"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.
   

"Rama Revealed" (novel): Microbes replace electricity!

Imagine replacing all the electronics & other electrically powered machines around you with living genetically engineered animal equivalents:

1. Smart portable lighting made possible with huge fireflies!
2. An engineered equivalent of camel for replacing cars that moves fast, has its back shaped to make comfortable seat, & you can "tell" it about destination & route for driving!
3. Medicines & diagnostic probes delivered to appropriate places in your body by "programmable" microbes to which you can "tell" what exactly is to be accomplished inside the body.
4. Imaging equipment made possible with conniving engineered animals.

... list goes on, but you get the idea?

This is the third & final of the sequel trilogy to Clarke's original "Rendezvous with Rama".

The bio-magic is included only as a detour in this essentially a fantasy novel. While the novel is by & large readable with some realistic & futuristic thinking sprinkled all through, overall it just cannot compare in readability with at least the first 3 Harry Potters.

Last 10% is mostly garbage, with some theories that I found rather too fantastic. But first 90% doesn't bore, & has some good action.

Its end reminded me of Rescue Party's galactic administration entrusted with their duties by powers beyond the beginning of time.

Fact sheet.
Rama Revealed, novel, review
Authors: Arthur C Clarke & Gentry Lee
Genre: Fantasy with some science fiction
First published: 1993
Rating: B

Series: "Jupiter Five" (A), "Rendezvous with Rama" (A), "Rama II" (C) , "Garden of Rama" (B), "Rama Revealed" (B)

See also:

1. "Rama series summary"
2. "Influences" section of "Rescue Party"
3. Similar bio-magic is found in a much earlier novel - "The City & the Stars".
4. If you are among the devout, you might even like the end - about God & His role in Creation. Here are other stories with religion as a theme.

"Garden of Rama" (novel): William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" retold

Second of the three sequels to Arthur Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama". First para of my Rama II review introduces the sequels.

Now this is generally a much more readable book compared to Rama II: fewer flashbacks & they don't last as long.

Story has the same thesis as William Golding's much better known "Lord of the Flies": put together a bunch of humans in an isolated environment with ample resources, & a leadership will quickly emerge that makes a mess of both the environment & individual lives.

When I read Golding's Flies, I was still in my teens. I then found the story so depressing & unrealistic, that I lost all faith in judgmental abilities of the committee that chooses Nobel Prize for Literature.

Now, over two decades later, I did not find this retelling "shocking". I guess age makes you cynical! But I still find this thesis distasteful.

Story summary (spoiler).
Aliens operating the larger-than-a-city spacecraft ("Rama") want those in charge of ruling earthlings to provide them with 2000 typical sample humans that they want to "observe", failing which they will forcibly take the sample subjects. Fearful "Council of Governments" reacts in familiar government manner: censor the information from public, recruit the 2000 "volunteers" fraudulently where they are really informed of their fate while they are being delivered to aliens, etc.

The real story begins inside the alien ship where a "human habitat" is allocated for our bakaras (guinea pigs). The ship is also carrying similar bakras from two other worlds, though our human passengers will discover this slowly.

Within a couple of years, you have a dictator ruling the human habitat, & generally making life miserable for everyone.

Fact sheet.
Garden of Rama, novel, review
Authors: Arthur C Clarke & Gentry Lee
Genre: Human social behavior
First published: 1991
Rating: C

Series: "Jupiter Five" (A), "Rendezvous with Rama" (A), "Rama II" (C) , "Garden of Rama" (B), "Rama Revealed" (B)

See also: "Rama series summary", & "Influences" section of "Rescue Party"

"Rama II" (novel): NASA bureaucracy revealed

First of the three sequels to Arthur Clark's "Rendezvous with Rama". Sequels are penned by Gentry Lee to outline provided by Arthur Clarke. While Lee's credentials include involvement in some of NASA's interplanetary missions, he sounds more of an engineer than a literateur. Don't expect anything even approaching Clarke on readability.

Story summary (spoiler).
First one third of this 15 year old book is essentially an introduction to NASA bureaucracy, particularly when it comes to manned mission planning. Highly fictionalized & dramatized. Note that the name NASA is nowhere mentioned; I am just guessing. And this text is generally consistent with Hollywood movie Armageddon.

Remaining two thirds has occasional readable portions.

Worst flaw of this book is readability. Primarily because of frequent & long flashbacks that are totally unrelated to main story.

If you can stand lousy writing, first one third does contain interesting information.

Fact sheet.
Rama II, novel, review
Authors: Arthur C Clarke & Gentry Lee
Genre: Adventure
First published: 1989
Rating: C

Series: "Jupiter Five" (A), "Rendezvous with Rama" (A), "Rama II" (C) , "Garden of Rama" (B), "Rama Revealed" (B)

See also: Rama series summary

"Rendezvous with Rama" (novel, hard sf): Fast paced, even with a now somewhat dated theme

This small 35 year old novel really belongs to 10% of all works that get tagged as science fiction - it actually deals with science rather than politics!

While there are just too many novels now-a-days that deal with enclosed extra-terrestrial habitats, I still found it good reading because of fast pace & few pages.

And it describes a generally very realistic, if futuristic, machine. If you are an engineer, you will probably love it. Else the opinion is likely to be divided!

Story summary (spoiler).

Habitat that is the center of this story ("Rama") is an artificial world floating through space - apparently on a multi-million year journey. A huge 50 km long, 20 km wide, & 2 km thick cylinder with interior that provides breathable atmosphere, artificial gravity, sunlight & day/night cycles, artificial sea & marine life, varied landscape, wind in its various moods, & bio-robots. Plus a propulsion system that defies Newton's Third Law, & ability to fly inside the sun's corona to refuel with solar material!

Story is essentially a description of the habitat details, & how it affects the human adventurers - there are few dialogs. Habitat is almost welcoming humans going by the ease with which human fliers are able to enter, explore, & sometimes defile it!

Fact sheet.

"Rendezvous with Rama", novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1972
Rating: A
Hugo Award winner in novel category in 1974

Series: "Jupiter Five" (A), "Rendezvous with Rama" (A), "Rama II" (C) , "Garden of Rama" (B), "Rama Revealed" (B)

See also.

1. Very good 3 minute movie showing the approach & landing of human spacecraft on Rama, & entry of human explorers through airlock into the ship.
2. MP3 radio adaptation of the novel in two parts - 01, & 02.
   
3. "Rama series summary"
4. "Influences" section of "Rescue Party". A ship very similar to Rama also appears in this first published story of Clarke.
   
5. This novel appears to be just a longer version of "Jupiter Five".
6. "The Fountains of Paradise" also has a cylindrical alien robotic space probe visiting our solar system. But this cylindrical ship has dimensions in meters rather than kilometers. And is fitted with a 500 km diameter antenna for communicating back to its home world.
7. "Islands in the Sky" is another Clarkian novel that devotes a very large part to description of a machine - a man-made space station in near earth orbit; but this story has far more human-interest elements compared to Rendezvous. Islands also features a space hotel that in many ways is a smaller version of Rama.

External links.

1. For tastes opposite mine, see Jeff Vehige's review of Rendezvous. If you cannot stand descriptive works, you might want to go with that view.
   

"2001 A Space Odyssey" (novel): On human origins & gods

This novel from mid-1960s must easily be among the better science fiction works. Comprises of essentially four different stories carefully linked together, but each could independently exist.

Story summary (spoiler).
First story doesn't last long, but has an outstanding plot that can be basis for a series of novels - if you drop the ET component & may be do a bit more research.

It portrays life 3 million years ago in a colony of apes that are on the verge of discovering stuff that will turn their descendants into humans.

I particularly liked it because it deals with a period of human history about which I have never read another story. And it offers rich tapestry on which to write more stories - though I am not aware if any have been written in 40 years that this book has been around.

But for Clarke, this first story is just a method of introducing ET (extra-terrestrial intelligence - intelligent beings that are not of earthly origin). In this case, an ET surveyor chooses these apes, among a lot of other animals, to slightly nudge them towards a path that will lead to intelligent species; all experiments fail except humans.

There is another Clarke story, published over a decade earlier, that touches on this theme: "Encounter at Down". But I personally find the version in 2001 far more interesting.

Incidentally, Clarke actually marries this story with "Encounter at Down" in a far better variant of the story titled "First Encounter" in "The Lost Worlds of 2001".

Second story is of space flight & of human colonization of moon. Much of the story deals with travel aspects of this subject; ETs enter in later part.

Colony on moon has been doing a local magnetic survey , & find an anomaly - a physical location that has intense magnetic field. They eventually discover an unexplainable object that is obviously not of natural origin. It can also not be human origin because it dates back 3 million years - humans as we know them appeared only 30,000 years back.

When this object is exposed to sunlight accidentally, a major electromagnetic disturbance results that apparently is a signal; simultaneously, the signal is also observed by ships widely dispersed through solar system.

Note there is an earlier short story too where ETs plant a beacon on moon to monitor evolution of intelligence on earth: "The Sentinel". When introducing Sentinel in "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke", he mentions that Sentinel "is the starting point of 2001: A Space Odyssey".

There are two aspects of this story that you find in "Rescue Party", the mother of all Clarke stories:

1. Essentially benign aliens keeping a watch of development of intelligent beings everywhere in galaxy. And helping them where they can.
2. Black monolith in this story also appears in all 3 sequels of this novel. I was reminded of it by the black rectangle of apparently infinite depth in the control room of the alien ship in Rescue Party.
   

Third story is also of space flight - to one of the moons of Saturn (Japetus, also called Iapetus).

Much of the story is a description of the ship, passage off asteroid belt, around Jupiter, arrival at Saturn, & going in orbit around target moon.

This story also includes 3 other common plot elements - I have previously seen 2 of them used in Clarke's other work, third is from Asimov's novels.

1. A spaceship with a rotating cylindrical element to create artificial gravity.
2. Moving human passengers long distance in space by putting them in hibernation.
3. HAL, a robot, or rather an AI, that behaves remarkably like Asimov's robots, except that it can harm humans.

Robot is controlling the ship that is carrying 5 human passengers. 3 of them are in hibernation, 2 are awake. There is a winded juvenile plot of governmental secrecy that is behind 3 sleeping & 2 awake - they have been given different information, & must not communicate with each other till arrival at Saturn.

Midway through the voyage, some anomalous behavior is observed in robot's functioning. There is talk that robot might be shut down. Robot doesn't want to die! So it decides to kill the two humans that are awake.

Robot contrives a technical fault & kills one. Other is suspicious & wants to awaken the sleeping 3. Robot tries killing them all, but our hero survives, & kills robot instead. I found this part rather mundane - better suited for a Cartoon Network show for kids.

OK - so the hero revives the ship with help from command control on earth. Then he is told the mission objective. ET beacon that went off 2 years back on moon had sent its signals clearly for the targeted moon of Saturn. This moon has also been an astronomical oddity, ignored till now. Our hero will have to investigate & learn what he can.

After arriving on target, hero finds a structure that is clearly not natural, & looks like a bigger version of moon beacon. He decides to land & investigate.

There is a remark in "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke" when introducing the short story "Breaking Strain": "'Breaking Strain' was one of the stories incorporated into the film and novel, 2001." Presumably, the accident scene in this third part was inspired by this.

Forth story is of his landing, & is essentially fantasy mixed with religion. As he approaches beacon, it opens to let him. And takes him on a tour of stars with wonderful sights. ETs in question are actually indistinguishable from Hindu concept of Brahm - universal mind or energy. Our hero eventually merges into this brahm, yet retains his individuality - something many in India will identify as moksha, the ultimate purpose of human existence according to preachings of many Hindu sects.

Last paragraph gives a hint of sequel - where this Star Child revisits earth, & is wondering what he should do with it!

See also.

1. "Space Odyssey series summary".
2. A discussion of HAL, the AI in third story, but primarily from the point of view of the movie version - its origins, & ideas that drove its design, & some future gazing in AI. Of the two interviews listed - with Arthur Clarke & Marvin Minsky - only one with Clarke is available online when I checked it last (note - it's quite long).
   
3. Lewis Padgett's "Mimsy Were the Borogoves": Idea of teaching via smart toys is at the heart of this classic, too. But here, the alien artifacts inadvertently end up in the hands of human children - with unexpected results
   
4. "Influences" section of "Rescue Party".
5. Robert Heinlein's "Ordeal in Space" (1948): The plot element where a spaceman falls off the spaceship, in third part, comes from this older story by Heinlein. This spaceman will be recovered 1000 years later, in "3001 The Final Odyssey", without many psychological troubles! Another very good & off-beat alternative version of this is Clarke's "Maelstrom II".
   
6. Robert Reed's "Eight Episodes" (2006), nominated for Hugo Award 2007 in short story category, is a variant of the sentinel part of this story.
7. Ted Chiang's "Story Of Your Life" (1998): Alien artifacts appear all over modern world to enable humans to talk to aliens. But this story is less about aliens than about language & cognition.
   
8. All stories with religion as a theme.

Fact sheet.
2001 A Space Odyssey, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1968 (was written during 1964-1968, published in 1968, according to Clarke's introduction to "2010 Odyssey Two")
Rating: A (mostly for plot of first story; story #2 & 3 are B; #4 is C).

"The Songs of Distant Earth" (novel): Unputdownable!

While this 20 year old book is not among my all time top five science fiction novels, it must come among those immediately after them. Fast paced, very readable, & one of the most optimistic treatments of doomsday in fiction. And some very interesting ideas for the technical minded.

Note that this story is essentially an expanded & better developed form of "Rescue Party" - mother of all Clarke fiction.

Story summary (spoiler).
Main story is about the visit (to pick up supplies) to a small isolated community by a group of visitors on their way to a far off place. In a very exotic background & locale, 1500 years in future.

Story has a cooked up doomsday background: there is laboratory evidence that Sun is about to die by exploding - means the end of solar system, including earth. And you don't have warp drive or space drive or similar contraptions of Star Trek ilk. Any action is to be based on nearly current level of human knowledge. You are given a few hundred years to prepare for it.

This background description actually occupies very few pages, & in flashback. Action occurs on a little watery world (remember Hollywood movie Waterworld?) 50 light years from earth.

There are a few sad & nostalgic pages, but mostly a very optimistic drama about the best that makes us human.

An energy source.
Among a variety of cool devices described, there is one I had never heard of before. After some checking in physics literature, I know I am not the only optimist (yeah - I know wishful thinking!) that some day our energy problems might be solved by an unconventional source with a rather exotic name - "zero-point energy".

It is a physical phenomenon first described in 1913 by Albert Einstein & Otto Stern: every volume of space, including interstellar vacuum, is bubbling with an "absurdly huge" amount of energy visible only at a microscopic level.

A bit of googling threw it up as one of the biggest hurdles in today's nanotechnology - small structures are exposed to so much energy they keep getting twisted & torn! There are hints on web of credible projects currently on based on the hope we can tap this energy.

Trivia.
This novel is an expansion of a 3 decade older short story of the same name, according to Clarke's introduction to shorter version in "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke". Short was first published in "If", Jun 1958. I haven't read the shorter version yet.

Fact sheet.
The Songs of Distant Earth, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Science fiction
First published: 1986
Rating: A

Series: "Rescue Party" (A), "The Songs of Distant Earth" (A)

See also.

1. Songs carries unmistakable influence of Clarke's short story "The Star" published 3 decades earlier. Both share the same doomsday scenario.
2. Plot of this novel, & also of "The Star", is very similar to that of "Rescue Party" - first story ever published by Clarke.
3. "Improving the Neighborhood" also has zero-point energy, but it makes earth & moon explode in an accident!
   
4. Alastair Reynolds' "Turquoise Days" appears to have borrowed a plot element from Songs.
   

The novel is also included in the following collections.

1. "The Sentinel (collection)" (unless there is another short story version with the same title!)
2. "More Than One Universe" (unless there is another short story version with the same title!)