{"id":4672,"date":"2022-06-30T17:58:29","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T17:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=4672"},"modified":"2022-06-30T17:58:34","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T17:58:34","slug":"light-of-other-days-by-bob-shaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=4672","title":{"rendered":"Light of Other Days by Bob Shaw"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Light of Other Days<\/em><\/strong> by Bob Shaw (Analog<\/em>, August 1966) begins with Garland and his pregnant wife, Selina, driving in the West of Scotland when they see a sign: \u201cSLOW GLASS\u2014Quality High, Prices Low\u201d. Garland stops to inquire, much to the irritation of his wife (she is pregnant, neither of them are pleased about the matter, and it is causing significant friction between them).
After the couple go up the path to find the owner, they come to a cottage where they see the proprietor of the slow glass farm, Hagan, sitting on a wall. They also see, through the cottage window, a young woman holding a small boy. Hagan doesn\u2019t invite the pair inside, but instead brings out a blanket so they can sit on the wall beside him.
Hagan then talks to them about the slow glass he has for sale\u201410 year in-phase material which has a view of the spectacular landscape in front of them, and which costs \u00a3200 for a four foot window. Garland is impressed by the 10 year specification, but the price is not as cheap as he hoped. Meanwhile, his wife Selina is shocked at the cost:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t understand, darling,\u201d I said, already determined to buy.
\u201cThis glass will last ten years and it\u2019s in phase.\u201d
\u201cDoesn\u2019t that only mean it keeps time?\u201d
Hagan smiled at her again, realizing he had no further necessity to bother with me. \u201cOnly, you say! Pardon me, Mrs. Garland, but you don\u2019t seem to appreciate the miracle, the genuine honest-to-goodness miracle, of engineering precision needed to produce a piece of glass in phase. When I say the glass is ten years thick it means it takes light ten years to pass through it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When Hagan\u2019s explanation about the time delaying properties of slow glass suddenly tails off, Garland looks away from the view he is buying and sees that Hagan is looking at the young woman and child, who have once again appeared in the window but seem to be paying no attention to what is going on outside.
After a few more clues are dropped (spoiler), the story resolves when Hagan goes to get a pane of slow glass for the couple. Selina takes the rug back into the cottage and\u2014before Garland can stop her from going in\u2014they discover the inside of the cottage is \u201cdamp, stinking, and utterly deserted\u201d. There is no woman or child there, and the couple realise they have been looking at a pane of slow glass. When Hagan returns he sees what has happened and, before the couple go, tells them that his wife and child were killed by a hit and run driver on the Oban road. . . .
I think that this story would be better without its final line (\u201cHe was looking at the house, but I was unable to tell if there was anyone at the window\u201d) but this is a very minor quibble about what is an excellent piece, a deserved classic, and something that should have been that year\u2019s Hugo & Nebula winner (it lost against Larry Niven\u2019s Neutron Star<\/em> in the Hugo ballot, and Richard Wilson\u2019s The Secret Place<\/em> in the Nebula one).
***** (Excellent). 3,150 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The rest of the stories in the \u201cSlow Glass\u201d series are listed at ISFDB<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Light of Other Days by Bob Shaw (Analog, August 1966) begins with Garland and his pregnant wife, Selina, driving in the West of Scotland when they see a sign: \u201cSLOW GLASS\u2014Quality High, Prices Low\u201d. Garland stops to inquire, much to the irritation of his wife (she is pregnant, neither of them are pleased about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[44],"tags":[1115,687,33,47,12,1117,1116],"class_list":["post-4672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bob-shaw","tag-1115","tag-687","tag-analog","tag-bob-shaw","tag-short-story","tag-slow-glass","tag-time-shifting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4672"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4686,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4672\/revisions\/4686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}