Saturday, June 23, 2007

"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. Time waster "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.