O.B.I.T." is an episode of the original Outer Limits TV show (aired 4 November 1963) which included a device that allowed viewing of ongoing current events. The story's title is derived from Thomas Moore's poem "Oft, in the Stilly Night", which is quoted within the story. When the world discovers how and when it will end, the decline of humanity begins immediately. Most people become nothing more than animals seeking hedonistic pleasures, as if they believed they were going to die that day. But one fellow keeps his wits about him and continues to invent. His greatest invention, the worm cam, alters the trajectory of humanity as much as the impending natural disaster.

David - Hiram's first son. Was left behind and ignored by age 5 because he and his mom are Catholic and Hiram doesn't like that. Works for Hiram anyway. Then WormCams are made to work across time as well as space. Humanity encounters itself in the light of other days. We witness the life of Jesus, go to the premiere of Hamlet, solve the enigmas that have baffled generations. Blood spilled centuries ago flows vividly once more – and no personal treachery or shame can be concealed.

My Book Notes

OurWorld's campus turned out to be a carpet of neat grass quadrangles separating three-story office buildings, fat, top-heavy boxes of blue glass held up by skinny little beams of reinforced concrete. It was ugly and quaint, 1990s corporate chic. The bottom story of each building was an open car lot, in one of which her car had parked itself. Kate found it impossible not to join in. I wonder where this will lead, she thought. Surely the possibilities of this new technology—based, after all, on the manipulation of space and time themselves—would not prove limited to simple data transfer. She sensed that nothing would be the same, ever again. Of course. You don't think he was going to leave this to chance, did you? My father is a showman. But you can't begrudge the man his moment of glory." Creative Sterility: It's mentioned a few times that neuroscience has advanced to the point where neural reprogramming has become commonplace for people with mental illnesses (including addictions and compulsive behavior), as well as people convicted of crimes. Kate points out that this reprogramming is killing human creativity, and artistic achievement is rapidly vanishing. This, however, is apparently a minority opinion. Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Justified in this case. The invention of Wormcam makes surveillance possible on anything, anywhere, including retroactively. If you want to observe something, you can.

A little after dawn, Vitaly Keldysh climbed stiffly into his car, engaged the SmartDrive, and let the car sweep him away from the run-down hotel. In the opening lines of the poem, the narrator describes how frequently, in the still of the night, he lies down in bed and is overcome with both happy and sad memories of the past. Before he drifts off to sleep, he reminisces about the past and the times that are no longer with us. At first, the speaker is filled with fleeting happiness as he recalls happy times from his past, complete with laughter, tears, and boundless enthusiasm from his younger years. But the speaker’s overwhelming sense of loneliness soon turns those “fond memories” bitter. This is the point at which the poet realises that his youth, his friends, and the time and energy he spent sharing his love with those who have passed on are all in the past. And then, all at once, the “fond memories” turn tragic. Ilmselt kõlab senise kirjelduse alusel päris masendava teosena? Ehk palju autoripoolset monoloogi ja kõhnavõitu karakterid? Tegelikult mitte sinnapoolegi! ”Kaugete päevade valgus” on üks paremaid SF romaane, mida ma sel aastal lugenud olen. Ideed on tõesti haaravad ja huvitavad ja need annavad inspiratsiooni ning mõtisklusteks kütust veel päris pikalt peale lugemise lõpetamist. Vähemalt minule Baxteri visioonid ja mõtted istusid, oleksin tahtnud sel maailmas kauemgi olla ja rohkem asjadest teada saada. Seega lõpp oli mulle natuke liiga kiire, alles jõuti transhumanismi reele hüpata ja üks väga sellealane põnev idee välja käia, kui juba oligi läbi. Finally there are the bizarre, historical digressions that occur in the story that don't support the plot and barely touch most of the characters in any form. In addition there is a long homage to Olaf Stapledon's "First and Last Man" which when I read it over forty years ago was fairly dated, which once again has no bearing on plot, the invention, or characters.

Check-In

Collaborations between authors are tough, I can only think of Niven and Pournelle along with Nordhoff and Hall that wrote better books together rather than individually. I'm not sure how much of this book's flaws can be chalked up to this. However I'm not planning on reading any of the other collaborations that they did together. He seemed puzzled—as if he'd never received such a hesitant response before. "Is there a problem? If you want I can—" Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2020-09-11 19:26:08 Associated-names Baxter, Stephen Boxid IA1927521 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier David Curzon is Hiram's son from his first marriage and Bobby's half-brother. His first name is derived from the Biblical character, David, who was once the king of Israel. David's research leads to the development of the WormCam and many of its subsequent advances.

Hiram Patterson is the father of Bobby Patterson and David Curzon, and the founder and CEO of the fictional company OurWorld. His first name in Hebrew means "high-bred" which denotes his high status. The success of the WormCam and the SmartShroud (which makes objects invisible, thus undetectable by the WormCam) is only the tip of the iceberg for him; he plans to use wormholes to extract energy from the Earth and the stars themselves to monopolise the energy industry. As the main antagonist, Hiram seems to be the personification of a misanthropic view of humanity – greedy, Machiavellian, and entirely self-serving. He manipulates the main characters starting in the first chapter: Bobby is given a brain implant at an early age so that he can be controlled; David receives a superb education so that he may be useful in the future; and, in an effort to further assert his control over Bobby, Kate is framed for allegedly stealing information from a competing company. His professed love for Bobby is in fact just a ploy to mould him into the perfect heir. I don't think I'd say that. What I see is a man with a new gadget. Hiram, do you really believe a gadget can change the world?"Kate Manzoni is a journalist who is credited with breaking the story of the "Wormwood Discovery". First detected by a group of amateur astronomers, the Wormwood is a supermassive asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth, projected to arrive in approximately five hundred years with potentially cataclysmic consequences. News of the Wormwood has profound impacts on the world's political and social climate, coinciding with those brought on by advances in WormCam technology. Kate falls in love with Hiram's son Bobby and assists him in breaking free of his father's manipulation, while inadvertently allowing herself to be manipulated by Hiram. Misplaced Retribution: May Wilson's agenda against Hiram is so convoluted that describing it is an exercise in spaghetti logic. To wit: years ago, her son was murdered, and her husband was convicted and executed for the crime. When the Wormcam became available, it was discovered that May's daughter had actually committed the murder and she's subsequently executed as well. Having now lost her entire family, and utterly destroyed by the process, she blames Wormcam for revealing the truth and blames Hiram for inventing it. Blames him so thoroughly, in fact, that she's determined to kill him in revenge. Clones Are People, Too: Wormcam proves that Bobby is actually a clone of Hiram, not his son. Bobby created him as a crude bid for immortality. Then, when the technology became available to interface minds, apparently changed his plan to actually transfer his mind into Bobby's body. Bobby caught Kate's eye. He mimed vomiting with a splayed hand, and she had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing.