I had dropped by at Harry’s second-hand bookstore, because I tend to find interesting stuff there. Harry mostly carries rare editions and collector’s items, and on occasion he has special offers. He knows what his customers like and draws their attention to it.
“Take a look at this,” he said, holding up a copy of a DVD titled The Sinking of the Titanic.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s something brand new,” he replied. “It’s part of a new series of historical documentaries. Authentic footage, not yet officially available. I managed to lay hands on a number of copies. So far they’ve been doing well. If I were you, I wouldn’t hesitate too long if you’re into this sort of thing. Take a look at the rest of them. You’ll be amazed.”
I picked up another volume in the same series, titled The Trojan War.
“Authentic footage of the Trojan War?” I asked. “You’re joking, right?”
“Not at all,” Harry said. “They developed this technique to capture light in space. You must have heard about it.”
“Wait a minute. I remember an article in the Saturday supplement of my paper a while ago. It said that when we see the moon, it’s actually light reflected off the moon’s surface that we’re capturing. If we were standing on the moon and looked at the earth, we would basically see the light reflected off the earth a few light-seconds ago. If we were one light-year away, we’d see the light reflected a year ago, and so on.”
“Exactly. They developed this technique to capture the light that was reflected off the earth’s surface and is still travelling outward into space. State of the art recording and enhancement techniques allow them to come up with decent authentic footage of events that happened on earth in the past. Now, this technique is still in its experimental stages, and these discs contain material that is not supposed to be on the market yet, if you see what I mean.”
“You mean you’re charging quite a bit of money for what’s basically unauthorised material.”
“This stuff is indeed pretty expensive, but you’ll get value for your money. Take a look. There’s something for every taste here.”
I glanced at the titles of a few other volumes: The Crusades, The Crucifixion, The Construction of the Pyramids, The Big Bang, and others.
“I have my doubts about some of these,” I said. “Authentic footage of the Big Bang? Come on! I don’t think this is a series of Historical Documentaries, even if some authentic footage may have been used for these recordings. This is a commercial venture, not a scientific one, right?”
“Yes, but as I said, none of these are official releases. They don’t come with an authenticity certificate. In some cases you should allow for artistic license.”
“Especially in this case, I presume?” I held up a copy of The Big Farewell Party at the End of Time. “Not quite one hundred percent authentic, I gather? Not quite historical either?”
“This is one of the fastest selling titles in the series,” Harry replied. “As you apparently understand, it features a more light-hearted approach than the rest. Some people claim they spotted Elvis in certain scenes.”
“I’m not surprised, Elvis has been spotted about everywhere since he died.”
While I looked at the material, I thought: had Harry been serious about these so-called historical documentaries? I had indeed read an article about experiments involving the light reflected off the earth that was still travelling outward in space. In theory it could be captured and recordings might be made of past events on earth. If a working technology could be developed, one day we might indeed see footage of the dinosaurs walking the earth. Or of anything else people would have an interest in. I was thinking of recordings that might fetch high prices, such as private moments in the lives of celebrities. Criminals would never be sure anymore that their activities would go unnoticed. No one, for that matter, would enjoy a moment of privacy anymore. This thing might radically change all aspects of society.
If this technique were ever perfected, it would be a great time for historians. But it would be the end of privacy.
I picked up The Big Farewell Party at the End of Time and noticed it was volume # 17 in the series. All the titles had a number, and to my surprise The Big Bang was # 18.
“Shouldn’t this one be # 1 in the series?” I asked. “Isn’t the Big Bang supposed to be the beginning of the universe? Unless the Big Bang follows the end of the universe, starting a new cosmological cycle. Does this mean that time runs in never-ending cycles? Or is this just a marketing ploy?”
Harry simply shrugged. He clearly hadn’t paid much attention to this idea.
My mind was reeling. Did these discs have the answers to the big questions of life? Did they offer the key to unlock the mystery of the universe? Were they scientifically accurate? Or was all this just an elaborate hoax? There was only one way to find out.
“I’ll buy these two,” I said. I still had serious doubts about the scientific accuracy of the series, but at least its marketing ploys seemed to work.
Frank Roger was born in 1957 in Ghent, Belgium. His first story appeared in 1975. Since then his stories have appeared in an increasing number of languages in all sorts of magazines, anthologies and other venues, and since 2000, story collections have been published, also in various languages. Apart from fiction, he also produces collages and graphic work in a surrealist and satirical tradition. By now he has more than 700 short story publications (including a few short novels) to his credit in 30 languages. Critics describe his work as a blend of genres and styles: fantasy, satire, surrealism, science fiction and black humour.
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19 Responses to “THE BIG FAREWELL PARTY AT THE END OF TIME AND OTHER HISTORICAL DOCUMENTARIES • by Frank Roger”
Comments
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July 27th, 2009 at 12:20 am
I liked the concept. An interesting and enjoyable story.
The ending was as satisfying as I would have liked, but there we go.
By the way, I’m not sure ‘one light-second ago’ can be used since light seconds are a measure of distance.
July 27th, 2009 at 2:28 am
“If a working technology could be developed, one day we might indeed see footage of the dinosaurs walking the earth. Or of anything else people would have an interest in. I was thinking of recordings that might fetch high prices, such as private moments in the lives of celebrities. Criminals would never be sure anymore that their activities would go unnoticed. No one, for that matter, would enjoy a moment of privacy anymore. This thing might radically change all aspects of society.”
This is the insight that Asimov used as the driver for one of his short stories based on an equivalent technology.
July 27th, 2009 at 2:46 am
Pretty cool. The story is quite original and makes one think about the possibilities.
July 27th, 2009 at 4:18 am
An interesting idea, but I was just saying to my best friend, “The characters don’t express much more than the basic scientific ideas that the narrator is trying to get across.”
“That’s true,” she answered, “and they agree with each other so there is very little tension going on.”
“Quite right,” I continued, “Perhaps this is too big an idea to fit into such a short format.”
“Perhaps,” my friend replied. Then we smiled knowingly at each other.
July 27th, 2009 at 4:38 am
“George doesn’t think this would work,” said my best friend. She rolled her eyes, showing what a kill-joy she thought her husband was. I asked her to explain.
“George says that refraction would cause light from a single source to be spread out and dispersed. Direction, frequency and even the colours would get disrupted. He says that’s why the moon looks like the moon, not a mirror.”
“Not such a great idea then?”
“Seems not. He says you would have to calculate every reflective or refractive event that occurred to every beam of light from the event you wanted to study in order to re-construct the event.”
“And these events happen at the speed of light, don’t they?”
“Well exactly, so since nothing can go faster than the speed of light it would take at least as long to figure out what happened to the light as it took for the original events, even if you assume zero latency in the calculations.”
“Which itself is unlikely.”
“Exactly. But that’s not all. George says that once you had calculated what happened, you’d have to reverse all those events to see the light back in it’s original state to see the events occur–which would take the same amount of time again.”
“But surely, that wouldn’t work. If you spent 1 million years to calculate what had happened to light during a 1 million year period, your calculations would be out of date. You’d need another 1 million years of calculations.”
“You’re quite right, Jenny,” said my friend. “To start getting on top of this problem you’d have to make calculations faster than the speed of light…”
“Which is not possible..”
“But even if it was, it’s still a diminishing difference. If it took you 1 second to calculate what happened over a 2 second period, you’d be closer, but still 1 second behind. You can reduce that difference, but never eradicate it..”
“Without reversing time.”
“Exactly.”
“In which case you might as well just reverse time back to the original event and watch it live.”
“You could always record it and watch it on Sky…”
My friend frowned.
“Jenny, I’m not sure you’ve been listening…”
July 27th, 2009 at 4:45 am
Loved the concept, but I’ve recently read “The Light of Other Days” from Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke which explores all this fully.
July 27th, 2009 at 5:06 am
It’s a very clever idea. Someone should write a story about it sometime.
July 27th, 2009 at 6:01 am
Interesting concept, but it has been used before … for instance, in one of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s “Skylark” stories. And clearly, in order to make it work, you MUST have a faster-than-light drive of some sort. Seems to me, if you have that, making DVDs of historical events is kind of a trivial application. Their marketing is first rate, though!
I question the “Party at the End of Time” volume, that hasn’t happened yet … or is he portraying the end of the previous cycle? Still a problem, I would expect the universe collapsing for a new Big Bang to destroy the light waves from that previous cycle. Showing the Big Bang itself is OK, providing your FTL drive can take you out 18 billion lightyears and back in a short elapsed Earth time. “Mr. Scott, give me Warp 18,000,000,000!”
July 27th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Jenny, that’s a 5 star response if I ever read one. I shall jump on your bandwagon, if there is room.
–John
July 27th, 2009 at 7:56 am
This didn’t quite do it for me. I guess the idea was that we didn’t know whether the videos were real or false, but I really would’ve liked to have seen one of th DVD’s starting to play or something.
July 27th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Interesting concept.
July 27th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Good buildup. And then….? I would like to find out what happens next.
July 27th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Great concept but lacks in execution. Too much useless exposition in my opinion. Why bother explaining the whole concept three times in such a limited space. Just tell it to us once. Also the ending left me kinda disappointed. Especially this part
“My mind was reeling. Did these discs have the answers to the big questions of life? Did they offer the key to unlock the mystery of the universe? Were they scientifically accurate? Or was all this just an elaborate hoax? There was only one way to find out.”
Unnecessary.
July 27th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Can I give 5 stars to Jenny?
July 27th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Loved the concept. Not much more than intellectual masterbation really, but still an enjoyable tale.
July 27th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I liked the title. Story didn’t really go anywhere though.
July 27th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I liked the premise of the story, but not the execution. The dialogue was flat, making the characters a bit wooden, too. I loved the idea, but the ending seemed to fall on it’s face as well. That said, though, I’m still giving this story 3 stars because the beginning pulled me in right away. Wood characters and flat dialogue notwithstanding, the story kept my attention the entire time (I was waiting for something to “happen” the entire time, though). I’m tempted to give the story a 4 simply because I love science fiction of this type….(who cares if it’s been explored by others–is there a theme that hasn’t been?)…but that wouldn’t be very fair, I suppose, to the author who writes a brilliant piece in a genre I don’t particularly like….so a 3 it is.
July 27th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Billy Mays would be proud! Ha!
August 2nd, 2009 at 8:27 am
It’s as if this is the explanatory Forward to a longer piece that uses this idea in a real story. Here, there is no plot, no conflict, no resolution, no character development. The idea is interesting, but this (in my opinion) isn’t an actual story itself.