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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Clarke You'll Probably Never Read,
By
This review is from: Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations (Hardcover)
This book is out of print and pretty hard to find, but if you ever come across a copy of it I highly reccommend you pick it up. It is a masterpiece of speculative essays. In it, Clarke accurately predicts many things... of course lots of things about space and satellite communications, and even an accurate description of the internet! Also of note are essays on what we should do if we have contact with an alien race, a debunking of UFO sightings (much needed), a debunking of the cliche "nothing is impossible" with a listing of things that are, much talk on the speed of light and relativity, and of course a lot about space. The two most interesting essays in my view are one that speculates on what the Star of Bethleham (Clarke settles on a supernova). Also, there is the short essay "God and Einstein" which is one of the most thought-provoking things I have ever read in my life. Highly reccommended.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must for all fans of highly speculative and brilliantly written non-fiction,
This review is from: Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations (Paperback)
Arthur C. Clarke
Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations Corgi, Paperback, 1973. 12mo. [ix]+255. Preface by Arthur Clark, January 1971 [ix]. First published thus, 1972. Contents* Preface I. Talking of Space 1. Report on Planet Three 2. The Men of the Moon 3. Meteors 4. The Star of the Magi II. Outward from Earth 5. Vacation in Vacuum 6. So You're Going to Mars? 7. Next - The Planets! 8. The Planets Are Not Enough 9. When the Aliens Come 10. Possible, That's All! 11. God and Einstein 12. Across the Sea of Stars III. The Technological Future 13. The Mind of the Machine 14. Technology and the Future 15. Beyond Babel IV. Frontiers of Science 16. More Than Five Senses 17. Things That Can Never Be Done 18. The World We Cannot See 19. Things in the Sky V. Son of Dr. Strangelove, etc. 20. Why Way Is Up? 21. Haldane and Space 22. Son of Dr. Strangelove 23. The Myth of 2001 * Nos. 1-6, 8, 12, 19 previously published in another book of essays by Arthur Clarke, The Challenge of the Spaceship (1959). ============================================ Considering that this book was first published nearly forty years ago, and many of the essays actually date from the early 1950s and the late 1960s, it has aged fantastically well - hardly at all that is. The range of subjects is quite disparate, and so is the range of moods, but the collection of essays is that strange kind of book for which these are rather advantageous qualities. Besides, Arthur Clarke has supplied most of the pieces with short introductory and concluding remarks in which he brings them more up to date, although this is barely necessary. Should the book be reprinted today, and had Clarke been alive, he wouldn't need change almost anything. To begin with, the book has one of the most charming dedications ever put on paper: In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov Treaty, the second-best science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fiction writer. The continual exchange of friendly teasing for some forty years between the two great sci-fi masters is an epic story in itself, but it is certainly not the place here to elaborate on it. The conciseness of Clarke's prose and the daring flights of his imagination have always been the stuff the legends are made of. If you have any doubts about either, you needn't look further than this little book. Take the eponymous essay for instance. It is not even ten pages long, yet it is packed with thought-provoking reflections on fundamental issues. ''Planet Three'' is, of course, our own planet, but the ''report'' pretends to be a document from an ancient (and now extinct) civilization on Mars. Oddly enough, these Martians, before they disappeared from the face of the Solar System, were on the verge of their space age and had just mastered (or so they thought) the power of the atom. And there is more, much more, here than troubled visions of our own future. The main theme actually is nothing less than the nature of life itself. And the ''interplanetary'' point view may just stretch your imagination to its very limits. If extraterrestrial life does exist, why should it be anything like the one we know? There is no other reason for believing that than our own prejudices, and a good many we do have. There may well be forms of life in the universe for which oxygen is quite toxic and ultraviolet radiation quite healthy. (Indeed, under certain conditions oxygen is quite toxic for us as well, but that's another story.) Also, few things evoke a stronger sense of awe and wonder than to know how dangerous and hostile - from Martian point of view - our planet is. It is indeed a wonder (too hackneyed and underestimated a word, alas) that life has sprung at all, let alone developed to such extent, on our planet. Last but not least, Clarke is tremendously amusing pretending to be ''translator'' who presents the Martian document for us, occasionally spiced up with some perfectly delicious notes. In fact, the piece is as good as any of Clarke's short stories, and he has written many fine ones; it even has a kind of twist in the end. I know of no other writer who gives so much in so little space. Essays like ''Meteors'' and ''The Star of the Magi'' are excellent examples how popular science ought to be written: facetiously but not flippantly; for the lay reader, definitely, but not grossly oversimplified; with a good deal of facts and figures but not at the expense of important scientific concepts. Clarke scores on all fronts; his lucidity and clarity never fail him, nor do his sense of humour or keen insight into our mentality. Apart from a lot that you can learn here - did you, for instance, know what the difference between meteor, meteorite and comet is? - the more important thing is that the pieces widen your personal horizons enormously. ''The Star of the Magi'' is a fine example for a mind-bending literary experience of epic proportions. Not only did this piece turn out to be the inspiration for one of Clarke's most famous short stories (''The Star''), but reading it is a full-scale mind-blowing adventure. In a nutshell, Clarke investigates what the nature of the most mysterious star in the world history might have been. Of course he is not concerned at all with the existence of Jesus or with literal interpretation of the Bible. He just offers several thoroughly scientific explanations how natural phenomena may have inspired the ancient writers. Having discarded the cases of Venus, meteorites or (to some extent at least) comets, Clarke finally settles for what is surely the most awe-inspiring phenomenon in nature: the birth of supernova. Contemplating the dimensions of such unimaginable explosions - enough to melt whole planets light minutes away and radiating light that will be seen even 3000 years later (and away) - is really the perfect way to teach yourself a little humility. It might be of some use. All of our terrifying nuclear weapons taken together look like mere fireworks in comparison. The essay is reprinted in Clarke's collection with non-fiction writings Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! (1999) under the title "The Star of Bethelem" and cannot be recommended highly enough. Nor can the rest of this little volume whose merit is quite out of proportion to its size. To finish with the popular science - roughly, parts I and IV - it may be mentioned that all essays are well worth reading. Specialists in any of the fields should refrain from making condescending remarks and remember that these pieces were not written for them but for the educated layman. Clarke's clarity and lucidity are as constant as the pi number, and his tastes are as catholic as it might be expected. "More Than Five Senses" and "The World We Cannot See" remind me how much of the world is quite beyond our senses, though not beyond that of many animals. But even the unbelievably fertile imagination of Nature (not the journal, mind you!) has never, to the best of our belief at least, designed creatures that can sense radioactivity or radio waves. Imagine aliens who can. How would they view our world? How would we view theirs? As always, Clarke extends his reflections way beyond the Solar System and has tons of fascinating things to say, like speculations how the world would look like if we had ultraviolet or infrared vision. "Things That Can Never Be Done" explores, yet again, how dangerous the word "impossible" really is. Unlike other pieces, here Clarke addresses some things that really can't be achieved: squaring a circle, calculating "pi" exactly and few other similar problems from the realms of mathematics and logic. Mathematicians may cry indignantly that Fermat's Last Theorem is something they know since the kindergarten, but this is not the case with me. Last but not least, "Things in the Sky" discusses one of Clarke's favourite sciences - UFOlogy - and "Which Way Is Up?" explores the numerous parallels, but also some of the fundamental differences, between space and see. In the former essay Clarke recalls some of the most unusual candidates for flying saucers he had ever seen. Disappointingly, even the most fantastic of them turned out to have perfectly natural explanations. These range from kites at monstrous heights to occultation of Venus by the Moon. As for the relationship between space and sea, Clarke makes an excellent case that familiarity with the latter might prepare man for many a surprise in the former. But there is a great deal more than popular science in this book. Please note the word "speculations" in the full title. This is what most of the essays in Parts II and III are about. Now let me clarify one thing in the beginning. It cannot be disputed that sometimes Clarke is terribly naive, as in the case of his calculating ridiculously small prices for lifting man from Earth to the Moon; theoretically this may well be so, but the practical complications are enormous - and enormously expensive. Also, there is no doubt about that, sometimes Clarke was plain wrong. At least as far as we can presently see, there is absolutely no indication that cities or agriculture are on the verge of becoming obsolete. I am also inclined to admit that Clarke did overestimate the educational value of TV, even though he is by no means unconscious how easily such global power to manipulate can be misused. However, these facts should not be used against Clarke - who is infallible anyway? - and they certainly should not be used to obscure the truth. And the truth is that... Read more ›
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What one man can conceive,
By A Customer
This review is from: Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations (Hardcover)
This collection of 23 essays on the future of man and his technology is truly amazing. Written almost fifty years ago, ACC describes the requirements and experience of going to space, going to the moon, going to the planets and going to the stars... Often with original points-of-view and fantastic mental experiments. The best of all is how accurate his conceptions, predictions and extrapolations are. This book opens one's mind to who, what and where humanity is.
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