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From: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: SF on controlling Time
Message-ID: <15309@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Jun-85 11:14:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.15309
Posted: Mon Jun 24 11:14:57 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Jun-85 02:46:01 EDT
References: <5267@ukc.UUCP> <399@moncol.UUCP>
Reply-To: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 40

>>From: msp@ukc.UUCP (M.S.Parsons)
>>Organization: Computing Laboratory, U of Kent at Canterbury, UK
>>Message-ID: <5267@ukc.UUCP>
>>
>>Along the same lines, does anybody know any good SF about CONTROLLING time
>>(everybody elses), as opposed to time travel (controlling your local time)?

One of the oddest premises for a novel I've ever read is Fred Hoyle's
"October the First is Too Late" (possibly "October the Second is Too
Late" -- it's been years since I read it).  Essentially, the premise is
this (spoiler, spoiler, spoiler):
Earth's reality is being transmitted (like a TV transmission) from
somewhere out in space.  A deep space probe sent out by earth gets in
the way of the transmission and scrambles it.  Result: the earth's
reality goes out of synch.  Simultaneously, Greece is in Homeric
times, Mexico is somewhere in the 21st century, Russia is baked
glass (presumably after the sun goes nova), and so on.  Sounds like
a comedy, but it isn't, and I think it suits your request for time
control.

If you want a comedy about time control, there is "Where were you
last Pluterday?" (sorry, can't remember the author).  Pluterday is
the eighth day of the week, but only the rich people have access to
it.  This lets them take the day off, not worry about crowded beaches,
and so on.  A very strange book too, but a lot of fun.

The Pluterday concept is carried one step further in Dayworld, Phillip
Jose Farmer's newest novel (only out in hard cover as far as I know).
The premise is that overpopulation has grown so rampant that the
people of earth have been split into seven parts, each of which are
allowed out only one day of the week.  (The rest of the time they're
in suspended animation.)  Thus there are Tuesday people, Wednesday
people, and so on.  There are also criminals called Daybreakers who
don't go into suspended animation when they're supposed to.  Not
the usual sort of thing you think of for "time control", but still
a controlled time situation.

				Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo