"Loophole" (short story): Government bureaucracy doing what it does best - push the papers!

This engrossing piece of satire is written in a somewhat unconventional style - as a series of memos between government officials & departments.

Story summary (spoiler).
Martians have had a technology civilization for a while, while humans are still at a rather primitive stage. With advent of radio on earth, Martian government have been monitoring the development of earthlings.

That is when they detect the three US nuclear explosions - an initial test, & the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki. A little later, they detect rockets being tested by earthlings.

They decide to act. Several Martian spaceships reach earth, & issue a warning: stick to earth, or face the consequences. No rockets & space exploration allowed for such violent beings.

We are told of above proceedings in the form of memos moving around in Martian bureaucracy - usually with very comic contents.

In the final act, we see the Martian civilization decimated. It seems, the earthlings invented Star Trek style material transporters when rockets were barred! And used that for attack Martians.

End is again a bit of humor, as the victorious earth soldiers on Mars are not too keen on traveling at speed of light via the beam, but would rather prefer rocket travel, & want earth to develop it for their transport!

See also.

1. "Travel by Wire!" (1937) (A): This story about a Star Trek type device to beam people & things around has an ending that shares sentiments of returning soldiers in Loophole. One of the inventors of beaming machines who is also behind the big electronic transportation empire prefers traveling the old fashioned way!
   

Fact sheet.
Loophole, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1946
Genre: Humor
Rating: A

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Expedition to Earth"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"

"Moving Spirit" (short story): A man copes with sin taxes

This lovely little piece of humor is set in England around the time of war. I presume one of the world wars is meant. But it might as well have been set in India of 1970s or 80s; situation is very familiar.

Story summary (spoiler).
In a little town, you have alcohol shortages, governmental rationing, & a prohibition on brewing. Plus ordinary citizens have to pay several hundred percent sin tax on it. Of course, citizenry doesn't like it.

Our hero anyway brews at home - for own consumption, but he is still in violation of regulations. On one of these brewing occasions, there is a little accidental blast - no real damage, but a lot of noise. It was a coincidence that among the neighborhood that heard the noise & rushed to help was a tax inspector. Of course, there was smell of alcohol all over the place. Everyone understood, except the tax inspector.

Much of the story is a court room drama. Real meat of the story is the ingenious arguments of defense that get our man off the hook in a hurry. I really wonder why a lot of movies have not copied this defense. It's beautiful.

And then, there is a final twist - after the man is freed of charges. You know, one of those little incidents that make you smile in irony!

Fact sheet.
Moving Spirit, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Humor
Rating: A

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Tales from the White Hart"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"

"Cold War" (short story): An iceberg is headed for Florida coast!

There were a couple of sentences that I didn't really get, but having fun with this story doesn't really require that you be an American.

Story summary (spoiler).
Californian businessmen want some of the Florida's tourist business. So they contrive a plan to dilute the state's claim to Sunshine State tag.

An expert is hired for a secret mission: to artificially create an iceberg in the vicinity of Florida coast, & set it adrift so it lands there. The man will get a bonus if the berg lands on some well frequented beach in Miami during "the season". And there will be Californian cameramen to make a big event of the landing.

Of course, the plans go a little astray during execution.

A note for my tropical readers, including Indians.
Sun shine is a precious commodity in northern countries, including US. On my first visit to US, I was rather baffled by the general excitement whenever next day's weather prediction involved sun shine. After spending a winter in Boston, I got wiser.

Can be a bit tough identifying with this story if you grew up in a place where you wished there was a little less sun shine!

Fact sheet.
Cold War, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Comedy
Rating: B

See also.

1. Henry Kuttner's "Cold War": Another humorous story that has nothing to do with US/Soviet stand-off. Apart from this, the two stories have nothing in common.
2. "Armaments Race" is another Clarke story that involves building harmless but big visual impact toys.
3. "The Ghost from the Grand Banks": This story has a more exotic use of a much bigger man-made iceberg: to life one of the two halves of Titanic from seabed!
   
4. Clarke's other humorous stories.

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Tales from the White Hart"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"

"Sleeping Beauty" (short story): A cure for your snoring problems!

Welcome the modern equivalent of the great Druid from the village of Indomitable Gauls. The maker of impossible potions. Because this one is modern, he injects them into your body via a syringe rather than making you drink it. But that is about the only difference.

Enjoy in this lovely piece of humor.

Story summary (spoiler).

A man gets ultimatum from his wife: do something about your snoring, or we are parting ways!

There is an additional complication: the man is to inherit a small fortune bequeathed by an uncle five years down, but only on condition that he has never been divorced till the time he gets the money! Can you count the number of movies with some variant or other of this constraint? I know there are a lot in Hindi.

OK - so he approaches the druid - an uncle who is a professor of biochemistry, or something.

Uncle is aware of the will. He extracts a bit of money immediately, & a contract to a part of fortune that will eventually come. In return, he promises to do what he can.

A while later, the snorer is injected with a newly brewed drug by professor. But he is not told that he is the first guinea pig of the wonder drug. Result is magical. Snoring is completely cured. So is the sleep!

Our snorer will never need to sleep again.

Part of the following story is concerned with speculation of how you will use all your extra time if you never needed to sleep.

But another fatal problem is surfacing. Because our man doesn't sleep, he cannot spend much time in bedroom with his wife. He gets out about midnight, & keeps himself occupied with nightly adventures.

Wife is not amused. She would rather have her snorer back!

Another visit to professor. An antidote is delivered. Unfortunately, the professor dies soon after administering drug - in a lab accident.

And, of course, need-to-sleep problem is cured, without snoring, & far better than anyone had hoped for! Our snorer never need to be awake again! Becomes a Kumbhkaran, the demon who loved to sleep - even truer than the original.

No one is complaining, least of all the wife who gets to enjoy the fortune without being burdened with a man of extremes.

Fact sheet.

Sleeping Beauty, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Comedy
First published: 1957
Rating: A
See also: Other Clarkian comedies.

This story appears in the following collections.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
2. "Tales from the White Hart"

"The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" (short story): Don't fear the complicated title, please

It was the tongue-twister title of this story that I first found attractive - in a perverse sort of way. After dusting my 20 year old nearly unused Webster (I had brought it because of beautiful bright red cover!), I found the meaning of "defenestration": throwing someone or something out of window. Ermintrude is the name of a women who happens to be the heroine of the story; Inch is her surname, & her husband's.

The story is actually is a timeless piece of humor - told since times immemorial in all cultures. And yet, every telling is different. And often attractive.

Story summary (spoiler).
A man - a sound engineer - feels harassed by his wife, because she speaks too much! After one of their numerous quarrels (wife thinks she hardly speaks, ever!), he decides to do something about it.

Result is what Clarke calls Word Counter (I think), but a more appropriate name would be "Wife Silencer". Or may be "Spouse Silencer", to be politically correct.

This is an ingenious piece of electronics that can isolate words in spoken language, & can associate each word with a speaker. When switched on, every word the wife utters in the living room will increment a very visible counter called Hers; & man's word will increment the counter named His.

On the first run of a few hours, wife's counter beats man's by a factor of 100. And wife is somewhat silenced. Over next several days, situation begins to turn towards a semblance of equality, though wife still beats man by a factor of 2.

But she is feeling depressed. Says she feels stifled because of readily visible counters. OK - the man juggles the gadget so the mike is hidden in living room, & rest of the gadget in another corner of home. A temper-proof seal is attached to now invisible counters - it will be opened a week hence.

Routine becomes normal. until the seal is broken a week down the line. And surprise - man's counter beats woman's by 100! Man is incredulous, & begins debugging the machine. Defenestration occurs when he identifies the cause.

And there is a final twist yet remaining in the tale!

Well told, & enjoyable tale.

Fact sheet.
The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Comedy
Rating: A

See also.

1. "Silence Please": This story introduced a more general purpose silencer. But gadget of our current story should appeal to more entrepreneurs - because of much larger market!
2. "The Reluctant Orchid": Some of emotions of main protagonists are very similar.

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Tales from the White Hart"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"

"Trouble with the Natives" (short story): When aliens visited a little English village!

Frustration of alien colonists. Good humor.

Story summary (spoiler).
A galactic survey ship that reports to equivalent of the ministry of tribal affairs (of galactic government) lands on earth - near an English village. Among the mostly tentacled crew are two humanoids - deficient alien creatures with only one pair of legs, arms & eyes! They don't quite look human, but are effectively disguised as such - given the advanced ET technology.

These two are to make contact with human authorities. They have learned English & human manners by listening to BBC broadcasts over a period of time.

The story is of their adventures through the village, as every attempt at contact is frustrated. Because they are totally inappropriately dressed, BBC mannerism doesn't work in this village, & totally naive application of their learnings about humans.

Similar scenarios in movies.
I am not aware of this in Hollywood, but I have seen at least two Hindi films that have very similar plot. But rather than aliens landing, it is Yam & Chitragupt (see below) that land on earth, & get frustrated in their contacts with earthlings - in scenes very similar in spirit to those in this story.

For those not familiar with lores of India: Yam, also called Yamraj, is the god of death, & also the warden of hell. Chitragupt is the heavenly accountant - the one who keeps a register that records your good deeds & bad ones.

Fact sheet.
Trouble with the natives, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Humor
First Published: 1951
Rating: B

See also.

1. Eric Frank Russell's "And Then There Were None" (A): Very similar & hilarious story (but longer) - only imperialists from earth try overlording another human inhabited world.
   
2. Michael Flynn's "Eifelheim" (B): This novel, among the finalists for Hugo Awards 2007, is about the aliens' visit to a German village - in fourteenth century.
   
3. "History Lesson" & "Rescue Party" both have scenes where ETs conclude naive things about humans by looking at, respectively, a movie & a portrait. In this story, aliens get similar miscues by watching television & listening to radio.
4. Tentacled aliens as dominant alien species was also the case in "Rescue Party".
5. Galactic survey ships looking for primitive intelligent races are rather common in Clarke's stories. But the aliens running them usually want to help still undeveloped life farms, rather them treat them as aboriginals.

This story has also been published under these titles.

1. "Three Men in a Flying Saucer"

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Reach for tomorrow"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
3. "Of Time and Stars"

"The Pacifist" (short story): Tale of a naughty computer

This comedy is about a computer that rebelled. Or was made to. Or may be the programmer rebelled.

This is primarily the story of the dynamics of a software development team, with a Dilbertian flavor. But you should be able to connect with the story if you work in any kind of project team.

There are portions that are dated - like programming a computer by also tinkering with its circuits, or by adding static data to a piece of software by installing physical memory banks & loading them from a tape. But this story is from 1950s. Modern views of software were not yet in. And none of this comes in the way.

Story summary (spoiler).
A team is enlisted to build a piece of software for military operations. Team includes some very talented engineers.

Twist is in the form of a clueless, Pointy-type, manager who has got the position because of extra-curricular skills. And learns some very embarrassing lessons in managing highly technical staff.

Fact sheet.
The Pacifist, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1956
Rating: B

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Tales from the White Hart"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
3. "Across the Sea of Stars"

"Silence Please" (short story): The ultimate silencer

Imagine you could cancel ambient noise using a device like an ordinary audio system. Not a noise-canceling headphone. We want to make an entire hall or theater silent.

Now imagine the kind of pranks you can play.

Story summary (spoiler).
This is a comedy where a college theater show is wrecked by such a device. One moment, the actors are saying something. Next moment, it's only silence!

I wish he had chosen one of numerous & noisy political rallies or slogan-shouting protest marches in India as example! Would be so much fun.

Good story.

Fact sheet.
Silence Please, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Science fiction
First published: 1954
Rating: A

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Tales from the White Hart"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
3. "Across the Sea of Stars"

"Superiority" (short story): Dilbert in prose

Every time I begin to get bored with Clarke's stuff, he throws in a surprise. This is an outstanding & hilarious comedy - probably the best single story I have read yet of Arthur Clarke.

He anticipates Dilbert by decades. If you manage a business or a project, you will find a lot you can relate to. It also is a story about rolling out new technology in an enterprise - what the software industry calls deployment. A 1951 story still totally relevant today, wow!

Story summary (spoiler).
The plot is about a war. One side has vastly superior technology & financial resources - too superior for its own good! Other side wins by shear tenaciousness, & ruthless focus. Hare vs tortoise.

Comic situations are all on the superior side. They begin with vastly larger number of war machines, their machines are more efficient too, & they have been the winning side till now. And then they get a new technology head - a true geek.

Now this geek looks at deployed war machines, & wonders why we are still using 100 year old technology - only innovations, of late, in weapons have been minor tinkering. Cannot we change the paradigm, & quickly end the war?

He convinces the generals to instead use his new weapon, the "Sphere of Annihilation". When activated, it makes all matter within several hundred meters of it vanish. Demonstrations are very convincing. Deployment begins. Ouch - it annihilates its own ship! OK - so then need to be mounted on missiles. But existing missiles cannot carry its heavy load - need minor improvements, etc. You get the idea.

On the battlefront, war situation has been changing. Enemy is not only sticking to old technology, they have been producing those weapons in great numbers.

No problem, the geek says. He has yet another weapon that can compensate for loss of advantage in conventional weaponry, while the Sphere is undergoing teething troubles. It's "Battle Analyzer" - a computerized system that can double the effectiveness of a conventional warship.

When the Analyzer deployment begins, we begin seeing little issues. This machine needs some 500 odd technicians to operate. We need to both train the technicians, & make space for them on the warship. Of course, fewer numbers are actually trained than planned. And to house the additional technicians not on duty, an unarmed liner will accompany the equipped warships. Of course, the enemy quickly figures out the simple way to win - destroy the liner.

Battlefront situation has become grim for the superior side; enemy is knocking on their own door.

Ever an optimist, our geek produces yet another wonderful weapon - "The Exponential Field". It is both defensive & tactical. On the press of a button, it distorts the space around its location in a way that you effectively move far away along a fourth spatial dimension - relative to your physical neighborhood when field was not active.

How do you use it? When cornered, you activate the field, & vanish! When attacking, you suddenly appear in the midst of the enemy & surprise them. Wonderful. Only there is a little glitch. After a couple of uses, deactivation leaves you a little away from target, & the various precision systems on board have been failing - including intership communications.

Some debugging sessions later, we are told the deactivation doesn't move all matter displaced to exactly the original location; there are computational errors. Original particles of matter have moved very slightly around relative their immediate neighborhood. This, of course, kills all electronics. We are not told why it doesn't kill the humans on board, but why do nit picking?

I am not complaining. Fantastic story.

Trivia.
When introducing this story in "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke", Clarke mentions the inspiration rooted in World War II: "German V2 rocket program" - an inter-continental ballistic missile program, too late to influence war & sapped resources - made Germans as the superior side; Allies were the inferior side that won.

Fact sheet.
Superiority, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Humor
First published: Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy, August 1951
Rating: A

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
2. "Expedition to Earth"
3. "Across the Sea of Stars"
4. "More Than One Universe"

See also.

1. Eric Frank Russell's "Allamagoosa" (A), & James P Hogan's "Making Light" (A): Other lovely Dilbertian tales, but about organizational bureaucracy. Similar tone.
   
2. A device that lets you move along a fourth spacial dimension also features in Arthur Clarke's "Technical Error".