"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.
   

"siseneG": Genesis spelled backwards

This is actually a joke rather than a story - about God & Creation; dates from 1980s. You won't miss anything if you never read it, though I know someone who liked it.

Searching Google or some blog search engine might throw all of its 2 or 3 lines of text; I recall having seen more than one copies on the web. Here is one online copy (big DOC file that includes this story inline).

Fact sheet.
siseneG, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1984
Rating: C

The story appears in the following collections.

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

See also.

1. All stories with religion as a theme.

"Critical Mass" (short story): A stampede is averted

This will easily qualify as among the more forgettable works of Clarke.

Story summary (spoiler).
There is a nuclear research facility in some small town. Local population never quite becomes comfortable with it presence - always fearing the ultimate disaster.

Until, one fine day, a truck carrying crates with unknown contents loses control, & crashes.

Everyone approaching the accident site is seen running away at double quick speed. A little halo is observed around some of the spilled crates. A general stampede is beginning.

And then the nature of leak is revealed, to everyone's relief.

Fact sheet.
Critical Mass, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1957
Rating: C

The story appears in the following collections.

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

"The Curse" aka "Nightfall" (short story): Fate of a bombed city

Among the least entertaining stories by Clarke. The only good thing about it is that it is really short!

Story summary (spoiler).

Story describes the state of a dead small town some days after a nuclear bomb was dropped on it. It is completely descriptive - no humans, animals or dialogs - and of course the mood is sad & nostalgic.

The town involved is Stratford-upon-Avon, apparently a very well known city in England, located on the banks of river Avon. The city is both the birthplace of William Shakespeare, & where his grave is located. Both the grave & the river make an appearance towards the end of story.

Story apparently gets its title from the last line of the translation-to-modern-English of the well known epitaph on the gravestone, though the story quotes the original epitaph when identifying the grave:

"Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare
to digg the dvst encloased heare
Blese be y man y spares thes stones,
and cvrst be he y moves my bones."

Story dateline has an anomaly I could not resolve. The city was accidentally bombed some 300 years after Shakespeare died. The story is told a few days after the incident. That would place it about the year 1616 + 300 = 1916 AD. Yet the bomb dropped is a hydrogen bomb!

Acknowledgment.

Till I saw Sarah's comment below, I had no idea of the identity of either the city or gravestone, nor any idea of the importance of both to England. Thanks Sarah.

I substantially revised the text above on June 22, 2007 after following Sarah's links, & after rereading the story.

See also.

1. Other stories with nearly the same subject matter: Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains", & Arthur Clarke's "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth ...". Bradbury's version is the lightest read.
   
2. Henry Gee's "Are We Not Men": While I didn't quite like either, if you liked Curse, you might like this story by Gee too. Very similar telling style, though on a different subject.
   

Fact sheet.

"The Curse" aka "Nightfall", short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First Published: 1953
Rating: C

Collected in.

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

"The Awakening" (short story): Man shall not inherit the earth!

Frankly, I am getting bored with Clarke's doomsday stories - there are just too many of them!

Story summary (spoiler).
Earth is so prosperous at this future date that boredom is the biggest problem. Too many men committing suicide because of lack of excitement in life.

Our hero, if you can call him that, decides to do something interesting. He gets a spaceship built, with an inner chamber that is essentially a machine controlled chamber for human hibernation.

He takes off into space, parks himself into a solar orbit beyond Pluto, & goes to sleep in the hibernation chamber. The machines controlling hibernation chamber have instructions to awaken him unfathomable eons hence; ship likewise has instructions to bring him back to earth after awakening.

At the time of awakening, something in the machines fails; he is not awakened really, but stays in hibernation.

Ship faithfully brings him back to earth. But earth has changed unrecognizably. Gone are its seas, Alps, & Himalayas. Also gone is the moon - it crashed into earth at some time in far away past (I was taught that moon is moving away from earth, a few centimeters a year!)!

Well - the ship lands at the best site it can find. Some members of the current master race of earth come, awaken him using their technology but only for a while. And he realizes it is not the man that inherits the earth, but ...

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

See also.

1. "The Parasite" - another story of a prosperous future human society with bored individuals. But the two stories are developed very differently.

The story appears in the following collections.

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

"The Forgotten Enemy" (short story): Ice age returns

Story summary (spoiler).
Our Sun, in its run around galaxy, has entered a vast cloud of generally harmless cosmic dust. No one knows how long the pass will take - decades or thousands of years.

Result is: much less heat of the Sun reaches earth. And earth has entered the process that will take it into the long forgotten ice age.

The story is about the anguish of a man who has seen his world shattered by the event.

Fact sheet.
The Forgotten Enemy, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Fantasy
First Published: 1950
Rating: C

See also.

1. "Transience" - where our Sun enters a more dangerous kind of cosmic cloud, a nebula.
   
2. In Asimov's novel "Currents of Space", a floating cloud of carbon dust hits the sun of an inhabited planet, with disastrous effects.

The story appears in the following collections.

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

"A Walk In the Dark" (short story): Of primeval fears

If the only terror you knew as a child was that of darkness, you might be able to identify with this story. At least for a while.

An MP3 version of this story is available online (link via SF Signal & Free SF Reader). I haven't heard the audio version.

Story summary (spoiler).
A man of a high-tech community is forced by circumstances to walk for a few hours on a lonely road in a wilderness with no moon & little starlight. In a region that locals believe is kind of haunted, & has a monster on the loose!

Story is of the man's fears as he walks down the road; plus a predictable twist near the end of tale. Not the best of Clarke, but I didn't begin getting bored till about half way through.

Fact sheet.
A Walk In he Dark, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Horror
First Published: 1950
Rating: C

The story appears in the following collections.

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

"The Nine Billion Names of God" (short story): Amusing computer specifications

A second rate doomsday story.

Full text of this story is available online (link via Best Science Fiction Stories), as also is an MP3 version (link via SF Signal & Free SF Reader). I haven't seen either of online versions, but quick skimming of text version suggests it's the story I read.

Story summary (spoiler).
Some monks in a monastery in Tibet have been researching the real names of God for 3 centuries - apparently, the familiar names of god are not good enough.

They know the written real names of god will be exactly 9 letters long - letters drawn from their special alphabet. And no more than 3 consecutive occurrences of the same letter are permitted.

Problem is to write down all permutations of characters meeting these criteria. When a correct name is spelled, the universe we know will lose meaning.

Monks have been doing this permutation writing for 3 centuries. Now they think the computers can speed the job up - from several more centuries to a few months.

A computer that sounds like a mainframe is brought, along with 2 programmers for 3 months. These permutations are printed & painstakingly filed on paper.

Programmers were brought on-site without telling them why the enumerations are being printed. One the them learns the purpose, & is worried monks will blame them when the last permutation is printed & world keep on whirring the way it always has had. They invent a way to delay the project completion - so they will be on their way home when last permutation is printed.

While programmers are on their way back, the machine prints last permutation. When programmers look up the sky, they find the stars are rapidly vanishing.

There is one silly point, & many amusing ones. Silly is - what are the odds that target name is the last one printed!

Amusing ones relate to description of computer & programming. They tell the age of the story - it is from 50s; of course, Clarke must have been quite up to date when he wrote the story. Here are some quotes I especially liked:

• "Your Mark V Computer can carry out any routine mathematical operation up to ten digits. However, for our work we are interested in letters, not numbers. We wish you to modify the output circuits ..."
• "A rather more interesting problem is that of devising suitable circuits to eliminate ridiculous combinations. For example, no letter must occur more than three times in succession."
• "The components" of computer "are small enough to travel by air".

See also.

1. An in-passing inconsequential remark referring to this story is found in Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", & in a misquoted form in Eric Frank Russell's hilarious "Next of Kin".
2. All stories with religion as a theme.

Collected in.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
2. "Of Time and Stars"
3. "More Than One Universe"
4. Robert Silverberg (Ed)'s "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964".

External links.

1. Since this is amongst the most collected stories of Clarke, opinions on it are bound to differ. My friend Rusty has a more positive review of this story.

Fact sheet.
The Nine Billion Names of God, short story, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Rating: C
Listed in Contento's Top Ten Most Reprinted Stories.

"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

"Childhood's End" (novel): Religion & mysticism sold as second rate science fiction

There are parts that are interesting, but I would not have missed this doomsday novel had I never laid my hands on it.

This book is essentially a reiteration of the idea of moksha as the ultimate purpose of life - as preached by any number of Hindu sects over the millennia. See note below.

Story summary (spoiler).
One fine day in 21st century (or is it 2oth - I forget) massive alien ships appear over major cities in the world. These aliens quickly subdue humanity, preach Clarke's morals, unite all the world's countries in one big government, etc. And are referred to by mere mortals as "Overlords". That is the first part. I generally found in totally pointless.

This first part is an expanded version of the short story "Guardian Angel" (1950), according to Clarke's introduction to this story in "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke". It's nearly the same text, but uses far fewer words; I found the shorter version a better reading.

Later half is where you have the sole tiny interesting story in the entire book - a smart mortal rebels, figures out the location of Overlord's Sun, & manages to board one of the Overlord commuter ships as a stowaway to visit their world.

Much of the second half can be seen a two separate stories.

1. A fantasy where our stowaway lands on the Overlords' world, & sees sights that are supposed to be eye-popping.
2. Other story is essentially of moksha - any number of Hindu sects have preached it over the centuries. There is an equivalent of Hindu Brahm - a kind of universal all capable mind that is essentially infinitely capable. We are told it was this universal mind whose bidding the Overlords do (more Hindu mythology); I think Clarke uses the term "Overmind" for this universal mind. And that Overlords have come to earth to prepare humans over the age of 10 for the doomsday that will see the end of humanity as a separate species. Through a what can be seen as miracle, kids below the age of 10 merge with universal mind. Adults lose interest in life & die out. End of the book is quick evaporation of whole earth into oblivion.

Moksha as a popular concept in modern India.
Moksha is essentially a merger of a living entity, including humans, into brahm - a kind of infinitely capable universal presence or mind - after death.

So you will be freed from the cycle of reincarnations - said to be a desirable goal, because it saves you the effort of living. Any number of sects in India preach this everyday, often using very colorful imagery, along with a recommended code of living that will help you attain this objective.

Note that brahm is also known by many other names.

The Wikipedia article on the subject is far from authoritative, but gives a general feel of the subject in a more learned language & in more detail.

Fact sheet.
Childhood's End, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
First published: 1953
Rating: C

See also:

1. "Guardian Angel" (1950): Short story that is the starting point of "Childhood's End".
   
2. "The Light of Other Days": Another second rate story that attempts to define a different variant of hive intelligence as the ultimate purpose of human existence.
   
3. All Clarke stories with aliens, or doomsday as theme
4. All stories with religion as a theme.

The novel is also included in the following collections.

1. "Across the Sea of Stars"