If you are looking for a few good stories of Clarke...

and if you haven't read him extensively, this note on his best stories might be helpful.

Or begin with one of these lists: short stories, novels, collections.

Resuming

I have resumed posting on Clarke's stories again, but at Variety SF - one or two posts a week. Any lists maintained here will get appropriate entry and link. But all new content will go there.

Reasons have to do with my maintenance effort. Sorry, if this causes any confusion.

Interregnum

By now, I have covered some three quarters of Clarke's novels, & some 40% of his short stories here. I haven't read another author in may be 3 months now. It gets boring after a while. So, I am taking a sabbatical.

I will, hopefully, return in a few months to finish this unfinished project. Even though it has served its original purpose - giving me an idea of what blogging is about.

In the meantime, I will be posting on stories by other sf authors to "Variety SF".

See you later. And thanks for the visit.

"The Lost Worlds of 2001": More than on the making of Space Odyssey

This supposedly non-fiction book about the writing of the novel "2001 A Space Odyssey" actually has not only a lot of material on the making of the movie of the same name, but includes some stories too.

While I have read just about the first quarter of this book, even that part contains two stories:

1. "The Sentinel".
2. "First Encounter": A marriage of "Encounter at Down" & the first story in "2001 A Space Odyssey". I found "First Encounter" far better then those two.

See also.

1. In this interview with someone called Stork, Arthur Clarke discusses the details of the making of HAL, the AI in the movie & the novel.
   

"More Than One Universe" (collection): Annotated table of contents, & review

Here is the complete list of all the 66 stories in this collection:

1. "I Remember Babylon" (C); Playboy, March 1960: Dated cold war story - Soviets have got a new propaganda medium.
2. "Summertime on Icarus" aka "The Hottest Piece of Real Estate in the Solar System" (A); Vogue, June 1960: Shipwreck & rescue on an asteroid currently rather close to Sun.
3. "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Orbiting"
4. "Who’s There?"
5. "Into the Comet" aka “Inside the Comet”
6. "An Ape About The House" (B): A genetically modified female Chimpanzee, trained for house hold chores & babysitting, is purchased by a household. But she turns out to be more talented than the humans suspected.
7. "Let There Be Light"
8. "Death and the Senator"
9. "Trouble with Time"; "First published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 1960, as 'Crime on Mars'": Attempt at an ordinary theft in a museum is foiled due to an unusual confusion.
10. "Before Eden"
11. "A Slight Case of Sunstroke" (A); "First published in Galaxy, September 1958, as 'The Stroke of the Sun'": Humor. Description of a football match in South America.
12. "Dog Star" (B); "First published in Galaxy, April 1962, as 'Moondog'": A man feels sad after preferring own career over his dog.
13. "The Nine Billion Names of God": Prayer kills the universe!
    
14. "Refugee" aka “This Earth of Majesty”
15. "The Other Side of the Sky"
16. "Special Delivery"
17. "Feathered Friend"
18. "Take a Deep Breath"
19. "Freedom of Space"
20. "Passer-By"
21. "The Call of the Stars"
22. "Security Check"
23. "No Morning After"
24. "Venture to the Moon"
25. "The Starting Line" aka “Double-Crossed in Outer Space”
26. "Robin Hood, FRS" aka “Saved! By a Bow and Arrow”
27. "Green Fingers" aka “Death Strikes Surov”
28. "All That Glitters" aka “Diamonds! ... and then divorce”
29. "Watch This Space" aka “Who Wrote That Message to the Stars? ...in Letters a Thousand Miles Long?”
30. "A Question of Residence" aka “Alone on the Moon”
31. "All the Time in the World"
32. "Cosmic Casanova" (A); Venture, May 1958: Humor. A playboy meets his match.
33. "The Star": Star of an alien world explodes, killing local intelligent beings. But something survives.
34. "Out of the Sun"
35. "Transience": Sun has moved close to galactic center & is about to be swallowed by a Nebula. Humans must vacate solar system, & find home elsewhere.
36. "The Songs of Distant Earth" (novel?)
    
37. "The Food of the Gods" (B), Playboy, May 1964: Humor. A corporate FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) campaign.
38. "Maelstrom II" (A); Playboy, April 1962: Thriller. A man on board a flyer destined to crash has only one option to survive - jump!
    
39. "The Shining Ones"
40. "The Wind from the Sun" aka “Sunjammer”
41. "The Secret" aka "The Secret of the Men in the Moon" (B); "This Week", 11 August 1963: How to live 3 times longer?
42. "The Last Command" (C); Bizarre! Mystery Magazine, November 1965: A cold war nuclear holocaust story where US completely decimates USSR.
43. "Dial F for Frankenstein" (A); Playboy, January 1964: A monster of an AI is accidentally born!
44. "Reunion" (B); Infinity #2, 1971: Long lost cousins of humanity are coming to earth for a reunion.
45. [ss] "Playback" (A); Playboy, December, 1966: Reincarnation is not possible with a corrupt mind dump!
46. "The Light of Darkness"
47. "The Longest Science-Fiction Story Ever Told" aka “A Recursion in Metastories” (C): A recursive letter.
    
48. "Herbert George Morley Roberts Wells, Esq" (C); If, December 1967: Who was the real author of "The Anticipator"?
49. "Love That Universe" (B); Escapade, 1961: Humans in dire peril need to make first contact with aliens!
50. "Crusade" (A), The Farthest Reaches, ed Joseph Elder, 1968: On a lonely cold world, evolution has produced an AI. And it's out on a crusade to free other AIs from their non-mechanical overlords (like humans).
51. "Neutron Tide" (B); Galaxy, May 1970: Educational story, about how strong gravity gradient of a neutron star affects material.
52. "Transit of Earth" (A), Playboy, January 1971: A man watches the transit of earth & moon on the disk of sun - from mars - during a rare alignment that happens once in 100 years. Tragic story - he is the sole man on mars, & about to die.
53. [novella] "A Meeting with Medusa" (A); Playboy, December 1971: Exploring the upper atmosphere of Jupiter in a manned vehicle.
54. "When the Twerms Came"
55. "Quarantine" (A); Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Spring 1977: Humor. Alien robots destroy earth because they were getting infected with a funny virus.
    
56. "siseneG": A joke rather than a story.
57. "Rescue Party": Clarke's first published story. And a smaller version of "The Songs of Distant Earth".
58. "The Curse" aka “Nightfall”: Sad & nostalgic. Fate of a bombed city.
59. "Hide-and-Seek": A sole man is on the run on Phoboes (Phobos?), a Martian moon. He is being hunted by a well armed military unit. Will he be able to outwit his pursuers?
60. "The Possessed": Intellect in the abstract!
61. "Superiority": Humor. How not to deploy new technology.
62. "A Walk in the Dark": Circumstances force a man to face the primeval fear of darkness.
63. "The Reluctant Orchid": A murder gone wrong, because the novel weapon used was untested.
64. "Encounter at Dawn" aka “Encounter in the Dawn”aka "Expedition to Earth": Aliens land on earths with intention to advance early humans technologically. But have to leave in a hurry, without helping.
65. "Patent Pending" aka “The Invention”: A man invents the ultimate porn distribution machine.
66. "The Sentinel" aka “Sentinel of Eternity”: Aliens watching the development of intelligent life on earth have left a beacon on moon.

Fact sheet.
More Than One Universe, collection, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1991

PS: I haven't personally seen this book; list of stories above was picked up from the net. I include this collection here so I know the stuff I have not yet read.

"The Sentinel" (collection): Annotated table of contents

Note there is a short story called "The Sentinel", too (also included in this collection). Here is the complete list of all the 10 stories in this collection:

1. "Rescue Party", Astounding Science-Fiction, May 1946: Clarke's first published story; also see note on "first published" near the end of my review article. And a smaller version of "The Songs of Distant Earth" (novel); but Songs (novel) itself comes from Songs (short story)! I haven't read the Songs (short story).
2. "Guardian Angel" (B): Prelude to "Childhood's End" (novel). Godlike (or rather, devil like) aliens subdue humanity.
   
3. "Breaking Strain", Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1949; originally published under the title "Thirty Seconds - Thirty -Days": Only one of the two men can live. Who should? Who will? This story was one of the inspirations for the well known novel "2001 A Space Odyssey"; see remarks with my review of "Breaking Strain".
4. "The Sentinel" (short story); Written "over Christmas 1948 for a BBC competition", & originally published in 10 Story Fantasy, spring 1951, under the title "Sentinel of Eternity": Aliens watching the development of intelligent life on earth have left a beacon on moon. "This is the starting point of 2001: A Space Odyssey", according to Clarke's introduction to the story.
5. "Jupiter Five", If, May 1953: A shorter version of "Rendezvous with Rama". A huge alien spacecraft is found parked in the Jupiter system; it belongs to long extinct aliens.
6. "Refugee"
7. [novelette] "The Wind from the Sun" (A); "First published in Boy's Life, March 1964, as 'Sunjammer'"; racing: Solar sail power interstellar vehicle!
8. [novella] "A Meeting with Medusa" (A); Playboy, December 1971: Exploring the upper atmosphere of Jupiter in a manned vehicle.
9. "The Songs of Distant Earth" (same as novel?):
   
10. ?
    

Fact sheet.
The Sentinel, collection, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1948

PS: I haven't personally seen this book; list of stories above was picked up from the net. I include this collection here so I know the stuff I have not yet read.

"Across the Sea of Stars" (collection): Annotated table of contents

This book includes 2 novels & 18 short stories:

1. "The Sentinel"; Written "over Christmas 1948 for a BBC competition", & originally published in 10 Story Fantasy, spring 1951, under the title "Sentinel of Eternity": Aliens watching the development of intelligent life on earth have left a beacon on moon. "This is the starting point of 2001: A Space Odyssey", according to Clarke's introduction to the story.
2. "Inheritance", New Worlds, no 3, 1947, under the pen name "Charles Willis": Two accidents during lift off - involving manned rocket launches.
3. "Encounter at Down" aka "Encounter in the Down"; Amazing, June/July 1953: When well meaning humanoid aliens visited prehistoric earthmen.
4. "Superiority", The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, August 1951: Humor. How not to deploy new technology.
5. "Hide-and-Seek", Astounding Science-Fiction, September 1949: A sole man is on the run on Phobos, a Martian moon. He is being hunted by a well armed military unit. Will he be able to outwit his pursuers?
6. "History Lesson", Startling Stories, May 1949; also sometimes published under the title "Expedition to Earth": Sun has cooled turning earth into an icy wasteland, & Venus into a habitable world.
7. "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth"; originally "written at Christmas 1950", & published in Future, September 1951: All humans are dead after a nuclear war, & earth's surface is radio active. Only survivors are a small group of pioneers that were on moon at the time of the event. They must preserve the legend of earth.
8. "Breaking Strain" aka "Thirty Seconds, Thirty Days", Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1949; originally published under the title "Thirty Seconds - Thirty -Days": Only one of the two men can live. Who should? Who will? This story was one of the inspirations for the well known novel "2001 A Space Odyssey"; see remarks with my review of "Breaking Strain".
9. "Silence Please"; Originally published under the slightly different title "Silence Please!" in Science-Fantasy, Winter 1950, under the pen name "Charles Willis": Humor. A man invents the ultimate silencer.
10. "Armaments Race"; Adventure, 1954; "This story was inspired by a visit to George Pal in Hollywood, while he was working on the special effects for The War of the Worlds.": A harmless toy that wasn't so harmless!
11. "The Pacifist", Fantastic Universe, October 1956: Humor. Tale of a naughty computer.
12. "The Next Tenants", Satellite, February 1957: In the general gloom following World War II, a man places hope in species other than humans. And decides to play god.
13. "The Reluctant Orchid", Satellite, December 1956: A murder gone wrong, because the novel weapon used was untested.
14. "Rescue Party", Astounding Science-Fiction, May 1946: Clarke's first published story; also see note on "first published" near the end of my review article. And a smaller version of "The Songs of Distant Earth" (novel); but Songs (novel) itself comes from Songs (short story)! I haven't read the Songs (short story).
15. "Technical Error", Fantasy, December 1946: An accidental electric short circuit opens fearsome new vistas.
16. "The Fires Within", Fantasy, August 1947, under the pen name "E G O'Brien": A man begins exploring interior of earth. And dooms humanity's future.
17. "Time's Arrow", Science-Fantasy, Summer 1950: A visit to Jurassic Park, reversed!
18. "Jupiter Five", If, May 1953: A shorter version of "Rendezvous with Rama".
19. "Childhood's End" (novel): Godlike aliens subdue humanity, cause the children's soul to be merged into a higher entity based on Hindu idea of moksha, adults die out, & finally earth is destroyed.
    
20. "Earthlight" (1955) (novel): This novel is based on 1951 novella of the same name; I have read this shorter version only. In shorter version, earth fights a war with the federation of human colonies of Outer Planets over energy resources. Both sides use super weapons. Great descriptions of life on moon.

Fact sheet.
Across the Sea of Stars, collection, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1959

PS: I haven't personally seen this book; list of stories above was picked up from the net. I include this collection here because it contains many stories I have reviewed from other collections; so I can point to this collection also from specific stories.