From: potter@csusac.ecs.csus.edu (Carl Kolchak)
Subject: "slow glass" / Bob Shaw / "THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS."
Followup-To: .alt.dev.null
Summary:  an easy one!
Keywords: nice view!
Organization: INS, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 05:13:11 GMT

Steve Alexander asked:

> From: stevena@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Alexander)
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
> Subject: "slow glass": story reference sought
> Date: 27 Jul 92 01:24:11 GMT
> Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
> 
> The story I'm looking for concerns "slow glass" which transmits
> light orders of magnitude more slowly than ordinary glass (but
> light emerges at the ordinary rate).  Thus, it could be placed
> in a scenic locale for a while, then rented out as a pseudo
> scenic window, providing realistic -- or real -- views.  This
> glass, or access to the scenic places, comes to be sold for dear
> prices to the poor, who at first got to enjoy their cramped flats
> more than before the discovery or invention of slow glass.
> 
> I read this story in some collection well over 15 years ago.
> 
> I had thought the story's name was "Through a Glass, Darkly"
> and found a Zenna Henderson story called "Through a Glass -
> Darkly" but that wasn't it.
> 
> Thanks for any help.  Of course, email would be best, with summaries
> if enough others are interested.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 I tried E-mail, and for some reason it bounced... so here it is.
  
 "THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS" by Bob Shaw.   It first appeared in "ANALOG."
 There was a sequel, whose title I can't recall, but you can find the
 listing in the Ashley Index under Shaw's name.  I believe it was 
 reprinted in one or more of the ANALOG annuals, and several short-
 story collections.   Both stories appeared in the sixties (?).
 
 Incidentally, Shaw had planned a whole series of these stories, and
 only wrote two before someone pointed out that the ultrasonic 
 "eraser" he described would release all the stored energy at once,
 making the windows in a neighborhood into a huge batch of bombs, 
 if someone stood on a street corner waving an ultrasonic projector
 around.   Campbell bridled and stopped buying the yarns. 
 (I wrote in a note, pointing out that the ultrasonic beam could 
 just as easily have been described as "erasing" the information in
 the windows by altering the crystal structure to allow "sideways
 leakage," resulting in a white-light output, rather than an 
 instantaneous release, but JWC sent BACK a note saying I was 
 reaching too hard, and Shaw had a novel under weigh anyway.)
 
 Good stories, great ideas.   (Like:  You buy a picture window
 that's been sitting in Muir Woods for eight years, and get a 
 lovely view for eight years.... and during that time, everything
 you do in your living room is being stored in the window, and 
 anyone can tote it off, hang it on a wall, and *watch* you 
 for eight years......... )

-- 
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