"Alison" == Alison Page alison@alisonpage.demon.co.uk writes:
Another story it made me think of is 'Look to Windward' - the latest Culture novel from Iain Banks. The Culture war against the Iridians finished several centuries earlier, and everyone is trying to forget about the atrocities they committed. Then the light from the stars they blew up centuries earlier, with billions of lives lost, starts arriving at their home territories. So they can literally see what they did.
I'd just like to point out that while _Look to Windward_ is a very good book (probably my favourite Culture book after _Player of Games_), the theme is not original to Banks. Alice Sheldon (under her James Tiptree, jr pseudonym) used exactly the same thing in her 1985 novel _Brightness Falls From the Air_, except her treatment is considerably less optimistic and cheerful than Banks'.