"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.

Paul Preuss' "Arthur C Clarke's Venus Prime, Volume 1" of 6 (novel): "Breaking Strain" expanded

This is not a story by Clarke. But by Paul Preuss, probably under some kind of royalty agreement with Clarke.

This also is not the expansion of a short story into novel length in the sense that "Rescue Party" was transformed into "The Songs of Distant Earth" - that requires hard work. This is simply an attachment of a kind of preamble & postscript to original "Breaking Strain". Preamble takes up first 30%; postfix later 50%; rest is original story with very minor tweaks to fit the two new parts.

What was an accident in Breaking Strain becomes sabotage to a very lame cause. This volume came out of marriage of original short story with a computer game script; the overall tone (except for original story portion) appears to be meant for younger audiences.

Assuming this is typical of the Venus Prime series, I doubt I will be bother with rest of the series.

Story summary (spoiler).
Story has three plots intertwined - not always seamlessly.

First is the original "Breaking Strain". While I have not physically compared the version here with original story, I was getting a feeling it is pretty much a verbatim copy. Only beginning & end seem to have minor tweaks to link it up with preamble & postscript. This sits in the middle of the story, as a single block.

Second is the story of heroine - Ellen Troy aka Sparta aka Linda (probably also has more names). She is the one who will link the Venus Prime series. She is a victim of an innocuous experiment in psychology that was started by her parents to produce geniuses - with good intentions.

The project (SPARTA) was later hijacked by some security agency of US government to turn her into an invincible biot that will do the bidding of her masters. Experiment failed, & the powers controlling her tweaked her brain to make her forget everything. Result was - she turned into a vegetable that cannot even take care of her own needs - so these masters are safe with their secret.

Through benign intervention of someone on the project that cares for her, she regains consciousness. Since she is an immensely capable superwoman, she escapes in spite of security agencies tracking to destroy her.

Through the ordeal, she has lost most of the memory of her preceding 3 years. Also, her parents have vanished. She is 20 or 21 year old at this time. This entire story oocupies may be first 15% of the book.

Ellen's story continues in bits throughout rest of the story (& probably in rest of series) as parts of her memory return, in her effort to track her parents down, & the way she frustrates the efforts of security agencies out to kill her.

Third plot element is the conspiracy involving sabotage to the space ship involved in accident (original story treated it as an accident involving a meteor strike). This story has very lame motive, & I found it completely uninspiring.

Preamble is set on earth; postfix is set on Port Hesperus - a man-made space habitat with population of 100 thousand oribiting around Venus. Economy of this artificial habitat depends on mining Venus using robots.

Ellen is involved in this third plot as the main crime investigator. Of course, culprit is caught.

Fact sheet.
Arthur C Clarke's Venus Prime - Volume 1 (of 6), novel, review
Author: Paul Preuss
Rating: B

See also.
1. "Breaking Strain" - original story by Clarke.

"The Trigger" (novel): Targetted weapons & anti-weapons

This story is essentially an advocacy for gun control in the US. On me, it had the opposite effect - making an argument that private ownership of guns should be legal everywhere! A look at India's history during the last millennium suggests that the governments that put severe limits on local private access to weapons tend to be utterly impotent against external aggressors.

Tone is generally juvenile. I would have sought such a book out when I was 15! And large parts of plot are about the working of the office of the US President, a typical senator, & Pentagon - I suppose with less than 1% realism. And there are portions that are very preachy. In spite of these, I found the book high on entertainment value; it is generally very readable.

Also, there are cliches galore. Some of them are likely to be offensive to certain audiences.

Story summary (spoiler).
Story has three main characters: Aron Goldstein is a billionaire setting up a philanthropic private research institute, Terabyte Labs, that is expected to compete with what AT&T Bell Labs was in the days of its glory. Karl Brohier is a physicist (?), a Nobel laureate, a friend of Aron, & has the responsibility to start Terabyte as its head. Jeffrey Horton is a young physicist whose work has impressed Karl; so Karl recruits Jeff as his deputy early in the story.

Story is set around 2060 AD, & traces the professional career of Jeff.

A few years into its existence, a team of researchers at Terabyte are working late night. They have spend many days & weeks setting up an experiment that is designed to reveal the existence of graviton (not sure; or may be something else equally elusive & fundamental).

Anyway, while the experiment is in progress in the lab, there is commotion outside. Looks like there has been an accident. We later learn there have been at least two cases of fire - one blew up a car, other seriously injured a watchman.

By morning, we learn some unexplainable aspects of these fires. In case of watchman, e.g., the security camera records indicate all the bullets on his person & in a nearby drawer exploded by themselves!

Institute is shutdown pending an internal inquiry. On a hunch, Karl & Jeff want to figure out if the incidents are related to their experiment. The two quietly setup the experiment, & pop comes the great discovery.

Turns out, their machine is generating some kind of field that makes gunpowder within a certain radius explode! Institute restarts amid great secrecy to find out what is going on.

Over the book, we learn the machine was producing some kind of field that operates over hundreds or thousands of meters, is neither gravitational nor electromagnetic, & behaves like a wave. We are told the "matter" manifestation of "energy" requires a third entity - "information". The field produced by this machine can be used to transform specific kinds of matter at a distance by supplying relevant information in a kind of primeval language of the universe!

But whole discovery is spread through the book. Excitement begins much earlier - when the original machine is shown to explode nitrate based explosives, but nothing else; hence, the field is called Trigger Field.

Discovery reaches the government. Military gets involved. A very benign President wants it to be used for universal disarmaments. Blah, blah, blah. Most of the remaining story is devoted to US gun control debate.

Later, two variants of device are made. First simply disables the explosives rather than exploding them; there have been accidental & unwarranted deaths because of these remotely triggered explosions.

Second variant will likely start a new & chilling arms race, & is the last scene in the book. A lone researcher in the lab has perfected a way to target the machine on a specific DNA sequence. It seems, if they can get someone's genetic material like a scrap of skin, they can kill the individual (human or otherwise) at a distance - even in a crowd - simply by pulling the soundless trigger on this machine!

Fact sheet.
The Trigger, novel, review
Authors: Arthur C Clarke, & Michael Kube-McDowell
First published: 1999
Rating: B

"The Light of Other Days" (novel): Eminently forgettable

This is easily among the worst novels I have ever read. And not just by Clarke, or in English.

Almost every para is a jargon-filled garble. One of the most unreadable & tedious books, & without any kind of coherent story.

I forced myself to read first 20% without skipping anything. Then began skipping paras, later pages. There is a whole lot of pages I skipped, but I am completely sure I didn't miss anything of significance!

This book deserves to be in garbage bin rather than on a bookshelf.

Story summary (spoiler).
Key actors are the main protagonist, Hiram Patterson, & his two sons - Bobby Patterson (his clone), & David Curzon. Hiram is a brilliant but ruthless entrepreneur, is working to become immortal, & is portrayed as an extremely dislikable character.

Most of the story is set during a few years beginning 2034; last 20% is set in 2080s; & last few pages are set centuries later.

Main story revolves round a gadget called "WormCam" that Hiram's company invented. A device that acts as a soundless video camera whose lens is virtual - located anywhere in the universe, & at present or at any past time! Where & when targets need to be specified by operator.

Most of the pages are filled with enumeration of the kind of applications made possible by this device - with hardly any story.

Towards the end, when we move to 2080s, the world has changed. Mankind is in the process of redefining itself as a "Joined" organism - a kind of hive intelligence where brains of individuals are linked together via some derivative of WormCam. These linkages are initially done surgically; later, babies are born with these features genetically inherited! It is easy to see an attempt to define the ultimate goal of human existence, in the tradition of "Childhood's End".

We are also told, a few pages before end, that organic life exists on earth because of benign push given billions of years ago by intelligent creatures with sulfur-based chemistry that were also native to earth, & swent extinct soon after because of a meteorite impact. This description reminded me of "The Next Tenants".

End, centuries later, has a single incident where future descendants of humans can talk to those in the past - in the tradition of "The Parasite", though with better intentions. And they plan to resurrect every human that has ever lived & died in the past! In fact, while introducing "The Parasite" in "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke", Clarke notes that Parasite "may have been the subconscious basis for the novel The Light of Other Days".

Fact sheet.
The Light of Other Days, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke, & Stephen Baxtor
First published: 1999 (?)
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: C

See also.

1. Palador of "Rescue Party" is the first occurrence of hive intelligence in a story by Clarke.
2. This story has style-similarity with "The City & the Stars". Both attempt to squeeze in every known sf theme in the story! But City is a very readable book.

Notes.

1. Time travel in this story actually involves viewing events of time now in remote past. There is no physical movement to remote time.
   

"Islands in the Sky" (novel): Description of futuristic space stations

Very readable space adventure, but with a somewhat filmy presentation.

Story summary (spoiler).

This story is set in the mid twenty first century (or is it late twenty first - I forget). Told mostly in first person, it describes the adventures of a young man in near earth space & on a trip around moon - over a period spanning a few weeks.

Main protagonist, Roy Malcolm, wins an all-expenses-paid trip to "Inner Station" by winning a television quiz. This Inner Station is a space station about 500 km above earth, & is a kind of fueling & maintenance depot for space ships. Travel between earth & Station is via rocket powered machines that are somewhat advanced versions of NASA's current space shuttles.

This space station, & others described, don't look like the kind we normally read about. But the claim is they are realistic, if futuristic.

About half the story is a description of this station, & life aboard it. There are far more human interest elements here than in "Rendezvous with Rama" - another novel that is chiefly the description of a machine. Among the many generally interesting events & devices is the shooting of a movie in space that occupies not insubstantial part of this first half.

An interesting device described is a solar electric generator that doesn't use photo-voltaic elements, but a curved mirror to focus heat at a point - to heat water that will then be converted to electricity via a steam based generator! The mirror reminded me of the lens I sometimes used as a child to concentrate solar heat to make burn marks on dry twigs.

Much of later half of the story is adventure travel to other space stations & around moon in circumstances that are often very filmy. We are given a tour of a space station that is a hospital & a biology research center, much above the orbit of Inner Station. We are also shown how tiny earth creatures can grow to huge sizes in zero gravity conditions.

Next is an accidental trip around moon as part of a journey from hospital station to Inner Station! Here we are introduced to a new kind of space launch device: a kind of magnetic rail - several km long, with one end open, on the surface of the moon. To launch a payload, you accelerate it to moon-escape velocity & let it fall off open end! Because moon has much more curvature than earth, if enough velocity is given, the payload goes to space! No rockets!

We then go to one of the three Relay Stations in geosynchronous orbit - the kind of radio communication relays Clarke is often credited with first describing. Only they don't look anything like communications satellites we are familiar with. Also, in the scheme here, only 3 huge devices (and manned space stations at that) live in this orbit, 120 degrees apart - giving coverage over entire earth's surface. Presumably, some kind of UN agency must be running them, though it is not mentioned.

A few days after return to Inner Station, our friend must leave for earth via a space hotel - a machine very similar in concept to Rama, along with a swimming pool that is essentially a smaller version of Rama's cylindrical sea.

We are told Mars, Venus & Moon are now inhabited. This hotel, located in orbit of Inner Station a few kilometers away, provides three levels of Rama-style gravity - earth level, two thirds of it, & one third of it. This is used by travelers from smaller worlds to adjust to earth's higher gravity. Our friend will have to readjust as well, because he has spent some weeks in zero gravity.

In between, there are two stories told by people other than Roy.

One is a manned trip to Mercury's "night side". I am not sure the latest data supports the assumption that Mercury always shows same face to Sun, but this is an old story. We also meet an animal native to Mercury here!

Other story is of Martian colony. Chief highlight of this story is to tell us that current novel is kind of a sequel to "The Sands of Mars" - the story assumes background set by Sands.

One thing that was very obvious from this story, & also some other space travel stories of Clarke as also the Wikipedia article on NASA space shuttles, is something very familiar to every Mumbaikar: humans tend to litter when they are not being watched.

There are probably a lot of meteorites floating in earth orbit & in space that are man made, as also some of the stuff falling from the sky. You don't need something anymore? Just jettison. With luck, nobody will get hurt. At least not often enough for substantial court settlements! I am getting sympathetic with environmentalists!

Fact sheet.

"Islands in the Sky", novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1952
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: A

See also.

1. "Rendezvous with Rama" (novel): Both stories are essentially about the description of a machine. Also, the space hotel near Inner Station is very similar in design to Rama, though of much smaller size.
   
2. "The Sands of Mars" (novel): There is a hint Islands is a kind of sequel to Sands.
3. Robert Heinlein's short story "Misfit" (1939) is about construction of space station, but at a scale much grander than Islands. And Heinlein's station won't orbit earth, but sun - between the orbits of earth & Mars - to support interplanetary traffic.
4. "Maelstrom II" (short story): Shares a small plot element with this story - space launches on moon via electromagnetic rail based catapults.
   

Elements common to many Arthur Clarke stories

With 20 novels & 41 short stories of Clarke read & reviewed by now, I guess I now have some insight into the commonly found story elements. This is an attempt to document the most visible features of his stories.

1. If you are looking for focused novels that deal with one subject or plot really well, Clarke is the wrong author to read; go elsewhere.

Most of his novels have a main plot element, & a variety of tangents - often, subplots completely unrelated to main story. In some cases, these tangents can occupy as much as half the total pages.

I have now developed a survival technique. I just skip the tangents on first pass. I cover them in second pass only to ensure my reviews here are correct; else I would not have bothered with these tangents.

His short stories tend to be more focused, though some are not.

2. Short stories are often test beds for plot elements. Some of them will become full length novels; others will have elements embedded into one of more novels as subplots. Probably something to read in here for aspiring authors.

This is also why you find far more diversity & originality in his short stories than in novels. Many of them never make it to a novel. Even some of the really great stories never make it to a novel.

3. When you are reading one of the novels whose author list includes two, with Clarke as first author in larger font on the cover, you are essentially looking at a novel produced by a form of outsourcing. Clarke provides specifications ("outline", "synopsis"), & the other author writes the novel.

The quality of such works always appears to depend only on the quality of writing of the other writer. Stephen Baxter & Gentry Lee - skip it. Mike McQuay - go for it.

4. When buying one of his short story collections, beware. An unfamiliar story title doesn't mean you haven't read the story. Many of his stories appear under more than one titles in different publications & anthologies. And there is even a title that can apply to more than one stories! I wonder if that is publisher's selling insight. It sure can waste reader's time.

5. A very simple guideline to impulsively pick his novels in bookstore. Novels first published up to 1960s tend to be generally good; those after 1990 tend to be generally bad. There must be exceptions.

I haven't really verified this conclusion by tabulating publication date & my rating on one page (I may do it, now that I have thought of it). It is the general feel I am getting.

"The Ghost from the Grand Banks" (novel): Deep sea treasure hunt

On the face of it, this story is about an unsuccessful attempt to salvage the wreck of Titanic, the well-documented passenger ship that sank on its maiden cross-Atlantic voyage early in twentieth century. But that is just the facade.

Real story is about technology & business issues involved in deep sea salvage operations. With some human interest elements. And many unrelated tangent tracks.

Grand Banks in title refers to Grand Banks of Newfoundland - some place in North Atlantic where Titanic sank. Ghost, of course, refers to ghost of Titanic.

This is not among the best of Clarke. But, depending on your technical background & patience, it may be readable.

Story summary (spoiler).
Most of the story is set in early twenty first century. A little bit, involving aliens, is set eons later, & generally represents a tangent track similar to one found at the end of "The Fountains of Paradise".

There are actually a whole lot of tangent tracks - reviving the long dead in certain circumstances; Mandelbrot Sets (certain mathematical abstractions); a giant octopus chase; mapping the sea bed; glass making; mostly COBOL code date related software bugs popularly known as Y2K, & a rather fancy AI-based solution to it; ...

Main story involves three entities: Some British entreprenures funded partly with US money will salvage one of the two parts of the Titanic wreck; a Japanese company will salvage the other half; Internation Seabed Authority (ISA) is a watchdog & is part of UN.

Two separate entities for raising either half allow examination of more than one technology for raising the wreck.

Britishers will make some kind of harness around their half, & raise it by floating billions of tiny air bubbles covered in glass under it.

Japanese will make a huge iceberg under sea that entirely covers their half of the wreck, & use rockets for additional lift! On objections from environmentalists, they use an alternate technology: generate billions of amps of electric current at sea bottom for electrolysis; resulting oxygen & hydrogen will fill baloons that will lift the giant ice cube to surface!

Entire operation is wrecked at the eleventh hour by a big undersea earthquake. Quake has set an undersea avalanch of mud that has buried Titanic so deep no humans will ever get at it. There is also a rather filmy sequence around this time where an ace sea veteran is killed.

Move ahead eons. Current continents are now under sea; current sea bed is part of the new continents; new mountains have risen. In the intervening period, Mercury, Venus & Mars were colonized & terraformed.

But there has been a disaster: a black hole no one can locate has eaten up Pluto. This apparantly triggered the migration of humans off this solar system eons back - in search for safer home elsewhere. Solar system, including Earth. is now abandoned. Saturn has lost much of its ring system.

An alien civilization apparantly picked up human signals in times long past, & one of their spaceships has come to investigate. After spending some years examining earth & finding no signs of intelligence now or in past, they pick up a magnatic anomaly deep inside a mountain! You guessed it - it's the long buried Titanic!

Fact sheet.
The Ghost from the Grand Banks, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1990
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: B

See also.

1. "The Fountains of Paradise": Idea of introducing aliens in the last few pages in a story that is otherwise down to earth is very similar.
2. "The Deep Range": Another Clarkian story that is primarily concerned with the earth's seas.
3. "Richter 10": Certain earthquake scenes are very similar. A volcano named Mount Pelee at some island called Martinique is also common.
4. "Imperial Earth": There is a museum in New York involving salvaged Titanic. One of the tracks in Ghost is about making a museum out of a part of Titanic somewhere in Florida in the US.
5. "Cold War": Short story where an artificial iceberg will be made at sea, & towed to Miami beach is very similar in idea to covering part of the wreck in a giant man made iceberg.
6. "History Lesson": Aliens investigating earth eons after it has been dead, & locating a kind of beacon that tells intelligent beings once lived here.