از روزگاران کهن، بسیار پیش‌تر از عصر انسان‌ها، "نخست‌زادگان" که موجوداتی هستند کمابیش به پیری کیهان، زمین را زیر نظر دارند؛ بشر هیچ از وجود نخست‌زادگان آگاه نیست تا آن‌که ... در لحظه‌ای کوتاه، زمین تکه‌تکه می‌شود و دوباره مثل یک جورچین عظیم به هم متصل می‌شود. ناگهان سیاره و تمام موجودات زنده‌ی ساکن بر آن دیگر از یک روزگار واحد نیستند. دنیا به چل‌تکه‌ای از دوران‌های مختلف تبدیل می‌شود، از دوران پیش از تاریخ تا سال 2037. از هر کدام از زمان‌ها هم ساکنانی حاضر هستند که حالا باید در کنار یکدیگر زندگی کنند.

در سرتاسر آسمانِ این زمین نو، گوی‌هایی نقره‌رنگ در آسمان شناورند که هیچ سلاحی بر آن‌ها کارگر نیست و به‌هیچ‌وجه نمی‌توان با آن‌ها ارتباط برقرار کرد. آیا این گوی‌ها ابزارهایی پیشرفته هستند که کارشان خلق و حفظ گسست‌های زمانی بوده؟ آیا دوربین‌هایی هستند که بیگانگان تصورناپذیر با آن‌ها ساکنان زمین نو را زیر نظر گرفته‌اند؟ یا نکند چیزی هستند به‌مراتب عجیب‌تر و هراس‌انگیزتر؟
حالا انسان‌هایی از اعصار مختلف قرار است با هم زندگی کنند و در این دنیای شگفت‌انگیز نو راهی برای بقا بیابند. سه فضانورد روس و امریکایی، چند سرباز صلح‌بان سازمان ملل، یک لشکر از سربازان بریتانیایی قرن‌نوزدهمی به همراه سربازان هندی همکارشان، و در کنار همه‌ی این‌ها، دو سردار خونریز و بزرگ تاریخ که لشکریان‌شان جهان را فتح کردند و حالا ممکن است رودرروی هم قرار بگیرند ... یکی مغول و دیگری مقدونی.

The crowning achievement of any professional writer is to get paid twice for the same material: write a piece for one publisher and then tweak it just enough that you can turn around and sell it to someone else. While it's specious to accuse Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke of this, fans of both authors will definitely notice some striking similarities between Light of Other Days and other recent works by the two, specifically Baxter's Manifold: Time and Clarke's The Trigger . The Light of Other Days follows a soulless tech billionaire (sort of an older, more crotchety Bill Gates), a soulful muckraking journalist, and the billionaire's two (separated since birth) sons. It's 2035, and all four hold ringside seats at the birth of a new paradigm-destroying technology, a system of "WormCams," harnessing the power of wormholes to see absolutely anyone or anything, anywhere, at any distance (even light years away). As if that weren't enough, the sons eventually figure out how to exploit a time-dilation effect, allowing them to use the holes to peer back in time.
For Baxter's part, the Light of Other Days develops another aspect of Manifold 's notion that humanity might have to master the flow of time itself to avert a comparatively mundane disaster (yet another yawn-inducing big rock threatening to hit the earth); Clarke, just as he did with Trigger 's anti-gun ray, speculates on how a revolutionary technology can change the world forever. --Paul Hughes

THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

'A triumph' Independent
'Literary alchemy' SFX

1916: the Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves in the trees. Where has the mud, blood and blasted landscape of No Man's Land gone?

2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive (some said mad, others dangerous) scientist when she finds a curious gadget - a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a...potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way Mankind views his world for ever.

And that is an understatement if ever there was one...

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This is the first novel in the Long Earth series.

'The Long Earth series deserves a place on the bookshelves of hardcore SF fans and general readers alike' Independent on Sunday

Set 25,000 years from now, EXULTANT takes mankind into a millenial war for the control of the galaxy itself. A war against the unknowable, utterly alien Xeelee. Now the war has reached the galaxy's hot core, the Xeelee stronghold and, impossibly, it seems that a final victory may be at hand. It is a victory that will rely on mankind's latest warriors. In a war for survival you are expected to live bravely and die young for the good of the greater. A massive selective breeding campaign has led to the best solution - child soldiers. But the Xeelee predate man by millions of years and they will not be easily beaten. EXULTANT is an epic dark novel of a savage future. It is at once a warning about the dangers of winning whatever the cost and a hugely impressive piece of SF.

The highly-acclaimed sequel to H G Wells's The Time Machine, from the heir to Arthur C. Clarke. Written to celebrate the centenary of the publication of H G Wells's classic story The Time Machine, Stephen Baxter's stunning sequel is an outstanding work of imaginative fiction. The Time Traveller has abandoned his charming and helpless Eloi friend Weena to the cannibal appetites of the Morlocks, the devolved race of future humans from whom he was forced to flee. He promptly embarks on a second journey to the year AD 802,701, pledged to rescue Weena. He never arrives! The future was changed by his presence! and will be changed again. Hurled towards infinity, the Traveller must resolve the paradoxes building around him in a dazzling temporal journey of discovery. He must achieve the impossible if Weena is to be saved.