The Walking Shadow: A Promethean Scientific Romance

by Brian M. Stableford

Paul Heisenberg is mysteriously endowed with the ability to jump through time. Together with thousands of eventual followers, he begins a journey that eventually takes him a billion years into the future. The Earth has been devastated by war with an alien race, and the changes that have resulted from the degradation of the world's biosphere force him--and others--to rethink their own humanity. His pilgrim's progress through the coming time is beset by doubts, distractions, and temptations as various voices attempt to distract him from his determination to follow the process through to its end. He eventually witnesses the complete transformation of the Earth, and the evolution of a single omnipotent but mindless Gaean organism. Is intelligence itself just a brief candle, forever doomed to burn out? Or can Paul find some other alternative for his race. A marvelous science fiction adventure in the tradition of Olaf Stapledon!

Genres: Science Fiction, Time Travel

276 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Brian Michael Stableford was a British science fiction writer who published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford. He also used the pseudonym Brian Craig for a couple of very early works, and again for a few more recent works. The pseudonym derives from the first names of himself and of a school friend from the 1960s, Craig A. Mackintosh, with whom he jointly published some very early work.

Reviews

[Kirk Macleod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moving towards the end of the 70's in my reading of David Pringle's Science Fiction: The 100 Best Books, Brian Stableford's The Walking Shadow (1979) takes a look at issues of time travel, futurism, and the question of destiny.

The book focuses on Paul Heisenberg, the author of a book called Science and Metascience and a scientific celebrity who, in front of thousands of people, appears to have been replaced by a perfect silver statue of himself. The statue is actually a sort of placeholder, and over a century later is replaced by Heisenberg again, who hasn't aged a day.

He now finds himself in a dystopian future, one in which many others have discovered how to jump forward in time, and who now view him as a sort of prophet. Upon awakening different factions of the government attempt to bend him to their cause while revolutionaries work to set him free.

The novel follows Heisenberg through his jumps across time and go to places few of us would expect to be waiting in our planet's future. I really don't want to go into specifics as part of the novel's structure works to have him figure out his new surroundings and attempt to find his place in it.

A fascinating read, and not likely to be my last from Stableford.

[Xabi1990 · Rating 2 out of 5]

5/10

[Regine]

Stimulating.

[D-day · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very thought-provoking story about a man, Paul Heisenberg (not exactly a subtle name choice, lol), who discovers a method of traveling through time by means of intense mental conditioning. When Paul projects his mind into the future, his physical body remains behind as a silver, statue-like form—completely impervious to the outside world.

At first, his jumps are small, only a few years ahead. But upon returning he discovers he has become a kind of prophet, and that others have begun awakening to the same ability. Soon, silver statues are scattered across the world. Meanwhile, society has slipped into dystopia, and various government and anti-government factions try to capture these “time pilgrims” and exploit them for their own purposes, violently if necessary.

All of this is engaging enough on its own, but of course it would be a little disappointing if Paul didn’t venture further. And he does—again and again—leaping millions and then billions of years forward, witnessing the slow decay of civilization, the erosion of humanity, and the transformation of Earth itself. The book has often been compared to Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men for the vast sweep of cosmic time it covers, and the comparison feels deserved.
For those interested in science fiction with a philosophical bent.

[Steve Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A back cover blurb states "Selected by David Pringle as one of the 100 Best Science Fiction Novels." Well, I don't know if I'd go that far. It is a decent read. There's some good starting concepts (Like "What to do? travel into the future? or work on the present") but it fizzles a bit. Ambiguous endings are o.k. in my book (there's some kind of pun there) but I found myself wanting closure to this tale somehow and, ... meanwhile, ...