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.
   

"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.

"Richter 10" (novel): Taming the earthquakes

First half of this book is outstanding; next quarter is good; last quarter is positively lousy, & completely unrelated to rest of the story.

The most irritating thing I find in all Clarkian novels - the tendency to spend a lot of time on threads totally unrelated to main story - is here in full glory. In spite of this, I have no hesitation in calling the first half the best among all Clarkian novels I have reviewed to date (current one is #17).

This story is actually not written by Clarke. It was written by late Mike McQuay to outline provided by Clarke - in a manner similar to Rama sequels.

Story summary (spoiler).

The story spans the lifetime of the main protagonist, Lewis Crane, beginning late 20th century.

There are three memorable scenes in the story, all in first half: a little boy rendered a cripple & an orphan by an earthquake in US; a callous administration letting an entire village die unnecessarily in Japan; & unscrupulous politicians & businessmen letting thousands die unnecessarily in big quake in US. Each of these scenes borders on horror, & yet there is a lot of optimism.

First scene introduces the hero, Lewis Crane. In a milder, but still very moving, variant of similar opener in Jean Auel's "The Clan of Cave Bear", the little boy loses use one arm, his parents, & his house in an earthquake in California.

Next we encounter Crane as an adult, world's foremost expert on earthquakes, a Nobel laureate, a top grade entrepreneur, & founder of the Foundation - his research organization. And now finally ready with his first big earthquake prediction months in advance - at a Japanese island called Sodo. The quake will destroy most of the island, & one entire inhabited village called Aikawa.

Only trouble is: no one believes Crane. Villagers & local government are unhappy because this prediction has ruined tourist traffic. Crane has collected world media for the event at a small spot on the island that will survive, & but a lot of media is covering the event from air.

And here we get the second big scene. Mayor arrives with cops to arrest Crane & deport him because they see him as scaremonger. That is when the quake hits. Everything is to prediction. When the dust settles, the village is a beach.

Crane is now a celebrity & harbinger of the evil. That is when he decides to raise funds for his bigger & super secret project: banish quakes by stopping all tectonic activity - by fusing together the plates comprising earth's crust at strategic places, about 50 locations in all. Using atomic bombs in a way that will direct their power towards earth's core, without any damage to surface.

Next major scene is a big quake prediction in some parts of the US bordering Mississippi river; in between, we have seen Crane directing rescue at a volcano (Pelee) affected island (Martinique) in the Mediterranean - but that was a minor thread. Only problem is: elections are soon due, & someone has figured a way to benefit from the quake. In a bizarre twist, field data of Foundation is intercepted & forged by the villain. Result is: Crane prediction is too soon by a few months. Crane loses credibility.

When Crane figures out the reason, & the fact that quack is still coming, there is a problem in communication - he needs to get credibility. Enter Harry Whetstone, his billionaire benefactor & friend. He convinces Harry to bet most of his $3b wealth on his prediction. And our friends go public with a wager: at 2:1 odds, our friends offer wagers of $50 each that quake will happen on new date. Wager is quickly lapped up.

Come D-day. Government is publicly denying any quake possibility. Public is against our friends, though there are sympathizers. In a relief camp set up at a safe location near to-be-worst-affected areas, Crane & his benefactor are arrested.

Of course, the quake hits as predicted. Our friends are on the scene directing relief. Crane emerges larger than life after the event. He has returned the $3b borrowed from friend, & now has enough money for his Foundation from the won wager that he no longer need depend on any external sources.

To kickstart his big project - the fusing of tectonic plates, Crane has some help from earth. About 20 years down, there will be a quake that will split much of California from rest of US, & make it a Pacific island. With widespread loss of life & property. And this event can be avoided - by putting the first "spot weld" joint somewhere in western US that will also substantially cut down the number of quakes worldwide.

He enlists political support, sets up a secure facility on the lines of US bomb making project in 1940s.

Rest of the story, about a quarter of the book, is bizarre - to say the least. And second rate, at least to me. And links with many tangent threads that have already been introduced into the story.

Falling apart of Crane with his main technical man Dan; Dan joining a muslim fundamentalist organization; terrorist attack on the secure facility that destroys the facility & kills Crane's wife & child; formation of an Islamic state within US. And introduction of more tangent threads - creation of a colony on moon, & their mining of water from permafrost on Mars rather than from Earth!

Among the other tangent threads in the story are: Middle East as a radioactive wasteland, a radioactive cloud that has been moving around earth for decades, ozone layer gone, Europe & US as Third World, & the world dominated by Africa & China. At one stage, we are told the world is 70% muslim, & US is mostly black & hispanic! These threads spread all through the book.

There is a stage where some sanity could have been introduced into the plot. Dan's key technical objection to Crane's fusion project are probably sound: there would not have been any life on earth if earth could not renew itself with tectonic activity; how do you know you are not banishing future life from earth? But this angle is never developed & quickly abandoned.

The book describes a lot of tech toys - brain implants, mood enhancing drugs, wrist-worn computers, projector-based televisions that normally use clouds & outside of public buildings as display surfaces, aural implants, flying cars, ... I wonder why just quake taming was not enough sf!

End of the book is the big quake in California. Crane & Dan have made peace, & will be committing suicide in the quake together!

Key characters.

1. Lewis Crane: Hero - the man who will banish the earthquakes.
2. Dan Newcombe aka Abu Talib: Close associate of Crane. The man who imparts mathematical rigor into Crane's predictions.
3. Lanie King: A computer simulation expert. Girlfriend of Dan, & later wife of Crane.
4. Harry Whetstone: Billionaire friend & benefactor of Crane. Plays a crucial role at one point in the plot.
5. Burt Hill: Kind of majordomo of Crane. The man of administration who ensures Crane can focus on important things, & not have to worry about details.
6. Sumi Chan: A Chinese woman in US who has faked her appearance, & hidden her sex from world for some weird & unfathomable reason. People think she is a he. Rises to be a US president in his male avatar, & later becomes second wife of Crane.
7. Kate Masters: A politician, & a friend of Lanie & Chan.
8. Mohammed Ishmael: A separatist & a terrorist. Prominent through the book, but is part of a tangent plot unrelated to main story.

Fact sheet.

Richter 10, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke & (Late) Mike McQuay
First published: 1996
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: A

See also.

1. Jean Auel's "The Clan of Cave Bear": Opener where a child is the only survivor of an earthquake is very similar. Though Jean's story is more heartrending.
2. Robert Heinlein's first published story, "Life-Line" (1939). There is much similarity in plot - both stories involve predicting something that is well beyond our current capabilities, both see the main protagonist die at the end, & in both, the main protagonist plays a similar stunt to get recognition from public as a prophet rather than a charlatan - by betting a large sum of money with whoever prove the prophet wrong.
   
3. "The Ghost from the Grand Banks" has some very similar earthquake scenes. Also, volcano Pelee on islands named Martinique is involved.
   

"The Sands of Mars" (novel): Optimism galore, & very readable

This will easily qualify as among the best stories by Clarke - particularly the last third, or may be the last half. Be happy, & do the best you can - and gods will generally smile back! Sounds like Gita!

And by & large, it is a down to earth story, in spite of native Martian animals, technology to create a sun, & a few other exotics.

Story summary (spoiler).
Main story is about terrafarming Mars - by increasing oxygen content of local air to enable humans to live in the open.

There are three parts to the plot: a space voyage from Earth to Mars where new human colony is struggling to become self-sufficient; a skeptic's view of possibilities offered by the colony, & his conversion to their cause; & finally the terrafarming.

In between, there are sub-plots involving discovery of native Martian animals, Martian plants, a shorter version of "A Fall of Moondust", & a short romance.

I got a feeling that first third is partly autobiographical, though Clarke never says so.

Main protagonist, Martin Gibson, is a well known science fiction author. He is offered a free passage on the maiden run of Ares, a passenger liner between Earth & Mars. Expectation is to use his writing on the experiences as PR material by the firm running the ship.

There are detailed descriptions of by-rocket travel to space station in Earth's skies; transfer to liner; liner interiors & crew; an adventure mid way through; landing on one of the Martian moons; travel down by another rocket; & architectural details of the Martian city ("Port Lowell").

Gibson was not exactly a welcome visitor, but colonists accept the visit with grace. Middle third is about his conversion to someone who believes in the Martian story. If you have worked in half decent startup, you should have no difficulty associating with the process of conversion.

Last one third is about a mega-project ("Project Down", if I recall correctly) that is also super secret, except that the secret is revealed about midway through this mystery story - if you are paying attention. Though I had not guessed the exact form the new heat source will take.

Key characters.

1. Martin Gibson: Main protagonist.
2. Jimmy Spencer: Son of Gibson.
3. Warren Hadfield: Man in charge of "Port Lowell", one of the two cities on Mars. Most of action on Mars happens here. I forget the name of the other city.
4. Mayor Whittaker: Assistant to Warren.
5. Irene - Jimmy's girlfriend, & Warren's daughter

Fact sheet.
The Sands of Mars, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1951
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: A

See also.

1. A small part of "Islands in the Sky", near end, suggests Islands is a sequel to Sands.
   
2. In "2010 Odyssey Two", aliens convert Jupiter into a sun - Lucifer - to terrafarm Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Here humans convert Phobos, a moon of Mars, into a sun to terrafarm Mars.
3. A sub-plot at about two thirds through the book involving a plane crash is almost a mini version of a "A Fall of Moondust". Robert Heinlein's "Searchlight" is also a similar shipwreck short story, but on moon.
   
4. "The Songs of Distant Earth" is the only other Clarkian novel I have read that shows this level optimism - though there is no doomsday scenario in this book.
5. First one third of the book appears to be autobiographical in the spirit of Hindi movies Aandhi & Guru - a highly fictionalized & dramatized account! The movies are in no way related to this book - except general tone. Note that Clarke never mentions of any autobiographical content - I am just guessing.

"Imperial Earth" (novel): Good book, notwithstanding the juvenile title

I kept postponing this book because of title. Sounds like one of those space empire stories. But the title is totally inappropriate. This is a story about very ordinary politics & diplomacy, in a rather exotic environment. And quite readable.

Story summary (spoiler).
There are three parts to the plot: a description of the life in a human colony on Titan (a moon of Saturn); a description of space voyage from Titan to Earth in a passenger liner; & the life on earth just a little before the year 3000 AD - time where the story is set.

Note that "3001 The Final Odyssey" is also set about the year 3000 AD. But I find Imperial Earth's descriptions far more realistic. In spite of rocket engines powered by man-made black holes, & people on earth living underground because it is much cheaper to melt the earth's crust than build over ground structures!

Duncan, the main protagonist, is a third generation clone & Titan resident. His grandfather clone made the colony viable by mining hydrogen far more cheaply there than on earth; & hydrogen is a popular jet propellent used in interplanetary ships. The family is very powerful among the Titan's ruling elite.

The voyage to earth is in a cylindrical (I think) ship with multiple levels (7 or 10 levels, I think). Aspects of voyage are described in painstaking detail, reminiscent of "Rendezvous with Rama" - though Rama was a very different kind of ship & story.

And this ship is powered with an engine that contains a tiny man-made black hole that sucks in large quantities of hydrogen, & releases energy that is then tapped!

Description of life on earth of about 3000 AD is fantastic (of course), but far less fantastic than in "3001 The Final Odyssey". We are also given a tour of Titanic, the ancient lost ship that has now been hauled from Atlantic bottom to New York & is a museum piece.

Among the many other wonders are a visit to a lagoon in Mediterranean with bio-engineered marine life that can mine gold from sea water (aka "The Man Who Ploghed the Sea"), & a design for supermassive antenna (comprising of linear elements) to search for extra-terrestrial life that will work on one of the outer moons of Saturn, but no closer to Sun, because of solar effects.

Key characters.

1. Duncan Mackenzie: Main protagonist, a third generation clone, & a member of the first family of human colony on Titan.
2. Karl: Minor role as a friend of Duncan; but their relationship is a love/hate mix.
3. Calindy: Common girlfriend of Duncan & Karl. Said to be a very smart woman.
4. George Washington: Guide of Duncan on earth.
5. Malcolm Mackenzie: Grandfather clone of Duncan, & a business & political hero on Titan.
6. Colin Mackenzie: Father clone of Duncan.
7. Aunt Ellen: Separated wife of Malcolm, & aunt to Duncan. Minor role.

Fact sheet.
Imperial Earth, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1976
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: A

See also.

1. "The Man Who Ploghed the Sea": This novel includes a variant of this story. Rather than a mechanical device that can mine arbitrary metals from sea water, this novel has a story of genetically engineered marine life to mine gold from the sea water.
2. "3001 The Final Odyssey": This novel also describes the life around the year 3000 AD. But I find the Imperial Earth description more realistic.
3. "The Ghost from the Grand Banks" has a Titanic salvage operation that will eventually make it a museum piece in Florida in US. Imperial Earth not only has a chapter titled "The Ghost from the Grand Banks", it actually has salvaged Titanic as part of a museum in New York.
   

"The City and the Stars" (novel): Harry Potter style fantasy

Best thing about this book is readability - at least the first 80% of it. Most of the time, I found it difficult to put it down. And that is when fantasy is not really my genre!

Last 10 or 20% is garbage - where some ultimate answers are given. Something that should be best left to Hitchhiker's Guide.

If you like Harry Potter, this will probably be an interesting book; if Potter bores you, this will too. Very simple test to determine your compatibility.

As an additional bait for Potter fans, you have a character called Vanamonde. He is not the villain here, but doesn't the name rhyme with Voldemort?

This is principally an adventure story - a restless man bored with his comfortable life, & seeking something different. It also has a very liberal sprinkling of Hindu mythology during first one third, a hell lot of fantasy all through, & some science fiction.

Among the cool stuff, you find everything you can name for a book labeled Speculative Fiction! There are immortals, telepathy, materialization/dematerialization devices, machines that respond to thoughts, aliens, energy beings, hive intelligence, spaceships that move faster than light, anti-gravity, worm holes in space-time, alternate universes, genetic engineering marvels, artificially created suns & planets, a variant of reincarnation, robots that can put Issac Asimov's robots to shame, weapons that can pulverize moon, self-sufficient closed habitat, virtual reality, computer games, utopia, religious cult, creatures that look like plants that move around, ... you name it! It's a massive cocktail.

So put reason aside, & enjoy the fantasy ride.

Story Summary (spoiler).
The story is set more than a billion years in future. Earth has lost its seas, & is nearly all of it desert. Moon no longer exists; it was destroyed by humans when it threatened to crash into earth at a time now long forgotten.

There are only two human communities on earth (or elsewhere) - physically very close together, psychologically completely disconnected. A closed habitat called Diaspar, & a collection of countryside villages called Lys.

Amazingly, members of these communities still look essentially like humans of today. Remember, we are talking of geological time. In this time, humans were created from probably pre-fish life forms! But we already agreed to put reason aside.

Our hero, Alvin, is a 20 year old child in a community of immortals. These immortals live in Diaspar, the closed habitat of a billion humans of which only about a 100 million are alive at a time.

What does that mean? This habitat is run by a robot that can digitize all information needed to recreate a human being, plus all or any of his/her selected memories. New individuals are continuously being created - but this creation is essentially materializing them from stored digital data. They live may be a 1000 years; then get dematerialized again into digital data to be rematerialized after a random amount of time in future.

This means there are no real children. You come out of the House of Creation fully developed, but your old memories will not return till about 20 years of age. And you are treated as a immature till you are may be a couple of centuries old.

There is an essential difference between these immortals, & current humans. They have a severe inbuilt fear of open spaces. None of them can even stand the thought of going outside the closed habitat. This situation is very similar to earth-inhabiting humans in Asimov's three Spacer novels (Caves of Steel, & two that followed it).

But our hero is different. He is one of the only a dozen Uniques the House of Creation has produced in all these billion years. He doesn't fear outside, & is in fact itchy to go there.

The story is of his adventures - to close by Lys country side community, to far off steller systems, & of helping rid his people of their fear of open spaces.

Influences.
There are at least two later books of Clarke that borrow major plot elements from this book: bio-magic in "Rama Revealed", & a somewhat sensible religious/philosophical discourse in the middle of "3001 The Final Odyssey".

Creatures that are plant-like & move slowly are also found in Space Odyssey sequels.

"The Light of Other Days" shares general style with this book in that it also tries to squeeze in every theme known to sf into the story!

According to Clarke's introduction, this book is a major rewrite of an earlier book - "Against the Fall of Night"; about 25% text is common. But I have not read this earlier book.

Fact sheet.
The City & the Stars, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Adventure, with a sprinkling of Hindu mythology, fantasy, & some science fiction
Rating: A

"The Fountains of Paradise" (novel): Extraordinary plot, ruined

This could have been among the best science fiction stories by anyone, but Clarke just keeps going on tangents rather than sticking to the main story. I felt a bit sad at the end; what a waste!

This also is among the most down to earth stories of Clarke, in company with "The Deep Range". Except for various diversions. Also, these two stories share a tenuous link via Thero, a kind of Dalai Lama of a fictional Buddhist sect based in Lanka; this was first introduced in Deep Range, & also gets substantial coverage in Fountains.

Story summary (spoiler).
Main story is about a concept called "space elevator". Depending on your perspective, it can be seen as an ordinary elevator of extraordinary size (some 40,000 km high), a space vehicle, or a subway.

Idea is to outdate the rockets that take off from earth, & make space travel affordable for ordinary people.

In a massive construction project, a space station will be connected to earth via a physical tower - a kind of very thick cable. All spacecraft will leave off the space station rather than earth - means much cheaper & environment friendly takeoff. You can buy a ticket for joy ride up the elevator, or for actual travel to moon, mars, or elsewhere.

It is the story of an entrepreneur civil engineer. Beginning with the concept, to getting funding, overcoming political opposition, handling displaced people, apart from the various technical aspects. Though handling displaced people has been treated as a joke here. I guess Mukesh Ambani might have done a more convincing job presenting this story, but Clarke does a good enough job - so long as he sticks to the main story. Main story is set sometime between 2100 AD & 2200 AD.

This main story is interwoven with several completely unrelated tangents: the story of a feudal empire in Lanka around 100 AD; story of an alien robotic spacecraft moving through our solar system aka "Rendezvous with Rama"; story of the Sun cooling down to turn earth into an icy wasteland aka first story in "History Lesson"; story of visit to earth of aliens that look like a more physical version of the Swarm in "The Possessed"; a rather juvenile story of our heroic boss of the whole enterprise rescuing some stranded explorers up in the tower during an accident. There might be more, but I can recollect these off hand.

It took me nearly 3 weeks to cover first 20% - story begins on one of the tangents. Around 20% mark, real story begins & for a while you cannot put the book down.

Then the alien robotic spacecraft visits. It is both similar to Rama & different. For one thing, it is very talkative - likes to converse with humans. It is cylindrical, but main craft has dimensions only in meters rather than kilometers. But it has a 500 km diameter antenna for communicating with its home world!

Then again the main story continues well for a while, amid reports of changes happening to the Sun.

Rescue drama begins when you are may be 60 or 70% through the book, & occupies most of the remaining pages. It is not only juvenile, but very filmy - everything that can go wrong does but one at a time, keeping you reading far longer than necessary.

Last 5% is set in about 4000 AD. We meet an alien who is a more physical version of the Swarm of "The Possessed". This is also where we have not only the original space elevator in working condition, but many more across earth, all linked together in space - forming a ring habitat; interior of this habitat will be detailed in the first one third of "3001 The Final Odyssey". You also see earth that is essentially uninhabited because it has now turned into an icy wasteland aka first story in "History Lesson"; humans live in ring habitat up in the sky, & also on Venus & Mercury which are now both habitable.

This is not a book worth skipping. But I had to skip a lot of pages on first reading; then came back to go through the fillers.

Putting the height of space elevator in perspective.
It is easy to read numbers like 36 or 40 thousand kilometers tall. Yes, it sounds tall - but how tall?

This is about the size of the perimeter of earth. Or about 3 times the diameter of earth!

This is also 7% the distance to moon. 15 such structures, & you can drive to moon!

An ordinary commercial jetliner will make you sit for over 40 hours to travel this distance.

How realistic is the concept of space elevators?
There are actually a lot of documents on the subject. I include only a few "not boring" articles meant for general public.

1. "Space elevators"
2. LiftPort's space elevator projects' discussion at Slashdot.
   

Fact sheet.
The Fountains of Paradise, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Science fiction, with a sprinkling of fantasy & ancient feudal history
First published: 1979
Rating: A
Hugo Award winner in novel category in 1980

See also.

1. This article includes illustrations of space elevator anchors at earth end & sky end (near the bottom of the article).
   
2. "The Ghost from the Grand Banks" also has an unrelated small subplot at the end where aliens investigate a now barren earth.
3. All Hugo Award stories.

"3001 The Final Odyssey" (novel): Somewhat anticlimactic

This book is almost entirely fantasy rather than science fiction. Except a few pages of rather reasonable philosophical discourse about mid-way through the book, & that too is borrowed from similar discourse in "The City & the Stars". And in spite of the finality of the title, the end of the story leaves a lot of scope for further sequels.

Also, this book liberally copies whole passages from previous books in the series.

Story summary (spoiler).
First one third of the book is a kind of time warp: imagine you moved 1000 years ahead in time; how would you react to human society of this future. There have been perhaps a half dozen movies on the subject - both in Bombay, & in Hollywood. But Clarke is creative. Cannot fault him for borrowing from these movies.

Among the many devices described here, you find a mention of space ships that use "anti-gravity", a technology that first appears in "Rescue Party" - the mother of all Clarke stories.

Middle one third is generally slow paced: a voyage from earth to Ganymede, & a little excursion from Ganymede to Europa. Sole interesting part of the book is in the middle of this section - a short philosophical discourse on human nature; I copy some quotes below.

Note that a similar voyage to Ganymede, & then to another moon in Jupiter system, also happens in "Jupiter Five" - the story that will ultimately become "The Songs of Distant Earth".

Last third is about as fantastic as the last story in 2001. Unimaginably powerful gods are humbled by humans!

Last third also partially explains the discrepancy in the series so far: around 22,000 AD, Europans are at about the level of stone age humans in development, & Lucifer is shining. But in 3000 AD, Lucifer has stopped shining! We are now told this "stopped shining" was a temporary phenomenon that lasted only a few hours - as humans outwitted gods.

There is still a discrepancy remaining in the series. If humans outwitted gods in 3000 AD, how come Europans are still happy & safe from humans on Europa in 20,000 AD; and still protected by TMA in Europa that vanished when humans attacked gods in 3000 AD! But as Clarke explains towards the end of this book - it is fiction written over three decades. Don't bother with discrepancies. Enjoy the stories, instead of doing nit picking.

Quotations.
Quotes below are all taken from a little philosophical discussion near the middle of this book.

• "religion was the by-product of fear - a reaction to a mysterious and often hostile universe. For much of human prehistory, it may have been a necessary evil - but why was it so much more evil than necessary". "I said evil - and I mean it, because fear leads to cruelty".
• "obvious madmen, century after century, will proclaim that they - and they alone! - had received messages from God. If all the messages had agreed, they would have settled the matter. But of course they were wildly discordant - which never prevented self-styled messiahs from gathering hundreds - sometimes millions - of adherents".
• "most of the humanity has always been insane, at least some of the time".
• "There's never been anything, however absurd, that countless people weren't prepared to believe, often so passionately that they'd fight to the death rather than abandon their illusions. To me, that's a good operational definition of insanity."
• "Do you believe in ghosts, Dim?" "Certainly not: but like every sensible man, I'm afraid of them."

Fact sheet.
3001 The Final Odyssey, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Fantasy
First published: 1997
Rating: B

See also:

1. "Space Odyssey series summary"
2. "Influences" section of "Rescue Party"
3. The ring habitat connected to earth with many spokes around equator that are space elevators that we see in first one third of this story also appears at the end of "The Fountains of Paradise". But there, we see it in about 4000 AD, & without details of its interior.
4. "The City & the Stars", a much earlier novel, has a religious discourse about its middle that is essentially the same as that in the middle of this book.
   
5. "Imperial Earth" is another Clarkian story that describes human life about the year 3000 AD. I personally find Imperial Earth's descriptions far more realistic.
   

"2061 Odyssey Three" (novel): Good thriller

This is the second of 3 sequels to "2001 A Space Odyssey".

While this shipwreck & rescue thriller pretty much gives away suspense at the very beginning (if you have read 2010), it is still generally a good read.

Also, this is generally a better book compared to first sequel - 2010. Fewer ghosts, no gods, few descriptions of wonderful alien creatures; and they don't last long. This is mostly a human story. There are some pages copied verbatim from 2010, but they are easy to ignore.

This book differs from earlier two in another respect also. It is a single story, rather than 4 different stories strung together.

While all the action happens in space, there are three parties on earth that play a role - but in background.

• A Chinese (or is he from Hong Kong? I forget) business tycoon (good guy). He runs an interplanetary shuttle service; two of his ships are involved in most of action.
• South African mafia (bad guys).
• A brilliant physicist (or is it chemist?). I forget his name.

There are two main theaters of action - Halley's Comet, & Europa (a moon of Jupiter-that has-become-a-sun named Lucifer). There is also some subsidiary action on Ganymede, another Jupiter moon. And preliminaries on earth.

Story summary (spoiler).
Action begins when the book is about a quarter through - a pleasure cum research voyage to Halley's Comet that is currently passing through inner solar system. A lot of pages on landing there, local scenery, features, etc.

Something has been cooking on Ganymede. Someone has seen a new feature on Europa with interesting characteristics. And wants to verify. Permission is quickly obtained from powers-that-matter on earth to throw a geological probe.

Since Europa is off bounds to humanity, according to Gods' dictate in previous book, a somewhat elaborate hoax is prepared for this voyage. After some adventures, there is a hijacking & an accident, & our friends land on Europa. Miraculously, powers protecting Europa don't mind.

Rest is the story of their rescue by the other ship at Halley's, & the wonderful sights the shipwrecked see on Europa.

End is ominous, with ample scope for next sequel.

• Lucifer dies. What will now happen to the newly lit worlds made possible by converting Jupiter into a sun?
  
• A new monster (TMA-4?) is introduced in New York City. And death of Lucifer has woken it up.
• A new ghost is created, without the man dying, by the two ghosts of previous book. As a kind of simulation. So we now have 3 ghosts to contend with - in next book.

Good luck.

PS: Sounds like is a discrepancy here. 2010 says there are Europans at the level of development of human cavemen in 22,000 AD. At that time, Lucifer is still shining. How come it burned out in this book? I wonder if I missed something out.

Fact sheet.
2061 Odyssey Three, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Science fiction
First published: 1987
Rating: B
See also: "Space Odyssey series summary", "Influences" section of "Rescue Party"

"2010 Odyssey Two" (novel): Generally a worthy sequel

This is the first of the three sequels to "2001 A Space Odyssey". Going by experience of his "Rendezvous with Rama" sequels, I avoided this one for quite a while. But this book is generally good.

There is a key change in continuing the narration from 2001: the mysterious alien artifact (TMA-2) is not on a satellite of Saturn, but is hanging in space between Jupiter & its innermost volcanic satellite Io. According to Clarke, this is to ensure this sequel is consistent with the original movie rather than original novel.

Story summary (spoiler).
It is convenient to look at this book as generally four stories - though they are far more tightly coupled than the stories of original 2001 were. Let me name them, for Clarke doesn't:

1. International diplomacy & voyage to Jupiter
2. Ghosts & gods
3. Gods at Creation
4. Europan (not European) gods

First story, international diplomacy & voyage to Jupiter, is the longest.

Americans are building a manned spaceship in earth orbit that will go to Jupiter, rendezvous with the spaceship Discovery left near the alien artifact in 2001 - to figure out what was known to that ship before contact was lost, & then again investigate the alien object for its secrets.

Russians are also building their own ship to investigate alien object. They missed out last time because Americans kept the secret to themselves for too long. And looks like they will end up finishing much faster than Americans.

Russians want American help to board Discovery, & to learn what is there in the data banks of that ship about aliens. Americans are not interested, till Russians come up with a trump card - Discovery is off orbit, & will fall into volcanic Io long before Americans can get there by their own efforts.

OK - so a Russian ship will go, with mostly Russian crew, but also 3 Americans - including the TMA expert, the man who programmed the robot (HAL 9000) that ran amok in 2001, & an engineer familiar with Discovery.

There is a silly part in voyage arrangements: Russians will travel normally, but Americans will travel in hibernation. Why? I guess Clarke just wanted to introduce yet another technology into narration; story would only have been cleaner without it.

Anyway, the Russian ship is approaching Jupiter, & American TMA expert is woken up. They are quite close to Jupiter, when the first twist comes.

Chinese have also been building a ship headed towards Jupiter, & they have technology far ahead of either Americans or Russians. This Chinese ship, Tsien, comes from behind, overtakes our friends, circles Jupiter, & lands on its icy moon Europa.

Our friends figure out why - to pick up water as propellant. Only the Chinese have other designs - they cause a diplomatic stir on earth by claiming Europa as Chinese territory. It seems, because of easy accessibility & easy availability of water, Europa could be an important refueling station for deep space exploration.

But Chinese have something larger than them up against them. Turns out, Europa has life - though primitive - in liquid seas under its icy surface. One such life form - half tree, half animal - manages to destroy Chinese ship & kill the crew. The man last to die sends a detailed report.

OK - tangent taken care off, our men head for the target. Dumbbell-shaped Discovery is boarded, fixed, taken to a safe orbit above Io, & the robotic HAL is fixed. And it has no clues to TMA-2 sitting close by in space.

Oh - TMA-2 has been renamed by now. Americans call it Big Brother; Russians by some other name I cannot recall.

All observations & probing of TMA proves futile, as in 2001. Our friends watch with infinite patience. Until TMA opens momentarily & lets out a mysterious lit object that can only be called a UFO.

Hence begins the tale of ghosts & gods, the second story. This is the worst part of the book, but thankfully it doesn't last long.

UFO is actually the American astronaut David lost in 2001 as he went into TMA, was taken for a ride by aliens, & turned into a pure energy being - a star child. We are told he still retains some human emotions and attachments, & is being held tightly on leash by aliens that have their own ends in mind.

When the Russian ship relays the UFO information to earth, someone decides to prepare with a nuclear bomb. Star child quickly detonates it in earth orbit, killing a few on surface of earth, but human losses could have been worse.

Then there are some adventures of star child - on earth to old haunts of David that is no longer David, on Europa exploring the life forms in its seas, inside Jupiter right to its core that is solid diamond, we are told. There are graphic descriptions of living animals on Europa, & also on Jupiter.

Then begins the tale of Creation, & of kick-starting intelligent life by gods - the third story. I was occasionally reminded of first story in 2001, & also of Encounter at Down, but generally this is a different story.

Our friends on board Russian ship (that has now been joined with older American ship through a kind of tube) are losing patience. All efforts to map TMA are failing. So they are planning to do something drastic - like detonate a powerful device on TMA surface, but are wary of reaction from TMA to such hostile acts. They are awaiting the launch window - some 20-25 days hence, when they can begin their trip back home; doing otherwise would require more fuel that they don't have. Plan is to do these hostile acts just before setting out for earth.

Now our friendly ghost makes contact with the TMA expert. He warns him to leave within 10 days (or is it 15? I forget).

Shipmates are divided on the ghost version. Though the TMA expert has impeccable credentials & is in good health, the captain wants something more substantive. Over the days, the crew gets more & more divided - some in believing camp, others not believing, others on the fence. Situation is not helped by reports arriving from earth - of the exploits of the ghost there.

Russian captain has another headache - even if she agrees to leave, there is not enough fuel. But there is the brilliant American engineer on board. Old ship Discovery still has fuel. They will rig it as a booster stage rocket, use some help from Jupiter's gravity, & with some luck, can get home safely even outside the launch window.

And then comes the next twist in tale. One fine day, the TMA simply vanishes. Now even the unconverted are converted, & plans for return are finalized.

Another twist is cooking elsewhere. Astronomers from earth have observed a new anomaly on Jupiter's surface - looks like the shadow of a new moon! Just as our friends are about to leave, they get a request as to whether they can take some pictures.

Starting the trip back home involves many twists - including convincing HAL of the changed schedule. It is during this trip that the black plague on the Jupiter's surface is noticed by our friends. And it is spreading fast. It seems, TMA that vanished went to Jupiter, & has been making copies of itself by sucking up local materials. And it is growing fast.

Enter a conversation between ghost & now all alone HAL. Ghost convinces HAL to stop talking to retreating Russian ship, & instead relay a message to earth as many times as it can. The message is very brief, & is from gods to mere earthlings: all planetary bodies around are yours, except Europa; leave that alone. Looks like the gods have designs on Europan lifeforms, but consider Jovian lifeforms discardable!

This is when the explosion happens. It turns out the gods that control TMA are about to turn Jupiter into another Sun - by increasing its density, & starting the fusion reaction! The plan is: its heat will warm nearby Europa, & help evolution of intelligent life there. It will also make other moons of Jupiter, new called Lucifer in its sunny avataar, more habitable. These other moons will be gods' gift to mankind.

Incidentally, during this cataclysmic event, HAL became another star child while the old ship Discovery was destroyed. So now there are two ghosts of earthly origin on the loose. Will likely help out in future sequels.

Now begins the final tale, the forth one. Of new intelligent beings just discovering their own gods. The year is no longer 2010. It is twenty thousand something. And the voices & opinions we hear are of the Europans. Some species there have just become conscious of the universe around, including their main sun Lucifer, & the little far sun. And of mysterious stars & lights moving around in the skies.

There is a little silly element that can be ignored. The beings described appear to be roughly at a stage of development that humans were some 30,000 years back, or perhaps slightly older ancestors. Anyway, the evolution on earth took some billion years to reach this stage from primitive animals; on Europa, this huge time has been compressed to just 20,000 years!

We are told humans have been probing Europan landing via unmanned probes for a long time, in spite of warning from gods. Every time their ship approaches, it explodes & is destroyed.

And yes, there is a TMA-3, on the surface of Europa, protecting its creatures from humans. Who will inherit the solar system - humans or Europans?

Enough hints of a sequel.

Fact sheet.
2010 Odyssey Two, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Fantasy
First published: 1982
Rating: B
Hugo Award nominee in novel category in 1983

See also.

1. "Space Odyssey series summary"
2. "Influences" section of "Rescue Party"
3. Another story by Clarke, from 1940s, titled "History Lesson" has a similar quick evolution on another world - even quicker than Europa.
4. Humans create a sun out of Phobos, a moon of Mars, to terrafarm Mars in "The Sands of Mars".
5. All Hugo Award stories.

"The Deep Range" (novel): Extend farmlands to seas, with whales as cattle!

This must be among the best science fiction by anyone - not just Clarke. A very realistic story, even if futuristic.

With increasing human population, where do you grow all the food? While the land is limited, 75% of earth's surface is sea - mostly untapped. This is a story about taking farming to sea.

Story summary (spoiler).
Main story is about cattlization of whales - breeding whales for meat.

A subsidiary story is about plankton plantations - both as fodder for whales, & for processing to make it canned food for humans. But this runs only as background.

A small sub-story deals with milking whales - the way cows & buffaloes are milked today. And processing this milk so you won't get abnormal taste or smell when you get your daily packet, or pick up a carton from a shop.

Story traces the career of hero - from trainee "warden" (a kind of whaleherd - as in a shepherd) to boss of the organization involved in raising whales for meat, with a hint towards the end of also getting into using them as milk animals.

In between, there are some distractions to bring in variety - snaring elusive sea monsters - a giant squid & a big sea serpent; rescuing some oil diggers trapped in an accident inside sea; & how can a Clarke's story be complete without some religion! But these side tracks generally enhance the story, rather than get in the way.

Good reading.

Trivia.
This novel is an expansion of a short story of the same name first published in April 1954 in Argosy (UK), according to Clarke's introduction to the short story in "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke". I haven't read the short story yet.

Fact sheet.
The Deep Range, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Science fiction
First published: 1957
Rating: A

See also.

1. Robert Heinlein's "Ordeal in Space" (1948): That story is effectively a minor plot element in Deep Range - a competent spaceman falls off a spacecraft, is rescued, but is traumatized enough to get acrophobia. Deep Range rehabilitates him as warden; he eventually recovers in Ordeal. Another very good variant of this theme is Clarke's "Maelstrom II".
   
2. "The Ghost from the Grand Banks" is another novel by Clarke that deals primarily with seas.
   

"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.