur Gerrold ist ein sehr intelligenter Denker, doch er ist auch stark von seinen Gefühlen geleitet, gegen die er nicht ankommt. So ist er trotz des Riesenerfolges seiner Erfindung, die ihn zum Milliardär machte, lange unglücklich in einer toxischen Beziehung mit seiner Frau.
Der Schluss ist leider sehr verwurstelt und zieht den Gesamteindruck etwas runter. 3.5/5
An Bob Shaw schätze ich u.a., dass er starke, originelle Ideen hatte. Es ist ja ein klassisches SF-Ding: der Autor denkt sich eine originelle wissenschaftliche oder technische Idee aus, deren Konsequenzen er dann in allen Varianten durchspielt. Unzählige Stories und auch Roman funktioneren nach diesem Schema.
Doch die Charaktere sind auch nicht so unwichtig. Hauptfigur Gerrold ist ein sehr intelligenter Denker, doch er ist auch stark von seinen Gefühlen geleitet, gegen die er nicht ankommt. So ist er trotz des Riesenerfolges seiner Erfindung, die ihn zum Milliardär machte, lange unglücklich in einer toxischen Beziehung mit seiner Frau.
Der Schluss ist leider sehr verwurstelt und zieht den Gesamteindruck etwas runter. 3.5/5
June 20, 2015
Taip viskas detaliai tiksliai aprašyta, kad sukelia nuoširdu susižavėjimą. Retas, tikrai retas autorius taip detaliai apgalvoja ateities pasaulio viziją bei išradimo pasekmes visais aspektais.
Mast rid.
Mast rid.
July 8, 2015
No cabe duda que éste libro de ciencia ficción es UNA OBRA SINGULAR E INTERESANTE DE LEER PARA TODOS LOS AMANTES DEL GÉNERO, YA NO POR SU TEMÁTICA, QUE EN CIERTA PARTE ES ORIGINAL (el tema denuncia y mal uso de las invenciones humanas está presentes en otras novelas), SINO, ESPECIALMENTE, POR EL ENFOQUE Y ESTRUCTURA DE SU NARRATIVA ADEMÁS DE LA VARIEDAD DE GÉNEROS QUE CABE A LO LARGO DE SUS PÁGINAS.
‘Otros días, Otros Ojos’ nos presenta a Albon Garrod, un ingeniero y químico casado por conveniencia y sometido a un ‘matrimonio que financia’ sus desarrollos tecnológicos. No acaba de despegar en su carrera hasta que un día, por casualidad y mediante un par de accidentes, descubre que su invención del VIDRIO THERMGARD (fabricado en su factoría para coches Stileto 82’ y comprado posteriormente por el gobierno de EEUU para el campo de transporte Supersónico) AL ABSORBE LA LUZ TIENE UN RETRASO EN LA PROYECCIÓN DE LA IMAGEN, QUE MUESTRA A EL CONDUCTOR UNA DESINCRONIZACIÓN EN ESPACIO – TIEMPO (pasado con presente instantáneo; dos segundos).
A raíz de eso, Garrod decide investigar y perfeccionar la característica especial de VIDRIO LENTO, aumentando su retraso, intentando conseguir su aceleración de proyección de imagen y vendiendo algunas de las patentes secundarias de su descubrimiento - invención. TODO ELLO CONLLEVARÁ UN BUEN INTENCIONADO USO, EL MALO Y EL ABUSO DE ÉSTE DESARROLLO TECNOLÓGICO...como bien dicen: ‘ No existe arma peligrosa, sino el hombre que la lleva’.
A continuación os expongo las principales características del vidrio lento, para que os podáis hacer una mejor idea acerca de las consecuencias que puede desencadenar su uso:
EL VIDRIO THERMGARD (principales características)
- Es más duro que cualquiera inventado
- Refleja la energía en todas las longitudes de onda
- Sólo es atravesado por las longitudes de onda visible
- No da calor
- No se calienta ni pesa
- El Thermard afecta a la luz que lo atraviesa
- La fragmentación del vidrio es igualmente viable para su utilización
- La captación de onda y archivo de visualización se da en ambos lados del vidrio
La ESTRUCTURA NARRATIVA ALTERNA PASAJES DE LOS AVANCES CON EL VIDRIO LENTO POR PARTE DE GARROD, SUS PROBLEMAS PERSONALES Y MATRIMONIALES, CON TRES PARTES QUE CUENTAN HISTORIAS SOBRE EL ÚSO DE LA RETARDITA (nombre técnico del vidrio lento) EN ACCIÓN, PERFECTAMENTE INTERCONECTADOS ENTRE SÍ CON EL DESARROLLO DE LOS ACONTECIMIENTO POSTERIORES EN LA NOVELA. Aunque si bien, no dejan de ser relatos cortos, guardan un paralelismo y coherencia muy bien ideada, que no está pensada por el autor para ser desvinculada o leída por separado.
La puesta en práctica de la Retardita comenzará como visualizador satisfactorio para aquellos urbanitas que quieran suplir su decrepitud diaria con una buena vista (Ventapanorama), la cual desembocará en prueba irrefutable para un asesinato, para la cura visual de las personas y otros aspectos estéticos de la ciencia, la seguridad de las ciudades, mediante la instalación de éste elemento para prevenir del crimen...pero TODOS ÉSTOS USOS SON UN ARMA DE DOBLE FILO EN SUS UTILIZACIONES, PRIMERO LLEGANDO AL GRAN PÚBLICO Y SIENDO RECHAZADO DESPUÉS , con la creación popular de una liga específica en su contra. Shaw nos lleva a un final in crecendo, con una consecuencia mundial evidente de la utilización por parte de los gobiernos; con un epílogo plausible (pero algo blando) en cuanto a consecuencia (que no ejecución) en un futuro no lejano (me ha recordado en ciertos aspectos al genial relato ‘Ojo Privado’); de hecho, parte de ello ya está ocurriendo actualmente.
A lo largo de sus páginas nos ENCONTRAMOS CON VARIOS GÉNEROS DENTRO DE LA CIENCIA FICCIÓN, QUE ES CLARAMENTE EL PREPONDERANTE, COMO EL POLICÍACO, POLÍTICO, LA DENUNCIA SOCIAL y LA NARRATIVA DE NO FICCIÓN (en su gran radiografía de una relación de pareja desestructurada de raíz y un hombre pasivo y cobarde, destinado a la decadencia personal)
La narración es pausada (no tiene una gran acción pero si pasan cosas) a modo explicativo y con un detenimiento preciso, otorgando un peso científico y de radiografía social decadente importante en la globalidad de la obra. Dotado de un halo de enfoque particular e intimista, setentero de CRITICA, DENUNCIA, ENRARECIMIENTO Y DECREPITUD , pero en una vertiente más REALISTA QUE PESIMISTA (a diferencia de otros títulos de ésa década).
Si bien La ejecución y evolución del vidrio lento puede resultar ALGO IRREAL EN LA PRÁCTICA, para el lector actual, es en SU UTILIZACIÓN DONDE RADICA LA BRILLANTEZ CAUSA – EFECTO ARGUMENTAL.
Así pues, Una lectura RECOMENDABLE POR TENER UN TONO DIFERENTE Y UNA NARRACIÓN DIFERENCIADA Y PERSONAL DENTRO DEL MARCO DE LOS CLÁSICOS DE CIENCIA FICCIÓN, ADEMÁS DE RESULTAR UNA LECTURA DE DENUNCIA INTERESANTE AUNQUE NO NOVEDOSA.
‘Otros días, Otros Ojos’ nos presenta a Albon Garrod, un ingeniero y químico casado por conveniencia y sometido a un ‘matrimonio que financia’ sus desarrollos tecnológicos. No acaba de despegar en su carrera hasta que un día, por casualidad y mediante un par de accidentes, descubre que su invención del VIDRIO THERMGARD (fabricado en su factoría para coches Stileto 82’ y comprado posteriormente por el gobierno de EEUU para el campo de transporte Supersónico) AL ABSORBE LA LUZ TIENE UN RETRASO EN LA PROYECCIÓN DE LA IMAGEN, QUE MUESTRA A EL CONDUCTOR UNA DESINCRONIZACIÓN EN ESPACIO – TIEMPO (pasado con presente instantáneo; dos segundos).
A raíz de eso, Garrod decide investigar y perfeccionar la característica especial de VIDRIO LENTO, aumentando su retraso, intentando conseguir su aceleración de proyección de imagen y vendiendo algunas de las patentes secundarias de su descubrimiento - invención. TODO ELLO CONLLEVARÁ UN BUEN INTENCIONADO USO, EL MALO Y EL ABUSO DE ÉSTE DESARROLLO TECNOLÓGICO...como bien dicen: ‘ No existe arma peligrosa, sino el hombre que la lleva’.
A continuación os expongo las principales características del vidrio lento, para que os podáis hacer una mejor idea acerca de las consecuencias que puede desencadenar su uso:
EL VIDRIO THERMGARD (principales características)
- Es más duro que cualquiera inventado
- Refleja la energía en todas las longitudes de onda
- Sólo es atravesado por las longitudes de onda visible
- No da calor
- No se calienta ni pesa
- El Thermard afecta a la luz que lo atraviesa
- La fragmentación del vidrio es igualmente viable para su utilización
- La captación de onda y archivo de visualización se da en ambos lados del vidrio
La ESTRUCTURA NARRATIVA ALTERNA PASAJES DE LOS AVANCES CON EL VIDRIO LENTO POR PARTE DE GARROD, SUS PROBLEMAS PERSONALES Y MATRIMONIALES, CON TRES PARTES QUE CUENTAN HISTORIAS SOBRE EL ÚSO DE LA RETARDITA (nombre técnico del vidrio lento) EN ACCIÓN, PERFECTAMENTE INTERCONECTADOS ENTRE SÍ CON EL DESARROLLO DE LOS ACONTECIMIENTO POSTERIORES EN LA NOVELA. Aunque si bien, no dejan de ser relatos cortos, guardan un paralelismo y coherencia muy bien ideada, que no está pensada por el autor para ser desvinculada o leída por separado.
La puesta en práctica de la Retardita comenzará como visualizador satisfactorio para aquellos urbanitas que quieran suplir su decrepitud diaria con una buena vista (Ventapanorama), la cual desembocará en prueba irrefutable para un asesinato, para la cura visual de las personas y otros aspectos estéticos de la ciencia, la seguridad de las ciudades, mediante la instalación de éste elemento para prevenir del crimen...pero TODOS ÉSTOS USOS SON UN ARMA DE DOBLE FILO EN SUS UTILIZACIONES, PRIMERO LLEGANDO AL GRAN PÚBLICO Y SIENDO RECHAZADO DESPUÉS , con la creación popular de una liga específica en su contra. Shaw nos lleva a un final in crecendo, con una consecuencia mundial evidente de la utilización por parte de los gobiernos; con un epílogo plausible (pero algo blando) en cuanto a consecuencia (que no ejecución) en un futuro no lejano (me ha recordado en ciertos aspectos al genial relato ‘Ojo Privado’); de hecho, parte de ello ya está ocurriendo actualmente.
A lo largo de sus páginas nos ENCONTRAMOS CON VARIOS GÉNEROS DENTRO DE LA CIENCIA FICCIÓN, QUE ES CLARAMENTE EL PREPONDERANTE, COMO EL POLICÍACO, POLÍTICO, LA DENUNCIA SOCIAL y LA NARRATIVA DE NO FICCIÓN (en su gran radiografía de una relación de pareja desestructurada de raíz y un hombre pasivo y cobarde, destinado a la decadencia personal)
La narración es pausada (no tiene una gran acción pero si pasan cosas) a modo explicativo y con un detenimiento preciso, otorgando un peso científico y de radiografía social decadente importante en la globalidad de la obra. Dotado de un halo de enfoque particular e intimista, setentero de CRITICA, DENUNCIA, ENRARECIMIENTO Y DECREPITUD , pero en una vertiente más REALISTA QUE PESIMISTA (a diferencia de otros títulos de ésa década).
Si bien La ejecución y evolución del vidrio lento puede resultar ALGO IRREAL EN LA PRÁCTICA, para el lector actual, es en SU UTILIZACIÓN DONDE RADICA LA BRILLANTEZ CAUSA – EFECTO ARGUMENTAL.
Así pues, Una lectura RECOMENDABLE POR TENER UN TONO DIFERENTE Y UNA NARRACIÓN DIFERENCIADA Y PERSONAL DENTRO DEL MARCO DE LOS CLÁSICOS DE CIENCIA FICCIÓN, ADEMÁS DE RESULTAR UNA LECTURA DE DENUNCIA INTERESANTE AUNQUE NO NOVEDOSA.
March 11, 2015
The science-fictional device "beyond our science" may be of alien origin, or from some distant future. The real artists of the craft, though, defined a technology just one step beyond what we use today, and then asked how it would change our lives, our culture or our humanity.
Bob Shaw’s singular contribution to science fiction came in small packages. Shaw wrote many short stories (one, "Light of Other Days", is included in last year's Science Fiction 101, in print and Kindle), and a novel, Other Days, Other Eyes (alas, unavailable for Kindle), using this speculative technology. But these stories were no more about slow glass than Albert Camus’ The Plague (La Peste) is about Yersinia pestis.
The Technovelgy entry for slow glass gives a brief description of the “Bose-Einstein condensate” that forms slow glass, and its critical property:
From that concept, Shaw built a amazing sub-genre of “what-if” speculation. One story has a murder "witnessed" by slow glass; some years later it will divulge the shocking truth. When it does, will the murderer be the same person he once was, or will his long contemplation of the inevitable revelation have changed him?
Another tale dwells briefly on the contented married life of a man in the country, as seen by passers-by and brief visitors. But inside the cottage, a very different state of life is hidden by the outward display supplied by the slow glass. Superficially this is simply poignant, but underneath lies an allegory of the occult nature of every marriage.
The light that passed through Shaw’s slow glass illuminated (eventually) many facets of the human condition. What more ought we to ask of fiction, science or otherwise?
Bob Shaw’s singular contribution to science fiction came in small packages. Shaw wrote many short stories (one, "Light of Other Days", is included in last year's Science Fiction 101, in print and Kindle), and a novel, Other Days, Other Eyes (alas, unavailable for Kindle), using this speculative technology. But these stories were no more about slow glass than Albert Camus’ The Plague (La Peste) is about Yersinia pestis.
The Technovelgy entry for slow glass gives a brief description of the “Bose-Einstein condensate” that forms slow glass, and its critical property:
Bose-Einstein condensates are created when atoms are cooled to absolute zero; the atoms collapse into the lowest quantum state, producing a superfluid… Bose-Einstein condensates have optical densities such that the speed of light passing through the mass is extremely low—walking speed as opposed to its usual 186,000 miles per second.
From that concept, Shaw built a amazing sub-genre of “what-if” speculation. One story has a murder "witnessed" by slow glass; some years later it will divulge the shocking truth. When it does, will the murderer be the same person he once was, or will his long contemplation of the inevitable revelation have changed him?
Another tale dwells briefly on the contented married life of a man in the country, as seen by passers-by and brief visitors. But inside the cottage, a very different state of life is hidden by the outward display supplied by the slow glass. Superficially this is simply poignant, but underneath lies an allegory of the occult nature of every marriage.
The light that passed through Shaw’s slow glass illuminated (eventually) many facets of the human condition. What more ought we to ask of fiction, science or otherwise?
July 27, 2018
This book was written in 1972. A book I read and liked in my teens so I decided to re-read to see how it has survived the passage of time.
The concept behind the book is brilliant - a scientist invents a form of glass so dense that light can take years to pass through. With experimentation the project is commercialised to produce a new product "slow glass". Ten year slow glass windows, for example, can be set over a beautiful harbour or mountain view for a decade... storing the images for playback 10 years later. After 10 years the glass can be installed in household windows to playback that view for the next decade. The urban city dweller can have a decade of beautiful country views as the light makes its way through the glass
The concept is brilliant and unique. The book reads as a loose collection of short stories centred around the glass - murder mysteries played out years later through the slow glass windows...
In summary, the book still entertains. The concept remains unique and the sub-stories remain entertaining. One aspect that does stand out is the brevity of the story telling - the book is 160 pages and packs more into its covers than most modern 1000 page blockbusters. A short book that makes you think... much better than the inane verbiage of modern writers.
Bob Shaw had a story to tell (several actually) and managed it succinctly. If only modern writers had the same clarity of thought and story telling. Page count does not equate to originality or talent.
The concept behind the book is brilliant - a scientist invents a form of glass so dense that light can take years to pass through. With experimentation the project is commercialised to produce a new product "slow glass". Ten year slow glass windows, for example, can be set over a beautiful harbour or mountain view for a decade... storing the images for playback 10 years later. After 10 years the glass can be installed in household windows to playback that view for the next decade. The urban city dweller can have a decade of beautiful country views as the light makes its way through the glass
The concept is brilliant and unique. The book reads as a loose collection of short stories centred around the glass - murder mysteries played out years later through the slow glass windows...
In summary, the book still entertains. The concept remains unique and the sub-stories remain entertaining. One aspect that does stand out is the brevity of the story telling - the book is 160 pages and packs more into its covers than most modern 1000 page blockbusters. A short book that makes you think... much better than the inane verbiage of modern writers.
Bob Shaw had a story to tell (several actually) and managed it succinctly. If only modern writers had the same clarity of thought and story telling. Page count does not equate to originality or talent.
May 1, 2017
Other Days, Other Eyes is another of those 'forgotten' 70s science-fiction novels that I've been hunting down recently. This was one of Bob Shaw's sci-fi classics as it explored this new concept of 'slow glass', an innovative type of glass that could record and store events which take place before it, to reveal them months or years later. Slow glass manages to do this by slowing down the light that travels through it, and thus a whole industry emerges that uses this new level of technology, with its inventor, a character named Alban Garrod, quickly becoming rich and famous.
Yet with fame and wealth, comes a whole host of dangers that Garrod has to navigate, as the Government decides that it can use slow glass as a form of mass surveillance to spy on the public. Big Brother starts to get involved and the plot begins to thicken. I liked Other Days, Other Eyes as it utilised a technology that seems so simple, and demonstrates how in the wrong hands, it can become a force for the destruction of privacy everywhere. It's an interesting concept, but the book began to feel very rushed half-way through and went off on a couple of unnecessary tangents, instead of focusing on the main storyline which would have kept me more engaged towards the end. However, if you like sci-fi and Big Brother themes, you'll still enjoy it.
Yet with fame and wealth, comes a whole host of dangers that Garrod has to navigate, as the Government decides that it can use slow glass as a form of mass surveillance to spy on the public. Big Brother starts to get involved and the plot begins to thicken. I liked Other Days, Other Eyes as it utilised a technology that seems so simple, and demonstrates how in the wrong hands, it can become a force for the destruction of privacy everywhere. It's an interesting concept, but the book began to feel very rushed half-way through and went off on a couple of unnecessary tangents, instead of focusing on the main storyline which would have kept me more engaged towards the end. However, if you like sci-fi and Big Brother themes, you'll still enjoy it.
February 9, 2013
Is it an anthology, or a fix-up? Does it matter? Shaw came up with a simple idea which, in the hands of another author, may have resulted in one decent story. Shaw does more than that. He spends time thinking through the implications not for great pyrotechnical sci-fi effect but for ordinary people; the small differences that one thing, one invention can make to a life.
Shaw used to refer to these clever ideas and the development of them as 'the wee thinky bits' and learned to use them to great effect, as here where the human drama plays out against a background of one of the cleverest and simplest concepts in SF.
Shaw used to refer to these clever ideas and the development of them as 'the wee thinky bits' and learned to use them to great effect, as here where the human drama plays out against a background of one of the cleverest and simplest concepts in SF.
November 19, 2013
Occasionally you read a science fiction book that not only explores the future but holds up a dark mirror to our past. In a series of disturbing and thoughtful vignettes, Bob Shaw explores how the invention of slow glass, which alters light and enhances perception, effects both personal relationships and global privacy. Sadly the book is out of print, but is definitely worth hunting down.
April 28, 2024
#1 BOB SHAW - 5/5
Magnificent. The perfect ‚What if…?‘ book! What if there is a glass which shows the past?
Magnificent. The perfect ‚What if…?‘ book! What if there is a glass which shows the past?
Read
February 13, 2018At last year's Boring conference, a concrete enthusiast demonstrated a block which did some very strange things with light, and made me think of Bob Shaw's 'slow glass' - a crystal which lets light through, but only minutes or years after the event, so that you're left with a literal window on the past. This book features his original short stories on the theme, included as 'sidelights' in a short novel about the inventor of slow glass. Which serves largely to confirm that the short stories, or at least the first two, were much more satisfying - poignant vignettes using this one sort-of-plausible-sounding technology as a perfect reification of that human need to revisit the past, and of the way that need can trap us. Imagine if you could look at your wall and see the snows of yesteryear right there! And of course, to some extent you now can - there are all sorts of ways we're now closer to a slow glass world than we were when this was published in 1972, from catch-up TV and Facebook memories, through big HD screens with moving screensavers, to the ubiquity of tiny surveillance devices. That last one is particularly intriguing - in a manner recalling the way Bester or Niven worked through the social consequences of teleportation, Shaw does likewise with slow glass, and envisions meetings held in pitch darkness, where all high-flyers have to learn braille. Perfectly sound science fictional thinking, but nah, turns out we're not actually that fussed - we just got used to leaks, and saved the darkness for novelty restaurants. Beyond that, you have the usual charming errors for this era of SF - videophones but no mobiles - as well as some less charming ones, especially on the gender roles. Even for the time, the shrewish, suffocating, wilfully ignorant wife seems pretty retrograde, and as for the lowly but lovely worker the wealthy protagonist propositions repeatedly on a work call...I suspect that would have been winceworthy well before Weinstein. Not that the men have much more depth to them; in the novel, at least, they're all fairly interchangeable men's men from the school of B-movie business and/or science. But sod the people, it's those farms of slow windows drinking in the views that make this book, the panes of daylight replacing the electric light above the freeway. Plus, in my own little window on the past, I now finally have my own copy of one of the yellow Gollancz SF hardbacks!
April 21, 2018
Při úklidu knihovny jsem našel pár starých fanzinů - a jeden obsahoval právě knihu Jiné dny, jiné oči. A jelikož jsem nechtěl tahat nic těžkého, přečetl jsem to dneska během pár jízd tramvají a dalších zastávek.
Je to klasická oldschoolová SF, postavená na celkem normálním světě, do kterého vpadne bizarní nápad. A tím je "pomalé sklo". Sklo, kterým prochází světlo i třeba celé roky. Čili si můžete koupit nabité sklo, za kterým bude deset let šumět příboj a lítat rackové a svítit jim sluneční svit - a je celkem jedno, že bydlíte v zaplivané uličce. Samozřejmě, je dobré mít to sklo synchronizované s místním časem.
Má to ovšem jednu nevýhodu. To sklo funguje stále. A je oboustranné. Čili, až za deset let to sklo přestane fungovat a vy ho vyhodíte, může si ho někdo vzít a pak se vám dalších deset let dívat do ložnice. Takovýhle vynález má obrovskou cenu pro šmíráky, vyděrače a samozřejmě, i tajné služby. Jak žít ve světě, kde nepotřebujete k sledování mechanická zařízení - stačí vám jen malý kousek skla?
Nápad je vážně výborný. Takový až doctorwhovský, kdy něco obyčejného získává najednou nový a nebezpečný rozměr. Sama knížka už taková bomba není. Vznikal na základě Nebulou oceněné povídky (ta vyšla i česky a je z knihy to nejlepší), a v podstatě to není nic jiného, než série povídek vydávající se za román. Kromě té původní je tam ještě příběh soudce, který čeká pět let, než se prokáže, jestli měl pravdu (jo, to je nevýhoda těch skel - slouží sice jako perfektní svědek, ale nedají se přetáčet ani rychloposouvat) a zbytek je příběh vynálezce, který se v polovině románu mění v detektiva řešící různé záhady spojené s pomalým sklem. Není to špatné, ale nic převratného.
Trochu to táhne dolů romantická linka. Ta je vážně fascinující: Hlavní kladný hrdina se zde usiluje zbavit se své ženy, která (částečně) jeho vinou oslepla, aby si mohl nabrnknout mladší šťabajznu, protože mu žena nerozumí a svazuje ho a teď konečně poznal lásku. Vážně. Já vím, můj oblíbený Vance zachází s ženami ještě hůř, ale tam je to v pohodě, protože jeho hrdinové nejsou zrovna vzory morálních hodnot. Tohle už z dnešního hlediska fakt mlátí do očí... ale na druhou stranu, být to napsané dneska, tak to nemá 150 stránek ale tak 800, dvě třetiny knihy hrdinové probírají své emoce a za vším zlem stojí padouch silně připomínající Donalda T. proti kterému se na konci zvedne revolta mladých lidí. To už je ta odkopnutá žena vážně lepší..
Je to klasická oldschoolová SF, postavená na celkem normálním světě, do kterého vpadne bizarní nápad. A tím je "pomalé sklo". Sklo, kterým prochází světlo i třeba celé roky. Čili si můžete koupit nabité sklo, za kterým bude deset let šumět příboj a lítat rackové a svítit jim sluneční svit - a je celkem jedno, že bydlíte v zaplivané uličce. Samozřejmě, je dobré mít to sklo synchronizované s místním časem.
Má to ovšem jednu nevýhodu. To sklo funguje stále. A je oboustranné. Čili, až za deset let to sklo přestane fungovat a vy ho vyhodíte, může si ho někdo vzít a pak se vám dalších deset let dívat do ložnice. Takovýhle vynález má obrovskou cenu pro šmíráky, vyděrače a samozřejmě, i tajné služby. Jak žít ve světě, kde nepotřebujete k sledování mechanická zařízení - stačí vám jen malý kousek skla?
Nápad je vážně výborný. Takový až doctorwhovský, kdy něco obyčejného získává najednou nový a nebezpečný rozměr. Sama knížka už taková bomba není. Vznikal na základě Nebulou oceněné povídky (ta vyšla i česky a je z knihy to nejlepší), a v podstatě to není nic jiného, než série povídek vydávající se za román. Kromě té původní je tam ještě příběh soudce, který čeká pět let, než se prokáže, jestli měl pravdu (jo, to je nevýhoda těch skel - slouží sice jako perfektní svědek, ale nedají se přetáčet ani rychloposouvat) a zbytek je příběh vynálezce, který se v polovině románu mění v detektiva řešící různé záhady spojené s pomalým sklem. Není to špatné, ale nic převratného.
Trochu to táhne dolů romantická linka. Ta je vážně fascinující: Hlavní kladný hrdina se zde usiluje zbavit se své ženy, která (částečně) jeho vinou oslepla, aby si mohl nabrnknout mladší šťabajznu, protože mu žena nerozumí a svazuje ho a teď konečně poznal lásku. Vážně. Já vím, můj oblíbený Vance zachází s ženami ještě hůř, ale tam je to v pohodě, protože jeho hrdinové nejsou zrovna vzory morálních hodnot. Tohle už z dnešního hlediska fakt mlátí do očí... ale na druhou stranu, být to napsané dneska, tak to nemá 150 stránek ale tak 800, dvě třetiny knihy hrdinové probírají své emoce a za vším zlem stojí padouch silně připomínající Donalda T. proti kterému se na konci zvedne revolta mladých lidí. To už je ta odkopnutá žena vážně lepší..
July 2, 2010
Bob Shaw's story "Light of Other Days" (1966) is one of the great classics of science fiction. In a mere ten pages or so, it succeeded in introducing a brand-new concept to sf (a rarer even than many of us would like to think) while also generating a genuine and very poignant feeling of empathy for its central character (who is not its narrator). A squabbling couple are driving through the Scottish Highlands when they come across a slow-glass farm. Slow glass is a crystalline structure through which (to simplify) light passes very slowly; it can thus be used to observe past scenes. The "farmer" is allowing sheets of the stuff to absorb the light from the spectacular local countryside so that purchasers can take them home to watch those scenes over the months and years to come. As the couple haggle with each other, a young woman and an infant watch them from time to time from the farmhouse window. By story's end they discover that these are the farmer's wife and child, killed six years ago by a hit-and-run driver. The slow glass in his window is preserving for him the illusion that they're still alive. But for how much longer?
Shaw published two more slow-glass stories, both good though neither as powerful as the first: "Burden of Proof" (1967; a barbaric judge sentences a convicted murderer to die even though in five years the proof of the man's innocence may emerge on the far side of a pane of slow glass) and "A Dome of Many-Colored Glass" (1972; a sadistic Chinese official torments a prisoner by fixing to his eyes slow-glass modules containing footage of Western atrocities like My Lai). There was also a late and very different addendum to the corpus: "The Edge of Time" (1979), co-authored with Malcolm Harris and published in an anthology edited by yours truly, Aries 1. Here the conceit is that there are not one but two time dimensions, Presence and Change, and that what's really expanding in our expanding universe is the Change dimension. Serflike pilots take investigatory craft to the boundaries of this bubble, and flirt with the skin of the time so as to send back scientific data. One of these pilots, his instruments destroyed by sabotage, uses the onboard slow glass cunningly in order to plot his way home -- or so, at least, he thinks.
Back in those days, if you wrote a successful series of stories, the next thing you did was construct out of them a novel -- or a "fixup", as the Clute/Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction somewhat ungraciously called this mercenary literary form. Shaw's slow-glass fixup, Other Days, Other Eyes, was one of his clumsier efforts. The three primary stories are thrown in as interspersed "sidelights" and have nothing aside from slow glass in common with the rest of the plot, which sees Al Garrod, the inadvertent inventor of slow glass, transform himself into a plutocrat industrialist while developing new techniques to enhance the stuff's versatility and usefulness. In the process he must deal with his bitch wife, solve two pretty implausible murder mysteries (only one of which involves slow glass, finally bring a somewhat gauche and jejune extramarital romance to its consummation, and in general fill enough pages for the publishers to market this as a full-length novel. This framing material does take the opportunity to fix a few technical glitches with the original concept (such as explaining why light passing through the slow glass at an angle doesn't take perceptibly longer to reach the other side), but it almost entirely ducks until the very end the practical and ethical problems generated by the introduction of any widespread means of looking into the past -- the havoc of suddenly creating the ultimate surveillance society, as envisaged by Isaac Asimov in his 1956 novella "The Dead Past" and vastly expanded upon by Arthur C. Clarke and Steve Baxter in their 2000 novel The Light of Other Days. Towards the end of Other Days, Other Eyes there's a nod to this concern via occasional mention of a vigilante-style Privacy League, which runs around throwing bricks through slow-glass windows; but it's only in the final pages, when Garrod discovers the government has been spraying the entire nation with slow-glass dust so that no longer can anything at all be kept secret, that Shaw properly acknowledges the fell purposes to which his "invention" could be put.
There are occasional moments of high silliness. The bitch wife, who stupidly blinds herself by refusing to obey Garrod's instructions to make herself scarce from an experiment that's about to blow, is given a replacement form of sight in the form of (essentially) contact lenses made out of slow glass: this way she can see again, even if everything she sees is a day or two late. (Watching TV involves a ludicrously elaborate palaver in order to record the soundtrack and synchronize it with her watching.) But if that technique can be made to work, I hear you cry, why not simply make the lenses out of ordinary glass, so she could see everything in real time? It's not a question I can answer.
Shaw was rarely if ever a tedious writer, so the pages of Other Days, Other Eyes kept turning rapidly enough, but here he seems to be bored -- as if writing the fixup was not something he actually wanted to do, but undertook merely in order to keep agent, publisher and bank manager happy. I wonder if he had his tongue firmly in his cheek when writing about the slow-glass contact lenses; was he testing to see if his publisher would notice the illogicality? There's a surprisingly smutty sex scene that seems there primarily to keep the writer's interest from flagging, and here's the moment when Garrod has the flash of insight that enables him to solve the first of the two murder mysteries:
His knees felt loose, his heart had lapsed into an unsteady, lumping rhythm, and a chill extended downward from stomach to groin. In his head there was a pressure which rapidly built up to a peak and exploded in a kind of psychic orgasm. (p96)
It never happened to Ellery Queen quite like that, I'm pretty sure.
Shaw published two more slow-glass stories, both good though neither as powerful as the first: "Burden of Proof" (1967; a barbaric judge sentences a convicted murderer to die even though in five years the proof of the man's innocence may emerge on the far side of a pane of slow glass) and "A Dome of Many-Colored Glass" (1972; a sadistic Chinese official torments a prisoner by fixing to his eyes slow-glass modules containing footage of Western atrocities like My Lai). There was also a late and very different addendum to the corpus: "The Edge of Time" (1979), co-authored with Malcolm Harris and published in an anthology edited by yours truly, Aries 1. Here the conceit is that there are not one but two time dimensions, Presence and Change, and that what's really expanding in our expanding universe is the Change dimension. Serflike pilots take investigatory craft to the boundaries of this bubble, and flirt with the skin of the time so as to send back scientific data. One of these pilots, his instruments destroyed by sabotage, uses the onboard slow glass cunningly in order to plot his way home -- or so, at least, he thinks.
Back in those days, if you wrote a successful series of stories, the next thing you did was construct out of them a novel -- or a "fixup", as the Clute/Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction somewhat ungraciously called this mercenary literary form. Shaw's slow-glass fixup, Other Days, Other Eyes, was one of his clumsier efforts. The three primary stories are thrown in as interspersed "sidelights" and have nothing aside from slow glass in common with the rest of the plot, which sees Al Garrod, the inadvertent inventor of slow glass, transform himself into a plutocrat industrialist while developing new techniques to enhance the stuff's versatility and usefulness. In the process he must deal with his bitch wife, solve two pretty implausible murder mysteries (only one of which involves slow glass, finally bring a somewhat gauche and jejune extramarital romance to its consummation, and in general fill enough pages for the publishers to market this as a full-length novel. This framing material does take the opportunity to fix a few technical glitches with the original concept (such as explaining why light passing through the slow glass at an angle doesn't take perceptibly longer to reach the other side), but it almost entirely ducks until the very end the practical and ethical problems generated by the introduction of any widespread means of looking into the past -- the havoc of suddenly creating the ultimate surveillance society, as envisaged by Isaac Asimov in his 1956 novella "The Dead Past" and vastly expanded upon by Arthur C. Clarke and Steve Baxter in their 2000 novel The Light of Other Days. Towards the end of Other Days, Other Eyes there's a nod to this concern via occasional mention of a vigilante-style Privacy League, which runs around throwing bricks through slow-glass windows; but it's only in the final pages, when Garrod discovers the government has been spraying the entire nation with slow-glass dust so that no longer can anything at all be kept secret, that Shaw properly acknowledges the fell purposes to which his "invention" could be put.
There are occasional moments of high silliness. The bitch wife, who stupidly blinds herself by refusing to obey Garrod's instructions to make herself scarce from an experiment that's about to blow, is given a replacement form of sight in the form of (essentially) contact lenses made out of slow glass: this way she can see again, even if everything she sees is a day or two late. (Watching TV involves a ludicrously elaborate palaver in order to record the soundtrack and synchronize it with her watching.) But if that technique can be made to work, I hear you cry, why not simply make the lenses out of ordinary glass, so she could see everything in real time? It's not a question I can answer.
Shaw was rarely if ever a tedious writer, so the pages of Other Days, Other Eyes kept turning rapidly enough, but here he seems to be bored -- as if writing the fixup was not something he actually wanted to do, but undertook merely in order to keep agent, publisher and bank manager happy. I wonder if he had his tongue firmly in his cheek when writing about the slow-glass contact lenses; was he testing to see if his publisher would notice the illogicality? There's a surprisingly smutty sex scene that seems there primarily to keep the writer's interest from flagging, and here's the moment when Garrod has the flash of insight that enables him to solve the first of the two murder mysteries:
His knees felt loose, his heart had lapsed into an unsteady, lumping rhythm, and a chill extended downward from stomach to groin. In his head there was a pressure which rapidly built up to a peak and exploded in a kind of psychic orgasm. (p96)
It never happened to Ellery Queen quite like that, I'm pretty sure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 29, 2024
Alban Garrod wears many ties, he’s a scientist, inventor, billionaire businessman, amateur sleuth, but most of all he hates his wife, who only lives to torture him by making him watch TV with her. Garrod even got her those ‘soundbooks’ to get her into reading but she's not into it. Even when she goes blind as a result of Garrod’s slapshot lab safety protocols, she just wants to listen to the TV and have Garrod do audio description, just to rub it in his face. Isn't she the worst?! Wanting to spend time with her husband? Disgusting!
Besides the ridiculous subplot of Garrod’s failing marriage, this was a pretty strong case of ‘men chatting about problems’ SF, with a couple of detective fiction setpieces thrown in.
Heavy exposition can easily bore me to tears but Shaw managed to hold my attention throughout, partly because it turns out the question ‘what if glass could be slow?’ is genuinely fascinating. The workplace settings / concern with products (and most female characters being manipulative shrews) gave me PKD vibes, but with less paranoia, despite the focus on surveillance.
The short stories about some far-flung effect of slow glass made a nice reprieve from Garrod, who becomes increasingly insufferable on his quest to screw his colleague’s secretary. The POW forced to watch American atrocities through SG contact lenses was a pretty cool idea, I must say 👍
I've been wondering about the intersection of Crime with SFF and was glad to encounter it here. It worked pretty well, despite the ‘scientists would be the ultimate detectives if given the chance’ trope. Very cringe.
Shaw warns about the dangers of increased surveillance, which I'm guessing was becoming more of a thing in the 70s. Kudos and everything, altho he mostly does this through vague examples like ‘you wouldn't want the image of you and your wife on your wedding night to get out and be shown at other people's stag parties’. Also, I really didn't buy the honest billionaire turning against his own product because of its security issues, that loses Bob the prescience award in my mind.
Besides the ridiculous subplot of Garrod’s failing marriage, this was a pretty strong case of ‘men chatting about problems’ SF, with a couple of detective fiction setpieces thrown in.
Heavy exposition can easily bore me to tears but Shaw managed to hold my attention throughout, partly because it turns out the question ‘what if glass could be slow?’ is genuinely fascinating. The workplace settings / concern with products (and most female characters being manipulative shrews) gave me PKD vibes, but with less paranoia, despite the focus on surveillance.
The short stories about some far-flung effect of slow glass made a nice reprieve from Garrod, who becomes increasingly insufferable on his quest to screw his colleague’s secretary. The POW forced to watch American atrocities through SG contact lenses was a pretty cool idea, I must say 👍
I've been wondering about the intersection of Crime with SFF and was glad to encounter it here. It worked pretty well, despite the ‘scientists would be the ultimate detectives if given the chance’ trope. Very cringe.
Shaw warns about the dangers of increased surveillance, which I'm guessing was becoming more of a thing in the 70s. Kudos and everything, altho he mostly does this through vague examples like ‘you wouldn't want the image of you and your wife on your wedding night to get out and be shown at other people's stag parties’. Also, I really didn't buy the honest billionaire turning against his own product because of its security issues, that loses Bob the prescience award in my mind.
April 16, 2023
[Ace Books] (July 1972). SB. First Ace Printing. 186 Pages. Signed and inscribed by the author. Purchased from Cold Tonnage Books.
“…anybody, any agency, with the right equipment, can find out anything, about ANYBODY! This planet is one huge unblinking eye watching everything that moves on its surface…”
A prescient examination of the dire consequences of micro-technology enabling continuous, mass surveillance.
Subplots entailing murder and infidelity.
“…anybody, any agency, with the right equipment, can find out anything, about ANYBODY! This planet is one huge unblinking eye watching everything that moves on its surface…”
A prescient examination of the dire consequences of micro-technology enabling continuous, mass surveillance.
Subplots entailing murder and infidelity.
July 6, 2024
This book covers a lot of bases really well with just a few rough edges. The main plot manages to be engaging and cohesive while also walking through advancements of a specific technology and how it affects society. There are a few punchy side stories awkwardly stitched in, but they enrich more than they distract.
December 21, 2014
القصة قصيرة و هى من الخيال العلمى و ليس فى محتواها أحداث تذكر و لكن المثير فيها حقا هى فكرة أن الأحداث الماضية تبث خلال ما يسمى بالزجاج البطىء و هو أختراع ( خيالى)فكرته أن الضوء يمر ببطء خلال هذا الزجاج و يعرض مناظر حدثت منذ سنين فى صورة أحداث متصلة و متتالية عبر الزمن ,و أهم هذه المناظر التى عرضها هذا الزجاج هو صورة و حركة و حياة زوجة و أبن صانع الزجاج التى كانت قبل وفاتهم فى حادث طريق منذ 6 سنوات ماضية ! الفكرة فى أننا نستطيع الحياة فى الماضى من خلال النظر الى أحداث ماضية فى نافذةو ليس عن طريق صورة أو شاشة بل فى حالة أشبه ما يكون كحلم أو كشريط ذاكرة من أوضح ما يكون و غنى بكل التفاصيل هى الفكرة الرئيسية فى هذه القصةو هى تنقل لنا هذا الأحساس الغريب بأننا نكاد نشارك فى هذه الحياة الماضية مرة أخرى مع من نحب رغم مرور زمن على رحيلهم و هذا ما يجعل القصة مميزة
October 3, 2019
4 stars for creeping me out with it’s prescience. We don’t have slow glass, but we have cameras everywhere and social media pressuring us to relieve us of our own privacy for the edification of people who shouldn’t matter to us anyway.
Some bits of excellent writing, flashes of beautifully crafted sentences and images that will stay with me a while.
Sexist in the way that SFF in the 70s all seemed to be, but not jarring enough that it removed me from the story.
Sigh.
I really do need to get back to longer, better reviews.
Some bits of excellent writing, flashes of beautifully crafted sentences and images that will stay with me a while.
Sexist in the way that SFF in the 70s all seemed to be, but not jarring enough that it removed me from the story.
Sigh.
I really do need to get back to longer, better reviews.
July 19, 2024
Die Idee ist besser (und älter) als die Ausführung. Was die Parenthese meint (denn die sind immer interessanter/ominöser als der Satz, in dem sie intergriert sind): Das zentrale Konzept des Langsamglases ist eine Erfindung von Bob Shaw[1], jedoch nicht für den Roman, sondern für die in den Roman integrierte und ausgezeichnete Kurzgeschichte "Das Licht anderer Tage". Die Geschichte hat Shaw 1966 geschrieben, also sechs Jahre vor "Andere Tage, andere Augen". Zwei weitere Kurzgeschichten sind recht unmotiviert zwischen den Kapiteln des Romans integriert. Beide erschienen ebenfalls vorher gesondert, beide sind ebenfalls besser als der Rahmentext.
Literarisch bewegt sich "Andere Tage, andere Augen" zwischen heroischer Science-Fiction des Golden Age und der psychologisch feinfühligeren New Wave. Das ist ein großes Ärgernis, denn Shaw hat die beiden Traditionen nicht miteinander vermählt, sondern sie sich abwechseln lassen. In anderen Rezensionen auf Goodreads ist die Rede von einer Fix-up Novel. Dass ist ein Text, der aus verschiedenen, meistens schon veröffentlichten Geschichten kompiliert und so umgeschrieben wurde, dass er (mehr oder weniger) als geschlossener Roman funktioniert. Ich verstehe diesen Eindruck, teile ihn allerdings nicht. Vielmehr glaube ich, dass der zerhackstückelte Eindruck schlicht mangelnder Komposition geschuldet ist. Die Handlung entwickelt keinerlei Zug, weil sie von Episode zu Episode schlingert. Aber lasst mich das Pony nicht von hinten aufwickeln.
Alban Garrod hat durch walpolesche Serendipität das Langsamglas entdeckt. Das ist eine kristalline Struktur, die Licht verzögert durchlässt. Was sich heute hinter der Scheibe abspielt, ist erst morgen zu sehen. Geniale Idee, mit der sich in der Fiktion viel Geld verdienen lässt, und dass in der Science-Fiction viele Versuchsanordnungen ermöglicht. Langsamglas wird weiterentwickelt und findet natürlich moralisch fragwürdige Anwendungsmöglichkeiten. Der gläserne Mensch ist da. Für das Langsamglas interessiert sich "Andere Tage, andere Augen" nicht. Stattdessen erzählt er von kriminologischen und amorösen Abenteuern seines Erfinders (nein, nicht die fantastischen Abenteuer des Bob Shaw) und seiner furchtbaren Ehe zu seiner furchtbaren Ehefrau Esther Livingstone.
Shaw hat gewissermaßen einen hellsichtigen Roman geschrieben, wie er für die Science-Fiction nicht unüblich ist. Überwachungstechnologie ist allgegenwärtig, in verschwörerischen Köpfen sieht es wahrscheinlich ähnlich aus wie zum Ende des Romans. So viel Kontext muss sein. Langsamglas ist eine Erfindung der 1960er, die ihre Zeit überdauert hat. Was die Zeit nicht überdauert hat, ist ein genialer Milliardär, der von der Frau gequält, von der Polizei als Detektiv konsultiert und von der Affäre umworben wird.
Ich habe den Roman in der deutschen Neuübersetzung von Irene Bonhorst gelesen, 1996 im Heyne Verlag erschienen. Die erste Übersetzung von Tony Westermayr erschien 1974 als Augen der Vergangenheit im Goldmann Verlag. Die vorliegende Ausgabe ist eines der wenigen gebundenen Bücher der Reihe Heyne Science-fiction & Fantasy, illustriert von Zoltán Boros und Gábor Szikszai[2] und Vorwort von Herausgeber Wolfgang Jeschke. Schade, schade, dass nicht mehr und bessere Bücher dieselbe Behandlung erfahren haben.
[1]https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Shaw, Stand: 19.07.2024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Shaw, Stand: 19.07.2024
https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/sha..., Stand: 19.07.2024
[2]https://boros-szikszai.com/, Stand: 19.07.2024
Literarisch bewegt sich "Andere Tage, andere Augen" zwischen heroischer Science-Fiction des Golden Age und der psychologisch feinfühligeren New Wave. Das ist ein großes Ärgernis, denn Shaw hat die beiden Traditionen nicht miteinander vermählt, sondern sie sich abwechseln lassen. In anderen Rezensionen auf Goodreads ist die Rede von einer Fix-up Novel. Dass ist ein Text, der aus verschiedenen, meistens schon veröffentlichten Geschichten kompiliert und so umgeschrieben wurde, dass er (mehr oder weniger) als geschlossener Roman funktioniert. Ich verstehe diesen Eindruck, teile ihn allerdings nicht. Vielmehr glaube ich, dass der zerhackstückelte Eindruck schlicht mangelnder Komposition geschuldet ist. Die Handlung entwickelt keinerlei Zug, weil sie von Episode zu Episode schlingert. Aber lasst mich das Pony nicht von hinten aufwickeln.
Alban Garrod hat durch walpolesche Serendipität das Langsamglas entdeckt. Das ist eine kristalline Struktur, die Licht verzögert durchlässt. Was sich heute hinter der Scheibe abspielt, ist erst morgen zu sehen. Geniale Idee, mit der sich in der Fiktion viel Geld verdienen lässt, und dass in der Science-Fiction viele Versuchsanordnungen ermöglicht. Langsamglas wird weiterentwickelt und findet natürlich moralisch fragwürdige Anwendungsmöglichkeiten. Der gläserne Mensch ist da. Für das Langsamglas interessiert sich "Andere Tage, andere Augen" nicht. Stattdessen erzählt er von kriminologischen und amorösen Abenteuern seines Erfinders (nein, nicht die fantastischen Abenteuer des Bob Shaw) und seiner furchtbaren Ehe zu seiner furchtbaren Ehefrau Esther Livingstone.
Shaw hat gewissermaßen einen hellsichtigen Roman geschrieben, wie er für die Science-Fiction nicht unüblich ist. Überwachungstechnologie ist allgegenwärtig, in verschwörerischen Köpfen sieht es wahrscheinlich ähnlich aus wie zum Ende des Romans. So viel Kontext muss sein. Langsamglas ist eine Erfindung der 1960er, die ihre Zeit überdauert hat. Was die Zeit nicht überdauert hat, ist ein genialer Milliardär, der von der Frau gequält, von der Polizei als Detektiv konsultiert und von der Affäre umworben wird.
Ich habe den Roman in der deutschen Neuübersetzung von Irene Bonhorst gelesen, 1996 im Heyne Verlag erschienen. Die erste Übersetzung von Tony Westermayr erschien 1974 als Augen der Vergangenheit im Goldmann Verlag. Die vorliegende Ausgabe ist eines der wenigen gebundenen Bücher der Reihe Heyne Science-fiction & Fantasy, illustriert von Zoltán Boros und Gábor Szikszai[2] und Vorwort von Herausgeber Wolfgang Jeschke. Schade, schade, dass nicht mehr und bessere Bücher dieselbe Behandlung erfahren haben.
[1]https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Shaw, Stand: 19.07.2024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Shaw, Stand: 19.07.2024
https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/sha..., Stand: 19.07.2024
[2]https://boros-szikszai.com/, Stand: 19.07.2024
March 21, 2025
Reseña de Otros días, otros ojos – Bob Shaw
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5)
Otros días, otros ojos (1972) de Bob Shaw es una novela de ciencia ficción que explora un concepto fascinante: el "vidrio lento", un material especial que permite que la luz lo atraviese a una velocidad extremadamente baja, reteniendo imágenes durante años antes de liberarlas. A través de esta idea, Shaw construye una historia que mezcla la especulación científica con un análisis profundo de la percepción, la memoria y las implicaciones sociales de esta tecnología.
La novela sigue a Alban Garrod, un científico que juega un papel clave en el desarrollo del vidrio lento, y a los diversos personajes que interactúan con esta invención a lo largo de los años. En lugar de una trama lineal llena de acción, Shaw nos presenta un enfoque más reflexivo, explorando cómo el vidrio lento transforma la privacidad, las relaciones humanas y hasta la manera en que las personas experimentan el tiempo.
Uno de los puntos más fuertes del libro es la manera en que toma un concepto aparentemente simple y lo desarrolla de manera lógica y sorprendente. La idea del vidrio lento no solo tiene aplicaciones científicas interesantes, sino que también plantea cuestiones filosóficas y emocionales sobre la naturaleza del recuerdo y la realidad. Shaw maneja estos temas con elegancia, sin caer en explicaciones excesivamente técnicas.
Sin embargo, la novela no está exenta de fallos. La historia puede sentirse fragmentada en algunos momentos, con episodios que funcionan más como relatos cortos conectados por el concepto central que como una trama cohesiva. Además, los personajes, aunque bien construidos, no siempre tienen el desarrollo emocional necesario para que el lector se involucre profundamente con ellos.
A pesar de estos detalles, Otros días, otros ojos es una obra de ciencia ficción original y evocadora, que deja al lector reflexionando sobre el paso del tiempo y la manera en que percibimos la realidad. Recomendado para quienes disfrutan de la ciencia ficción más especulativa e intelectual.
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5)
Otros días, otros ojos (1972) de Bob Shaw es una novela de ciencia ficción que explora un concepto fascinante: el "vidrio lento", un material especial que permite que la luz lo atraviese a una velocidad extremadamente baja, reteniendo imágenes durante años antes de liberarlas. A través de esta idea, Shaw construye una historia que mezcla la especulación científica con un análisis profundo de la percepción, la memoria y las implicaciones sociales de esta tecnología.
La novela sigue a Alban Garrod, un científico que juega un papel clave en el desarrollo del vidrio lento, y a los diversos personajes que interactúan con esta invención a lo largo de los años. En lugar de una trama lineal llena de acción, Shaw nos presenta un enfoque más reflexivo, explorando cómo el vidrio lento transforma la privacidad, las relaciones humanas y hasta la manera en que las personas experimentan el tiempo.
Uno de los puntos más fuertes del libro es la manera en que toma un concepto aparentemente simple y lo desarrolla de manera lógica y sorprendente. La idea del vidrio lento no solo tiene aplicaciones científicas interesantes, sino que también plantea cuestiones filosóficas y emocionales sobre la naturaleza del recuerdo y la realidad. Shaw maneja estos temas con elegancia, sin caer en explicaciones excesivamente técnicas.
Sin embargo, la novela no está exenta de fallos. La historia puede sentirse fragmentada en algunos momentos, con episodios que funcionan más como relatos cortos conectados por el concepto central que como una trama cohesiva. Además, los personajes, aunque bien construidos, no siempre tienen el desarrollo emocional necesario para que el lector se involucre profundamente con ellos.
A pesar de estos detalles, Otros días, otros ojos es una obra de ciencia ficción original y evocadora, que deja al lector reflexionando sobre el paso del tiempo y la manera en que percibimos la realidad. Recomendado para quienes disfrutan de la ciencia ficción más especulativa e intelectual.
December 31, 2024
Very easy to read book. It is definitely of its time. I find the sf books that depict their near future and now our past will be most vulnerable to this. It definitely reads and feels like a 70s paranoia movie. So the story follows the inventor of a glass that can store light, and play the image back later, they call it slow glass. Through a few, you could almost call short stories, mixed in through the overarching main character story, Shaw introduces ways in which the glass can be used and how it affects society.
Some are pretty on point, with the negative reaction to the spying capabilities similar to how the UK are protesting and damaging cameras. A cool one is how glass built with a 10 hr delay, can act as streelights absorbing the days light and giving it off during the night. However, our advancement in computing, data storage, internet etc. makes some of the uses fall flat. And even with our modern technology having the same or better capabilities than some of the worrisome uses of the slow glass, it hasn't been as big of a deal as he made it to be in the book.
Also throughout the book you deal with the MCs relationship with his wife he dislikes and this other woman he desires. That part didn't really add much to the story for me.
Some are pretty on point, with the negative reaction to the spying capabilities similar to how the UK are protesting and damaging cameras. A cool one is how glass built with a 10 hr delay, can act as streelights absorbing the days light and giving it off during the night. However, our advancement in computing, data storage, internet etc. makes some of the uses fall flat. And even with our modern technology having the same or better capabilities than some of the worrisome uses of the slow glass, it hasn't been as big of a deal as he made it to be in the book.
Also throughout the book you deal with the MCs relationship with his wife he dislikes and this other woman he desires. That part didn't really add much to the story for me.
November 23, 2023
This early 1970s SF novel tells of scientist and amateur sleuth Alban Garrod, who invents a type of glass that can store images and release them days, months or even years later. It becomes known as Slow Glass or Retardite. And it makes him a billionaire.
But the rapid developments in slow glass lead to some uncomfortable realities about surveillance and saying by the government on its own citizens. Garrod also struggles with his love life, ah pity the poor unhappy billionaire!
Shaw’s short novel is well written but it didn’t blow me away. The idea at its core is novel but it’s a very “1970s” worldview, especially in its depiction of women. Garrod, in a loveless marriage, seems unable to free himself from both his wife and the increasing misuse of his invention.
Along the way there are a couple of crimes that he helps to solve with the use of the unique properties of slow glass - nobody can ever get away with anything in this future. Big Brother made manifest. Indeed the ending makes this very explicit.
It’s a good book and well worth a read. Bob Shaw is an interesting writer and I’ll be seeking out his other works.
But the rapid developments in slow glass lead to some uncomfortable realities about surveillance and saying by the government on its own citizens. Garrod also struggles with his love life, ah pity the poor unhappy billionaire!
Shaw’s short novel is well written but it didn’t blow me away. The idea at its core is novel but it’s a very “1970s” worldview, especially in its depiction of women. Garrod, in a loveless marriage, seems unable to free himself from both his wife and the increasing misuse of his invention.
Along the way there are a couple of crimes that he helps to solve with the use of the unique properties of slow glass - nobody can ever get away with anything in this future. Big Brother made manifest. Indeed the ending makes this very explicit.
It’s a good book and well worth a read. Bob Shaw is an interesting writer and I’ll be seeking out his other works.
March 2, 2025
This novel succeeds admirably in creating a believable world changed thanks to the discovery of ‘slow glass’, a form of glass that slows the passage of light. The potential of this great idea is almost fully realised, with the ‘Sidelight’ chapters in particular essentially offering speculative short stories within the world of the novel - a man uses slow glass to live forever in the past following the death of his wife and child, a judge awaits the slow glass evidence confirmation of his decision to execute a murderer, the use of slow glass contact lenses to torture POWs. Loads of great ideas here - including the ending, where it is revealed that the government has been spraying microscopic drops of slow glass over the landscape as a means of surveillance; the contemporary relevance of these themes is obvious. The one downside is that it does feel a little disjointed at times - the elliptical narrative, following slow glass inventor Garrod, does tend to jump from one idea to another, and the romance plot is quite contrived.
September 14, 2023
Alban Garrod is the inventor/discoverer of slow glass which takes light sometimes years to travel through. In this fix-up novel based around Bob Shaw’s three seminal short stories, we get the origin tale and a couple of murder mysteries, solved by Garrod using his scientific nous. But Garrod’s wife, daughter of wealth, is unhappy at the change in Garrod when his discovery finds him financially independent of her, and Garrod too is distracted by another woman. The test of his mettle comes when his wife Esther is blinded by a military application of slow glass that he blames himself for, and Esther takes full advantage of it using emotional blackmail. His misplaced guilt and his emotional weakness are the basis of an unhappy ensuing marriage, but the true catastrophe is unfolding before his unseeing eyes with a covert surveillance using slow glass of unprecedented proportions. A bit of a mixed bag but pretty readable.
November 26, 2022
This novel was first published in 1972, fifty years ago and I must have originally read it in the 80s. Fond memories brought me back to it and I wasn't disappointed. The writing is excellent, even if the story is a little disjointed, as though it were written as a series of short stories and patched together, which apparently it was. However, as I said, Bob Shaw was an excellent writer and I will be tracking down more of his works. The story revolves around Alban Garrod, a scientist and amateur detective, who invents a new glass that allows light to pass only very slowly through it. The images only appear days, months or even years later. There are all kinds of applications for this invention, and all kinds of problems created as a result. A duplicitous government, a manipulative wife, a mysterious lover. A great story. A little dated now, but a prescient one.
August 12, 2020
My appreciation for Bob Shaw is growing.
Second book of his I've read that deal with optics, blindness and vision. Alban Garrod is a scientist that discovered some sort of glass that delays the passage of visible radiation through it. A series of intertwined plots regarding the glass properties applied to criminal cases, and the main character's struggle to free himself from the shackles of a marriage for convenience are well narrated in this slim tome.
The bonus: Jane Wason. Gosh, I want more of her.
Second book of his I've read that deal with optics, blindness and vision. Alban Garrod is a scientist that discovered some sort of glass that delays the passage of visible radiation through it. A series of intertwined plots regarding the glass properties applied to criminal cases, and the main character's struggle to free himself from the shackles of a marriage for convenience are well narrated in this slim tome.
The bonus: Jane Wason. Gosh, I want more of her.
Want to read
November 2, 2021El "vidrio lento" es un cristal que absorbe poco a poco la luz de los sucesos que ocurren delante de él, los cuales resultan visibles meses o años después.
A partir de esta idea, Bob Shaw construye una excelente y a la vez original novela. La profética visión de lo que podría ser un invento de estas características y la problemática social de su uso, desde el crimen casi perfecto hasta la verificación por parte de la justicia al cabo de cinco años- hacen de esta novela una obra maestra de ciencia ficción en el mas puro sentido de la palabrA
A partir de esta idea, Bob Shaw construye una excelente y a la vez original novela. La profética visión de lo que podría ser un invento de estas características y la problemática social de su uso, desde el crimen casi perfecto hasta la verificación por parte de la justicia al cabo de cinco años- hacen de esta novela una obra maestra de ciencia ficción en el mas puro sentido de la palabrA
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 17, 2025
I thought that this was a well developed, clever story that felt so relevant to the our contemporary times that I was amazed it was written in 1972. The “hard” sci fi piece of the story was intriguing and it was coupled with some strong character development. I thought the “twist” at the end was well done too. My biggest criticism is that the romance was pretty ham fisted and unnatural and I didn’t like the characterization of Jane. Other than that, this is a solid book to check out for sci-fi fans!
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