 Shedding Light by Michael Edelson |
Description: A combination of faster-than-light travel and an energy field telescope made it possible: outrun the light leaving the Earth and gaze back in time. For US Navy Commander Jack Roberts, it is the opportunity of a lifetime. Chosen as a last minute replacement, all he has to do is get the ship and its crew home in one piece and a promising career in space travel is his for the taking. But when the expedition is plagued with inexplicable and unlikely failures, the captain and crew suspect sabotage. The motive seems obvious, as the ability to look back in time raises a question that could undermine the faith of billions; did God really create the world? For the first time in history that question can be answered, assuming Jack can find the saboteur before he or she destroys the ship and kills them all. |
Rating: 
Edit (11th May 2010): Michael Edelson pointed out to me in an email that this was infact novella and not a novel, which was the impression I was under when I reviewed the book initially. Taking that into account I have changed the rating that I gave to the book from a 3 to a 6 and written a new review of the book
Updated Review: This novella was a quick read and doesn’t contain a heavy plot. The concept of the book was pretty amazing, basically there is a group on people on an experimental spaceship that allows them to travel faster than light and they use it to travel to different points in space so that they can see earth as it was at different points in time. During their journey they find a saboteur on board. As I pointed out in my original review most of the characters in the book were two dimensional including the hero and the bad guys. In my opinion the author should have removed some of the plot twists and used the space gained by that to expand the characterization a bit and give more details on the remaining plot items. Personally I think that he should consider expanding this into a full length novel as that would be very cool.
Original Review:
This book was a quick read and doesn’t contain a heavy plot. Actually it read more like an outline for a book than the actual book. The concept of the book was pretty amazing, basically there is a group on people on an experimental spaceship that allows them to travel faster than light and they use it to travel to different points in space so that they can see earth as it was at different points in time. During their journey they find a saboteur on board. However even though the concept was amazing the implementation was quite bad. All the characters were pretty two dimensional including the hero and the bad guys. To make it a better read the author should expand the story and add a lot more detail to the book. Final recommendation: Only read it if you don’t have anything else to read.