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The Walking Shadow
In a story incorporating the sweeping omniscience of time-travel, a pop-star messiah-figure, favored by the media, freezes in and out of time zones, taking his adoring followers along
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
About the author
Brian M. Stableford
859 books141 followersBrian 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.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 12, 2026
When a scientific public speaker with a cult-like following named Paul Heisenberg miraculously transforms into a silver statue in front of a massive audience, he is seemingly projected forward through time. This catapults his already popular presence to a messianic one, and thousands of other people start to time-jump in his wake. In the future that Paul arrives in, humanity's mysterious ability has attracted interstellar visitors. One is a sapient robot whose consciousness is scattered across many orbital machines, and the other is a race of aliens called the La. These two entities are locked in a conflict, vying for the control of Earth for very different reasons. This results in a lot of really interesting social and philosophical discussions, which stalled the narrative at times but were mostly worthwhile. The Walking Shadow feels incredibly ambitious, tackling hard science as well as social issues. The core thesis of the book is genuinely fascinating and, at times, terrifying. Whilst not everything worked, the book featured some of the best aliens that I've ever encountered and the machine was a very distinct character in itself. I've read Stableford before and liked his work a lot and I reckon he has a masterpiece in him, somewhere out there.
February 3, 2016
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.
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.
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September 25, 2022Stimulating.
March 30, 2023
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.
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.
September 22, 2015
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, ...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews