Imperial Earth [Paperback]

Arthur C. Clarke (Author), Arthur Clarke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2003

Editorial Reviews Product Description Imperial Earth is the fascinating odyssey of Duncan Makenzie, traveling from Titan, a moon of Saturn, to Earth, as a diplomatic guest of the United States for the celebration of its Quincentennial in the year 2276. Titan, an independent republic, was originally colonized from Earth three generations earlier. Duncan's initial challenge is to prepare, physically and intellectually, for the 500-million-mile trip to Earth. Once there, he is caught up in a sweep of new experiences, including the social and political whirl in Washington, a strange visit to a carefully preserved ancient city once prominent in the 20th century, and a search for and meeting with a woman he loved since she visited Titan years before. The result of twenty years of thought by a celebrated novelist and scientist, and overflowing with skilled characterization and exciting events, Imperial Earth is one of Arthur C. Clarke's most ambitious, successful, and important novels.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Arthur C. Clarke at the height of his powers' -- New York Times

'Crammed with fascinating gimmicks, each novelty is utterly plausible, as if its introduction into our lives were absolutely inevitable.' -- Times Literary Supplement --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

SALES POINTS --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: I Books (June 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743459024
• ISBN-13: 978-0743459020
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,580,082 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE (1917-2008) wrote the novel and co-authored the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey. He has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and he is the only science-fiction writer to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His fiction and nonfiction have sold more than one hundred million copies in print worldwide.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but Meandering, July 18, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Imperial Earth (Mass Market Paperback)

If you want to start reading the works of Arthur C. Clarke, one of the 20th century's great visionairies, you can do worse than this one, but you could also do better. This work is basically the Earth of 2276 as seen through the eyes of an outsider. A lot of what he sees is remarkable and quite plausible, and the cast of characters is generally likeable. Like many Clarke novels, there is little in the way of conflict here - Clarke is not one for hero vs. villain - but unlike Childhood's End or 2001 or Rendevous with Rama, there is no sense of grandeur either. There are just a lot of incidents that just barely add up to something more.

Still, Clarke's unusual approach to writing - he is the only novelist who writes in stle of an essayist - and his appealing vision of a mature secular utopian Earth still works after seeing it often. Fans of dystopias are best advised to stay home. Fans of a happy tomorrow, where everyone is well-fed and sexually liberated and needs nothing more than a nice vacation, are invited in.

If you care for this, I recommend you move onto to his somewhat more action-oriented Rama and then to his masterowrk, Childhood's End.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Lackluster collection of notes about popular science seasoned with rudimentary human interest, February 15, 2009

By 

Leonard A. Herskovitz "LenH" (Middleburgh, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Imperial Earth (Paperback)

What happened to Arthur C. Clarke in 1975? The masterful author of short stories from the 1940s and 50s created a confused mess titled "Imperial Earth" in 1975. In this novel, Clarke displays his poorly-concealed desire to appear as something other than a science-fiction writer: namely, a mover-and-shaker of science and technology. This unfortunate tendency appears throughout Clarke's later work. Who cares that Clarke once spoke to Neil Armstrong (note to chapter 21)? I can't put my finger on when, exactly, Arthur Clarke digressed from the creation of superbly crafted fiction into the monotonous exposition of dull popular science, but "Imperial Earth" appears, to me, to be the epitome of this digression.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing. Poor effort. Why was this book written?, January 17, 2006

By 

Clarke Asimov "HOMES" (Dudley, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Imperial Earth (Hardcover)

Imperial Earth seems like a book written to fulfill a contractual obligation. As I read this book I kept getting the feeling that Clarke had collected various notes he had written for ideas and tried to make a book out of them without much further effort. This is a very shallow book. Characters were poorly developed, and the story meandered with no purpose. At the end of the book I wondered why Clarke had introduced many (most?) of the characters and settings.

Imperial Earth includes descriptions of Titan, where people live mostly underground but can go on the surface with oxygen and a thin thermosuit. The trip to Earth wasn't especially interesting. Descriptions of future Earth were given little historical background. Cultural changes were simply stated rather than explained.

Way too many blanks were left for the reader to fill in. You might as well write your own book instead.