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 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.

"The Man Who Ploughed the Sea" (short story): Mine metals from the oceans!

Since the rivers ultimately drain all things from the lands of earth, the seas are full of all kinds of materials. Including fantastic quantities of metals. The only problem is: a single liter of sea water doesn't contain much of a specific metal like gold or uranium, though a cubic mile does.

Story summary (spoiler).
This is the story of a machine that can extract any specified metal from the waters of the seas without consuming awful amounts of energy & in large quantities. The machine is fitted at the bottom of ordinary sea going vessels. So one run across Atlantic can collect a lot of metal for owners of sea liners, e.g. Or a mining company could set the ships moving through the seas, & they can return to the docks when full.

And you save the environment: much lower energy costs in mining metals, & you don't spoil precious land. And there is enough in the seas to meet demand for as long as we can foresee.

End of the story is rather unnatural, but it is generally a readable story. Key part of the story is somewhat descriptive, & happens on board a boat off the Florida coast.

Fact sheet.
The Man Who Ploughed the Sea, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Science fiction
Rating: B

See also.

1. "Imperial Earth": A sub-plot in this novel involves genetically engineered marine life to mine gold from sea water.
   

The story appears in the following collections.

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

"What Goes Up" (short story): An industrial accident opens up new vistas

This is not the worst story by Clarke, but there are many that are decidedly better.

Story summary (spoiler).
An accident during the commissioning of a nuclear power plant in Australia creates a zero-gravity field of a limited range right on the surface of earth - a sphere of some size that goes both into atmosphere & inside earth. And has fantastic properties.

Title of the story has to do with our normal notion of up: moving towards zero gravity.

Fact sheet.
What Goes Up, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1955
Rating: B

See also.

1. "The Sentinel": Observable behavior of the shield protecting alien planted beacon on moon is very similar to the human created zero gravity field in this story.
2. "Technical Error": Another story where an accident during commissioning of a familiar machine opens up fantastic & fearsome new vistas.

This story appears in the following collections.

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

"Big Game Hunt" (short story): How about playing God?

This story is very similar to "Patent Pending". Both the device involved & principles involved are the same; but application is different.

Story summary (spoiler).
While understanding ECG maps of nervous system are very difficult, we know that they do represent the mental activity.

Here is the thesis of this story: Suppose I record the ECG of some lowly creature while it is doing some very simple activity - like a slug taking a right turn. Can I then drive this creature to do this activity at my pleasure by simply playing back this recording? Sounds like it will interest some pervert, but that is what this story is about.

Our inventor is happy doing these experiments beginning with very low forms of life, & then moving up the chain of life. Until an entrepreneur gets interested.

The entrepreneur actually has very modest intentions, given the scope of the machine. He simply wants to film the Clarke's favorite monster, the giant squid, in convenient surroundings & at leisure.

PS: Actually, the device described is slightly different: you need to fit electrodes physically into the nervous issue of animal, if I recall correctly. But that doesn't change anything basic about the story. And the final hunt is anyway remotely done.

Fact sheet.
Big Game Hunt, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1954
Rating: B

See also.

1. "Patent Pending": This story also has a similar ECG recording & playback device, but it is intended for distributing porn.
   
2. "The Ultimate Melody": This story is similar in that a device is used to tinker with electrical activity of the brain. But the control is exercised through auditory signals rather than clumsy electrodes.
   
3. "The Deep Range": Another story that devotes a side track to a hunt for the giant squid. Here, the squid is captures to become an exhibit in a zoo.
   

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"

"The Possessed" (short story): Intellect in the abstract!

This story has something in common with the first story of "2001 A Space Odyssey" - aliens nudging apes to become humans. Only they choose a different species, & the story has a very different ending! And the aliens here are not as philanthropic.

This story also reminded me of another old book - "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter. It was very popular when I was in college, & is written in style between a textbook & a story.

If I recall correctly, & I never went beyond first third plus its many pretty pictures, "Godel" dealt with the idea of consciousness (or at least self-awareness) in abstract mathematical structures. Kind of - can we isolate the idea of consciousness in a way that doesn't depend on anything physical, & will still be recognized as consciousness by reasonable people.

This story is very similar. It also is among the better ET stories by Clarke.

Story summary (spoiler).
A conscious being, Swarm, doesn't have a physical body in familiar sense - it's just a bunch of elementary particles that, nevertheless, is living & very smart. It can move between stars riding the interstellar light, except very close to stars where it can disintegrate & die.

It also is a parasite - it lives off other intelligent beings, by colonizing their minds. This idea of colonizing others' mind also appears in another Clarke story - "The Parasite".

Anyway, disaster has struck its home world, killing its host species & their world. So it is roaming the space in search of a suitable world, & suitable hosts. That is how it comes to earth.

But this is primeval earth. While there is life aplenty, there is no sign of anything intelligent. Should it nudge some of the living beings towards becoming intelligent, or roam the universe in search of another suitable world?

It decides to do both. Through a process akin to cell division, it splits into two equals. One will stay on earth, & try to convert some species into something intelligent; other will roam the universe.

They also decide on a point of rendezvous on earth. The one staying will visit this place periodically for any message from other half. If other half finds a suitable world, it will split again & send a copy back with the information - so the separated tribe can be united again.

Local watches over growing earth life, not able to choose anything suitable. And keeps returning to point of rendezvous - without luck. It is this need for rendezvous that gives the story its title.

Hundreds of millions of years pass. Routine repeats. In the meantime the local has chosen a local life form for nudging. Only problem is - it has bet on the wrong animal, & has lost much of its internal fire because of wait for good life all these years. But it still visits the point of rendezvous - in the hope the other half will come & redeem it.

End of the story is an amusing & inexplicable scene watched by a human family. And you know where the local Swarm had placed its bet.

Fact sheet.
The Possessed, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Fantasy
First Published: 1951
Rating: B

See also.

1. The alien we meet at the end of "The Fountains of Paradise" appears to be a somewhat more physical version of Swarm.
2. Neil Gaiman's "How to talk to girls at parties", nominated for Hugo Award 2007 in short story category, appears to be a variant of "The Possessed".
   

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Reach for tomorrow"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
3. "More Than One Universe"

"Jupiter Five" (short story): Precursor to "Rendezvous with Rama"

This story obviously leads better known "Rendezvous with Rama" - there are just too many similarities. This story also has elements that will be seen in the 3 sequels of "2001 A Space Odyssey".

Story summary (spoiler).
Like Rendezvous, we have an alien spaceship in our solar system with kilometer scale dimensions. Like Rama, this is a complete independent habitat including its own sea. Like Rama, it has traveled for untold number of years through interstellar space. Like Rama, number 3 is important to these aliens - e.g., the ship's hull comprises of 3 layers.

Unlike Rama, this ship is spherical rather than cylindrical in shape, & has multiple entrances rather than only one. Also unlike Rama, it is dead & has been dead for several million years.

And, for a change, the aliens are not tentacled but reptilians, as in "History Lesson".

But by & large, the story is in the same style & tone as Rendezvous.

Last third is just a mundane fight of wits, & could have been dropped from story without any effect; it just prolongs the story. Or may be it is a precursor to 3 Rendezvous sequels; there are similarities with those sequels.

You get a preview of Odyssey sequels in the form of voyage to Jupiter, & a stopover at Ganymede.

Quite a readable story, but I prefer Rendezvous.

Fact sheet.
Jupiter Five, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Science fiction
First Published: 1953
Rating: B

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

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Reach for tomorrow"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
3. "Across the Sea of Stars"
4. "The Sentinel (collection)"

"The Fires Within" (as by E G O'Brian) (short story): Aliens that are not aliens!

Asimov's "The Gods Themselves" is probably the only other story I have read that can compare with this in inventiveness of unfamiliar life forms in fiction.

From the facts cited, this story was obviously written when much less was known about the interior of earth. But that doesn't dilute the fun of the story.

Story summary.

Most of the story is told in flashback. So let's begin with flashback.

A professor has a brainwave: cannot we use sonar (acoustic reflections) to "see" what lies beneath the surface of earth.

He builds a device that lets you "see" on a display what lies at any depth under the surface of earth. Oh, maximum depth depends on power input; the maximum the professor ultimately reaches is a couple of tens of miles.

Initially, the device is a curiosity. Then it becomes a useful industrial machine - very interesting for geologists. And then comes the inevitable twist in the tale.

It is obvious that as you go deep into earth, the pressure of rocks above grows, & also the temperatures increases. 10 miles down both are unbearably huge.

When the device was first tested, they found a lot of dead earthworms. Obviously they were killed by the energy released by device.

OK - so here is the twist. Professor is expecting that more than a few miles down, you will not really see any features - cavities would have been filled in, & it will be all molten rock. And that is what he sees, until he reaches a certain level - some 10 or 12 miles down.

What is seen are huge physical features where none are expected. Some investigation later, it is clear that they cannot be natural. Some theorizing later, the conclusion is: obviously there are intelligent beings living in that seething mass, & that they can float through all that rock, & build their cities there!

Rest of the story is told by the intelligent beings living down under, in the hot underbelly of earth - 300 years later. Oh, yes, & they are tentacled - Clarke's favorite feature in unfamiliar life forms.

Looks like they always thought no life could have (obviously) existed on the surface of earth since it was near vacuum & so cold it was near absolute zero (compared with their environment)!

Until they detected these sonars probing down under. That is when they tried making contact with the fragile humans. The tone of ending says that meant the doom of humans - they could never withstand the heat these creatures brought up.

End is worried musing by one of their own - they live only 12 miles deep. What happens if they should be contacted by anything living below them?

Collected in.

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

Fact sheet.

First Published: Fantasy, August 1949, under the pen name "E G O'Brian".
Rating: B

"The Parasite" (short story): Paranormal, & weird (obviously)

Best part of this story is - it is short! And has enough mystery to not bore till end.

The concept of the story is certainly not original. If you travel across small town northern India, you will hear stories of this ilk at many road side eateries - sometimes told as if they were true stories. It also has elements that remind me of two novels by Asimov - one of his Spacer stories involving people of the imaginary world Solaria, & another involving a curious elevator that let you travel in time rather than height.

But the specifics of the plot are original. At least I had not heard the story told in this form before.

Story summary (spoiler).
A man is haunted. Or possessed. Or hallucinating. The thing is - he feels he is always being accompanied by someone - someone who can access his deepest emotions. And this thing has been with him for years, dormantly watching. And now it is revealing itself - slowly, layer by layer, & taking pleasure in his discomfiture.

Here is the revelation. Looks like a race of humans in far away future has learned all there is to learn, including everything about the universe around. And they have infinite leisure, long life, & served by robotic maids.

They became so degenerate & lazy, they could not even meet their physical needs. Most Indians reading this might recognize the elements of oft-cited & unprintable joke involving a lazy man, the careless dog, & the bystander.

Anyway, these men of future have advanced technology. Among their perversions is one involving moving back in time when humans were more virile, & taking charge of the mind of one of the victims from this past - so these lazies can get pleasure without physical effort!

Will the smart victim be able to free himself of this presence?

Fact sheet.
The Parasite, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Paranormal
First Published: 1953
Rating: B

See also.

1. Hirai Kazumasa's "A Time for Revolution" - another story where future humans parasitically control the minds of people of an earlier era telepathically. But they aren't doing this for amusement; they are doing to to avert a future dystopia.
   
2. "The Awakening" - another story of a future human society of prosperous & bored individuals.
3. "The Possessed" - another story involving parasitic beings that colonize other intelligent animals' minds.
4. "The Light of Other days" - has a small episode near end where future descendants of humans can talk back to humans from past.
   

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Reach for tomorrow"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"

"Technical Error" (short story): A rather esoteric horror story

This story, first published under the title "The Reversed Man", relies for its facts on what I think is speculative physics - the existence of more spatial dimensions than 3 that we can perceive. Though there are theories galore, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever demonstrated their presence.

But it is a readable story, at least the first 90%.

Story summary (spoiler).
An electric power utility builds a new kind of very powerful generator. There is only one theoretical physicist in the employ of the company who understands the principles.

While commissioning the generator, there is an accidental short circuit - resulting in one technician getting momentary exposure to very intense field - electromagnetic field, & god knows what other kind of field.

After rescue, it is found in hospital that he has not suffered any serious damage, & will be discharged in a few days. Except for a curious phenomenon observed by one of the doctors - though he cannot nail it down to any kind of sickness in technician.

The doctor consults the theoretical physicist. The phenomenon is: everything about the technician, as well as the physical artifacts he was carrying like currency coins & a diary, have become a kind of mirror image of their original selves. The man thinks his left arm is his right arm; some tooth fillings in his mouth have moved from left to right; when he reads a newspaper, he finds the text arranged as if he is looking in the mirror; the diary he was carrying has its text switched to what it would have looked like if seen in mirror; text & pictures on the currency coins he was carrying have likewise reversed!

Physicist theorizes the possibility of a forth dimension having been momentarily opened at accident side, & the man simply "turned over" in that forth dimension! But he keeps this theory to himself - though he spends a lot of time quietly working on the details privately.

Since the technician is improving without any side effects, & relearning to live in his left/right transposed world, everyone forgets about it. Except when the doctor confronts the physicist again, a few days later.

Looks like the patient is starving. New theories are postulated. It seems, many foods are found naturally in two mirror image configurations, where human body can only use one! Doctor is keeping the patient alive by coordinating the manufacture of mirror image version, but it is turning out to be very expensive.

Since physicist has good reputation, he manages to ensure an extraordinary meeting of company board is called, & presents the costs of liability scenario. And presents the alternative - reproduce the same scenario & hope the forth dimension will do the magic. And gets the board approval to do this. Separately, the approval of patient & his family is also sought.

Unfortunately, the reproduced experiments succeeds more than anyone had bargained for!

Fact sheet.
Technical Error, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Horror
First published: 1950
Rating: B

See also.

1. A device that lets you move along a fourth spacial dimension also features in "Superiority".
2. "What Goes Up" also has an industrial accident that opens up fearsome new vistas into forces unknown to mankind.
   

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "Reach for tomorrow"
2. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
3. "Across the Sea of Stars"

"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"

"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"

"History Lesson" (short story): Perils of concluding from little evidence

This really is two stories rather than one - a doomsday story, & an ET story. Both themes appear to be rather dear to Clarke's heart - going by number of stories he has written on these themes. Title comes from second story.

Story summary (spoiler).
Let's first talk about the second story - since title is named from this.

Assume an alien race from skies comes across a single photographic movie reel, without sound, from earth, & were to try reconstructing our life & culture? It is this speculation that essentially occupies the second half. E.g., is the orifice that often opens & closes in the lower half of the top round portion of these erect bipeds some kind of breathing device! That is a sample.

First story reminds me of the story of 108 tribes in the epic novel "Return of the Aryans" by B S Gidwani. Aryans obviously came after Clarke's story, but most of its stories are based on very old Indian literature & archaeological records. I don't really know the connection - except that two stories are nearly identical - in tone, theme, as well as presentation.

A tribe of humans is running from a disaster, crossing mountains on its move southwards - in search of new life. In Aryans, the tribe was running from famine & crossing Himalayas; in this story, tribe is running from advancing glacier, & crossing an unnamed mountain.

Now, lets fill in the blanks. For some reason, the Sun has cooled - without any other obvious effects. This has set Venus towards becoming friendly for intelligent life, & has doomed earth in a permanent ice cover.

First story is the about last days of humanity - glaciers are advancing from north & south - meeting mountains near tropics. While mountains the tribe is crossing are not named, you might be able to guess.

While earth is dying, Venus is in bloom. Thousands of years hence, Venus is dominated by an intelligent lifeform that is essentially reptilian. As they discover space travel, & come examining the third icy planet that could never have held life, they detect a faint radio signal. A kind of atomic powered beacon was secured up in a mountain cairn by the last tribe of humans as a sacred relic, along with a few other things - among them the photographic motion picture.

Second story is the attempt to interpret these relics & reconstruct the life as it was on earth - by Venusians.

Now the silly part. There is an echo of this Venus bloom in Clarke's more recent novel - "2010 Odyssey Two". Venus has cooled in former; Europa has heated up in later. In both cases, a life-friendly world has been created, & evolution moves at speeds way beyond anything witnessed on earthly evolution. There is another twist to Venus tale - in just 5000 years since bloom, not only are there conscious beings, but space farers comparable in competence to modern humans! In 2010, at least it took 20,000 years to reach the stage of stone age humans. Never mind that dumb earthly humans took something on the scale of billion years to achieve these feats!

See also.

1. Earth turns into an icy wasteland at the end of "The Fountains of Paradise" also.
2. An alien ship also visits a barren earth at the end of "The Ghost from the Grand Banks", & after much searching, is able to pick up a beacon that tells the story of intelligent life that once flourished here.
   

Collected in.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
2. "Across the Sea of Stars"

Fact sheet.
History Lesson, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Fantasy
First published: 1949
Rating: C
Listed in Contento's Top Ten Most Reprinted Stories.

Hide-and-Seek (short story): Adventure on Phoboes

Story summary (spoiler).
This is quite an entertaining little account of a chase in exotic surroundings. One very resourceful man, alone on Phobos - the tiny moon of Mars, being chased by a heavily armed adversary & winning.

There are some detailed descriptions of Phobos, & somewhat dated descriptions what you would see on Mars from there.

Not a bad reading.

Fact sheet.
Hide-and-Seek, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Thriller
First published: Astounding Science-Fiction, September 1949
Rating: A

The story appears in the following collections.

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

"Transience" (short story): Good prose, but ...

This must be among the few somewhat confused stories by Clarke.

This doomsday story talks of earth's destruction, along with that of rest of solar system, & the coming & going of man without the slightest effects on the universe in the long run. That is theme behind the title.

Story summary (spoiler).
Of the four parts in the story, first is by far the most interesting. Tentative exploration of the world by a child who could have been the son of Moon Watcher in "2001 A Space Odyssey" - at the down of human history.

For the most part, it is not a sad story. For, the story is told through 3 young children, each playing alone on the same beach, but across vast gulfs of time. First is the child from the down of humanity. Second is a modern human child. Third is the child of among the last people to leave earth - for some unknown & safer destination.

There is not much given by the way of explanation as to why this doomsday is coming. Two pieces of news are offered:

• Solar system has moved close to the center of galaxy, from it familiar position far in one of the arms of the spiral. Why? Don't ask me.
• "Dark Nebula", whatever that is, is slowly creeping towards solar system. Or may be it is the other way around. Anyway, the two are about to meet. Since nebulae are where the new stars are born, our solar system will apparently become raw material from which the mother nature will shape new worlds eons hence.

I recall an Asimov novel where humans colonize a star system inside a nebula - to hide things from mainstream humanity. How come one nebula is so benign, & other so dangerous? Don't ask me.

I liked the part where the world is seen through the eyes of the first child. Other two are rather average. End is decidedly boring.

Fact sheet.
Transience, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: B

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
2. "More Than One Universe"

"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.

"Inheritance" (short story): Space shuttle foreseen!

This is the third "shipwreck as primary element" story from Clarke I am reviewing, not counting Deep Range that had a shipwreck as a minor episode. After a while, it gets a bit boring!

And this story has a bonus shipwreck - so instead of usual one with happy ending, we have two wrecks here - one with happy & another with sad ending.

Story summary (spoiler).
A manned 2-stage rocket powered with chemical fuels is taking off, develops a snag 50 km above earth's surface where the booster stage refuses to separate. There is miraculous escape of both the rocket & the sole human occupant.

An interesting part of this first episode is: main payload rocket sounds a lot like NASA's modern space shuttles! Remember, this story was written in 1940s!

Second part is a bit of occult. While the hero is recovering from minor injuries sustained in accident, he confides to colleagues what kept him completely confident that he was not about to die after he became aware of the snag. It seems, he has been having dreams where he is in a curious cabin with funny controls & displays with 3 others, all in what he now recognizes as space suites. There is curious additional angle to the dream: among the three occupants is one of the colleagues listening to story, & that colleague is much older in dream.

So hero knows he still has life left - since he has never been part of a 3-man space flight! Reminds me of boring Bipasha Basu movies of last few years where she keeps seeing things in dreams that also keep coming true - I think there are at least 2 such movies.

Third & final part is again essentially occult. A little after the accident, a new kind of nuclear powered rocket is developed - much smaller than chemically powered ones of yore. And who else to take the first flight but the hero? Only this rocket explodes amid euphoria around new technology, killing its sole passenger.

When colleagues of hero visit his home to offer condolences, they are talking to his wife when the son enters. Well, Jr looks just like his father, so the colleague knows it was son in dad's dreams!

Fact sheet.
Inheritance, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Science fiction
First published: New Worlds, no 3, 1947, under the pen name "Charles Willis". This data is from "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke". My notes indicate I have seen another publication mentioning publication year as 1948, but have no record of where I read that. Since Collected Stories is currently in my hands, I will treat that as authentic.
Rating: C

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"