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

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

Now imagine the kind of pranks you can play.

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

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

Good story.

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

The story appears in the following collections.

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

"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"

"Superiority" (short story): Dilbert in prose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am not complaining. Fantastic story.

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

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

The story appears in the following collections.

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

See also.

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

"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"