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eBook Category: Science Fiction Nebula Award(R) Nominee
eBook Description: An old man is haunted by strange ghostly beings whom he believes to be time travelers watching him. He was previously the leader of a movement that warned against man's rapid technological advances. But now he finds that today something special must be about to happen, something that could impact the rest of human existence, and he seems to be at the crux of it. A sweeping view of a radically different future, this story touches on so many ideas it's hard to describe. Time travel, cybernetics, AI, robotics, genetic engineering, space travel, it's all here in a grand vision.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Asimov's, 1999
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2000

This eBook is also available in the following bundle(s):

• 2001 Nebula Award® Nominee Bundle

920 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [166 KB], eReader (PDB) [61 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [51 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [45 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [59 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [117 KB], hiebook (KML) [132 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [68 KB], iSilo (PDB) [42 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [52 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [80 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [72 KB]
Words: 15152
Reading time: 43-60 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

What would you do if you had to choose between certain death and eternal life? The knee-jerk reaction would be to say "I want to live forever," cut and dry, plain and simple. But what if eternal life came with a price? What if it meant having to denounce your life's work and essentially say that everything you ever believed in was wrong? Would it be worth the price? In A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, by Gardner Dozois, these are the questions that Charles must answer. As he feels the life slipping from his body, he must make the most difficult choice of his life. But is it possible to think clearly when you know your time is short? Can you be certain that such a choice is being made intelligently and not just because the fear of death has taken over? This is a complex story full of imagination and imagery. Dozois paints a vivid picture of a complex world in which most anything can happen. This is a great story and a must read. -Amy Poppenga, Fictionwise Recommender

I enjoyed this story so much when I first read it in Asimov’s that I purchased a copy for my handheld! This is a story that I will read again and again. Gardner Dozois presents a compelling portrait of the effects of age on both the body and mind of Charles Czudak, aging author and minor celebrity. Meanwhile, the crush of time (or are they time travelers?) is carrying him toward a decision with drastic consequences for his life and the survival of the human species: repudiate his life’s work and live to see the stars, or die the pain-wracked death that awaits him on earth. Along the way Czudak must contend with the ghosts of the past and the shadows of the future. Dozois has created a carefully crafted and powerful story that I strongly recommend to all those who love living. -Paul Walker, Fictionwise Recommender

Sometimes the old man was visited by time-travelers. He would be alone in the house, perhaps sitting at his massive old wooden desk with a book or some of the notes he endlessly shuffled through, the shadows of the room cavernous around him. It would be the very bottom of the evening, that flat timeless moment between the guttering of one day and the quickening of the next when the sky is neither black nor gray, nothing moves, and the night beyond the window glass is as cold and bitter and dead as the dregs of yesterday's coffee. At such a time, if he would pause in his work to listen, he would become intensely aware of the ancient brownstone building around him, smelling of plaster and wood and wax and old dust, imbued with the kind of dense humming silence that is made of many small sounds not quite heard. He would listen to the silence until his nerves were stretched through the building like miles of fine silver wire, and then, as the shadows closed in like iron and the light itself would seem to grow smoky and dim, the time-travelers would arrive.

He couldn't see them or hear them, but in they would come, the time travelers, filing into the house, filling up the shadows, spreading through the room like smoke. He would feel them around him as he worked, crowding close to the desk, looking over his shoulder. He wasn't afraid of them. There was no menace in them, no chill of evil or the uncanny--only the feeling that they were there with him, watching him patiently, interestedly, without malice. He fancied them as groups of ghostly tourists from the far future, here we see a twenty-first century man in his natural habitat, notice the details of gross corporeality, please do not interphase anything, clicking some future equivalent of cameras at him, how quaint, murmuring appreciatively to each other in almost audible mothwing voices, discorporate Gray Line tours from a millennium hence slumming in the darker centuries.

Sometimes he would nod affably to them as they came in, neighbor to neighbor across the vast gulfs of time, and then he would smile at himself, and mutter "Senile dementia!" They would stay with him for the rest of the night, looking on while he worked, following him into the bathroom--see, see!--and trailing around the house after him wherever he went. They were as much company as a cat--he'd always had cats, but now he was too old, too near the end of his life; a sin to leave a pet behind, deserted, when he died--and he didn't even have to feed them. He resisted the temptation to talk aloud to them, afraid that they might talk back, and then he would either have to take them seriously as an actual phenomenon or admit that they were just a symptom of his mind going at last, another milestone on his long, slow fall into death. Occasionally, if he was feeling particularly fey, he would allow himself the luxury of turning in the door on his way in to bed and wishing the following shadows a hearty goodnight. They never answered.

Then the house would be still, heavy with silence and sleep, and they would watch on through the dark.

That night there had been more time-travelers than usual, it seemed, a jostling crowd of ghosts and shadows, and now, this morning, August the fifth, the old man slept fitfully.