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Songs of Distant Earth

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"The Songs of Distant Earth" is an engaging story centered around one of Arthur C. Clarke's deceptively simply plot hooks: Prior to the destruction of the Earth in a nova 1,500 years from now, "seedships" were sent to the stars so humanity could live on. An early seedship birthed a small, Eden-like civilization on a planet called Thalassa.
Now, hundreds of years after this society achieved near perfection, another seedship has arrived. And it is carrying people who have come directly from the now destroyed Earth.

Like most of Clarke's work, "The Songs of Distant Earth" is a story driven by ideas. Ideas about how the future of humanity will turn out. Ideas about how we will eventually solve the problems of today. And ideas about how we will finally reach the stars, and what we'll do when we get there.

Unlike much of his later work, "Songs" holds up well. This is not only the best of his late-period writing, but falls in with the very best novels he has written no matter the era. The pacing is quick, with a new revelation or theory around every corner, luring the reader deeper into the story with short, pithy chapters, each revealing a small (but fascinating) part of an intricate whole.

Most of the classic Clarke hallmarks are here, including the handful of themes that grew to dominate his later works. The space elevator, the possibly intelligent yet wholly alien lifeform, the theories on how humans will cross the gulf between the stars, and the diatribes against religion.

The cast of characters is not huge, but he rotates the viewpoint from chapter to chapter between about half-a-dozen of the people. The variety is good, as subtlety in painting his characters has never been a Clarke strong suit.

As mentioned, "Songs" is driven by ideas. The first third of the book, maybe even the first half, is a never-ending stream of theories and predictions and discoveries. One of the author's great strengths is his ability to easily yet convincingly paint a picture of mankind's future. What takes other authors chapter after chapter to flesh out Clarke manages in small and succinct bites.

This book is heavy with the hallmarks of later Clarke. Those of a strongly conservative philosophy may be uncomfortable with some of Clarke's blunt thoughts on matters like religion, guns and sexuality.

Like all of his later works, the book is permeated with Clarke's disdain for organized religion (save his soft spot for Buddhism). Sometimes he is subtle, sometimes not; here, one entire chapter is devoted to one character's monologue about why religion is The Great Evil.

And Clarke does not limit the anti-religious sentiments to his characters; he openly debases the entire concept of God in the narrator's voice on several occasions. It's somewhat jarring to have the author's philosophy pushed in the voice of the narrator rather than through a character. Of course, Clarke readers should not be surprised by this, as it has been a running theme in his stories for years.

The inclusion of one specific passage on another subject, however, is puzzling, as it serves no purpose to the story and seems only to have been included for Clarke to expose a political viewpoint. Clarke uses the irrelevant scene to espouse his view that gun ownership is a "perversion," notes that the character has stirrings in his loins when holding the gun, and passes the gun off as a phallic symbol. The gun never comes into play again. A puzzling and an unnecessary intrusion of politics.

Also like later Clarke, the author runs with the presumption that everyone is somewhat bisexual. At one point, he indicates that in the future people who are 100 percent heterosexual are considered flawed and borderline psychotic. The author isn't always so heavy-handed, however, and his frank but not in-your-face treatment of the subject is almost refreshing in its casualness.

None of this should serve to ruin the story even for those who lean to the right, because like Arthur C. Clarke at his best, he lays out a possible future and how we got there with almost flawless execution. Only once or twice does his handling of political and social issues feel heavy-handed.

Also like Clarke at his best, he lures the reader along with hints of discovery at every turn; discovery, not preaching, drives the story. This is best reflected in the discovery of a life form indigenous to Thalassa. Clarke's revelations about them are spaced evenly throughout the novel - the better to lure you along - and walk that fine balance between telling you enough to keep you interested but not so much that your imagination is spoiled.

Because Clarke's stories generally don't hitch on some raging conflict or objective-based scenario, this one included, the ending may seem anti-climatic. Plot threads introduced midway through the book that look as if they will heat up are resolved well before the end. But that is Clarke. He presents an idea, a snapshot of the future, serves up a slice and gets out before the idea wears itself thin. That is a great strength of his work.

All in all, "The Songs of Distant Earth" stands as one of Clarke's best novels, surpassed only by his true classics. It is certainly the very best of his later work. No Arthur C. Clarke fan should go without reading this one, and probably neither should any fan of the genre.

This is a book that you will likely not forget reading. Clarke's imagination here is staggering.

The novel takes place several thousand years from now. Earth has been destroyed by an unstable sun. Mankind foresaw the nova of Earth's sun for about two thousand years, and mounted an effort to colonize nearby stars in order to save the species. This was done in the nick of time.

The story takes place on planet Thalassa--a world largely of oceans with a single pair of islands perhaps the size of Taiwan. The Thalassans, originally colonists from Earth, have been alone for over a thousand years. Now they are visited by the last starship from Earth, which stops there en route to a different planet intended for colonization.

The story deals with the clash of cultures, but the best part are the flashbacks to Earth, and Clarke's highly intelligent and plausible extrapolations as regards science, politics, and societal development. Clarke's prose is outstanding as well, which is not all that common in science fiction. This is, quite simply, a wonderful story which will strike a chord in most readers.

Arthur C. Clarke is in fine form with this book about humanity after the death of Earth, burnt up by the Sun. Many colonies were started on other planets, and Thalassa was one of the later ones sent out before the Sun blew up. Thalassa is a quiet utopia, with the citizenry leading uneventful lives on their ocean world. This peace is shaken when the starship Magellan comes into their system, containing thousands of humans who were the last to leave the Solar System before the Sun blew up. Unlike the Thalassans, who grew up untroubled by the tensions and violence of Earth, the Magellan crew has fresh memories of the last violent days of Earth and still grieve for their home and loved ones; they remember religion, which was supressed on Thalassa to avoid religious strife; they remember tragedy. Clarke's book is a sensitive telling of what happens when the Thalassans are exposed to the last human survivors of Earth, and how those survivors are touched by the tranquillity of Thalassa. Clarke shows you love, remembrance, and tragedy infused with Clarke's sense of wonder.

The reason I love most of Clarke's work is that it tends to focus on ideas and human interactions as opposed to saving the world, winning some war or saving a girl. Others, of course, will disagree.

This novel is one of the best of Clarke's later works, but for those of you looking for drama and crises that need resolved will be disappointed.

The novel takes place thousands of years in the future. Humanity discovered that our Sun was unstable and would nova far earlier than expected. In order to save part of humanity, various projects were developed to save something of our species.

One of the first used were "seeder ships". This were automated space craft containing human embryos and genetic material of many Earth creatures. The concept was that these ships would land on planets capable of sustaining human life and the automated systems on board would create a sutiable colony by providing a technological base and the onboard computers would educated the first generation of colonists birthed from the embryons on board with a very censored version of human history. The primary example of the effort to create a better human society is the censorship of religion. None of the great religious works (or works based on them) are included in the data banks of these vessels. The hope was that a society raised without religion would avoid the violence that often accompanies it.

The colony of Thalassa, where the action takes place, is a result of these plans. The Lassans live on two island of an otherwise watery world. The Earth they know is a sanatized version and their world is Eden like. Violence, jealousy and hate are rare. As the result of the breakdown of the colony's interstellar communication device the Lassan's are even more isolated than other seeder colonies having had no contact with other colonies for hundreds of years.

It is to this peaceful, beautiful world that the one of next generation of human colony ships arrives. It is the Magellan, a ship with an advanced drive system that finally allowed humanity to reach distant worlds in a "reasonable" amount of times meaning hundreds of years not thousands. The Magellan is more of a space ark because it contains over a million specially selected colonists in cryogenic suspension. Even more poignent, the Magellan was the last of these ships to leave Earth, escaping only days before the Solar system died. To them Earth is a recent memory, not an ancient past, and the crew still mourns its passing and the loss of those left behind.

The Magellan stopped at Thalassa because the ice shield that protects the ship during its voyage is in need of repair. The crew didn't think that Thalassa would be inhabited. Most of the resulting novel revolves around how much and what type of interactions do or should develop between the two very different groups and what knowledge can be passed on to the very curious Thalassans without permanently damaging their culture.

There is no one protagonist in this story. Rather the point of view moves between various characters and their reaction to the Lassans or vice-versa. There are a few interesting sub-plots such as the discovery of an intelligent marine based species and a plot by some of the crew to sabatoge the Magellan so they can remain on the idyllic world.

Overall the work is very bittersweet as both groups must deal with the knowledge gained, friends/lovers never to be seen again once the ship leaves and the grief/guilt that comes with being the last chosen survivors of a dying world.

An excellent read and one that stays in your thoughts long after you're done.

In "The Songs of Distant Earth", Arthur C. Clarke seems to have a good grasp of the elements of writing, and he's eliminated some of the flaws that appeared in his earlier works. Like most of his novels, this one presents a lot of ideas in a small space and leaves some major questions unresolved at the conclusion. It's a book that will leave you thinking for days afterward.

The story, which is told partially in explanatory flashbacks, begins when scientists discover that the sun will explode within a few thousand years, leading to the destruction of Earth. In order to save humanity, several small colonies are established on nearby planets. Later, after the discovery of a new technology, large spaceships are able to carry millions of colonists out to the stars. Most of the plot concerns what happens when one of these ships arrives on a planet that was already colonized earlier. The original concept that drives this book is that the first round of colonies was very carefully engineered by people from Earth. They were designed to be paradises where people would be raised in an environment quite different from Earth. Thus, there is a definite culture clash when the big spaceship arrives.

I found that Clarke handled the characterization of the two different groups of people quite well. It was really possible to understand how their backgrounds were totally different and how this gave rise to two different worldviews. Also, Clarke cut down on unnecessarily thorough descriptions, so "The Songs of Distant Earth" is more compact and readable than some of his earlier efforts. Finally, as others have mentioned, his language and dialogue is very lyrical and poetic, which helps the reader understand the mood of the characters in this distant paradise.

Arthur C. Clarke wrote his first draft of The Songs of Distant Earth back in the 1950s, and kept refining his story until setting down to write this novel in 1987. While I have a fondness for 2010: Odyssey Two and The Fountains of Paradise, this is still one of my favorite Clarke stories.

The opening chapters of The Songs of Distant Earth alternate between life on the human colony on the planet Thalassa, a warm, wet world with a climate similar to Clarke's native Sri Lanka, and a dying Earth. Thalassa is the product of a computer-supervised seeding program. Using only human embryos (and later, DNA patterns), fully-automated robot factories and tutors raised the first generations of humans (and those born thereafter) without religion. Clarke shows how the Thalassans (or Lassans) create a peaceful society without it, and manage to not create religions of their own.

Earth is dying--or, more to the point, does die--because of instability in the Sun. Having learned that the sun will explode in the year 3600 (give or take a decade), humanity launches into space in order to ensure that it will not die off completely when its homeworld is destroyed. The last spacecraft to launch live humans (as opposed to DNA patterns) is the starship Magellan. Carrying only a fraction of remaining humanity, it carries with it the last pieces of our history, dreams, and culture with it. Bound for a harsh, habitable world light-years away, Magellan makes a stop at Thalassa to rebuild the ablation shield that protects it from interstellar dust.

Clarke posits his scenario as "realistic" space opera, in that nothing flies faster than light. Magellan uses an advanced "quantum drive," which is powered by the subatomic fluctuations that cause--among other things--electrons to deflect from circular orbital paths. The quantum fluctuations, each emitting and reabsorbing the equivalent of atomic bombs, still do not provide enough power to reach "warp speed," or anything close to it. The colonizer ship flies at something like half the speed of light, but is also powerful enough to correct the spin of a planet when the ship lands on it.

Anyhow, because Thalassa had lost contact with Earth hundreds of years ago, the Magellan crew was not even expecting to find the planet inhabited, much less with a civilized society. The crew must face all the problems of "first contact," especially cultural contamination, since the humans from Earth still have their religions. Also, the Magellan crew must face "the Bounty Syndrome," as Thalassa is a lovely planet, in stark contrast to Sagan 2, Magellan's final destination.

As another neat aspect of the story, Clarke adds a semisentient species beneath the waters of Thalassa. These beasties look like enormous lobsters, and Clarke manages to read these aliens' minds very well. He makes a good case for alternate, marine-based evolution.

In the midst of all these larger issues, Clarke does something unique in this book--he manages to develop some personal relationships between the characters. The main characters--Captain Bey, Mirissa, Brant, Loren, Kumar, and Moses Kaldor--actually seem human. This was a refreshing change for Clarke, and The Songs of Distant Earth really stands out from all of his previous or subsequent works. Clarke would really like to see this film made into a movie, and I can't blame him. It might give critics of "sci-fi" some food for thought.

The prose of this book is also easier to read than in other Clarke works--not as poetic as Childhood's End, perhaps, but much easier to read for all that. Despite some of the heavier overtones in the book, Clarke's writing is brisk and lighthearted, and even the technical parts are told in clear, simple analogies. A non-SF ("mundane") reader could dig it! As a major Clarke fan, I found this book fun and well worth reading. Two thumbs up, five stars, whatever. Buy it!

Arthur C. Clarke has done a fantastic job with this book. A wonderful story of the end of the world, and survival of the species, this novel has great depth and character development. We also get a taste of sociological strength, as we see two divergent social groups of humans interacting through necessity. As usual, A.C.Clarke does a masterful job of combining scifi with a great story, compelling characters, and a bit of tragedy thrown in, but not without the hopeful ending. I have read most of his work, and this book draws me back at least every couple of years. I would say that Songs of Distant Earth is one of his all-time greates works in character development and human drama. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good book.

(this review is specific to the mass-market paperback)

Thalassa is a watery paradise, just a few islands in a planetwide ocean, and home to a small colony founded by robot seedships centuries before. The book tells the story of a visit by the starship MAGELLAN, carrying one million refugees in suspended animation from the final days of Earth on their journey to a harsh world light-years away. The plan is for the small crew of the MAGELLAN to rebuild the great ice shield which protects the ship on it journey. Some members of the crew, however, aren't satisfied with prospect of leaving paradise...

As Clarke explains in the Author's Note, this novel is an extensive reworking and expansion of a short story originally published decades ago. I know that I read it as a kid, but I can't say that it made any particular impression on me at the time. This version is typical Clarke -- a serviceable story, worth the time and effort to read it, but not the sort of book that penetrates to the core of your being. It's good and enjoyable, but not great. (Mike Oldfield's album of the same name, inspired by the book and approved by Clarke, is another story; I listen to it about once a week.)

The Songs of Distant Earth is undoubtably one of the best works Clarke has given in years. Many sci-fi readers and writers tend to forget that storytelling also involves believable characters who move us, and not just science. This book has the most profoundly believable and moving characters Clarke has ever produced. Clarke is visually as well as emotionally evocative, and one can't help but be moved by the tragic circumstance which befalls our hero. It actually feels like this story could happen to any one of us. A truly great read

Earth is about to be destroyed by our Sun that is going nova and humanity must explore the outreaches of the galaxy and reseed alien planets with test tube babies and their robotic handmaidens.

Clarke explores the limits of traveling throughout the galaxy and the limits of our technology; there is no magic faster than light (FTL) drives. Seed ships are sent in the 25th century arriving at their destination hundreds of years later traveling at a respectable fifth of the speed of light. These ships are sent to other worlds with a partial history of Earth for it's future inhabitants. The nadir of humanity is erased; wars, religion, guns and violence are eradicated from the archives for the future inhabitants.

The new inhabitants of the seeded Thalassa (one of many seeded planets) are a modern day Eden. Humanity's future on Thalassa is not beset with violence or wars, sexuality is open and permissible and people are generally happy. One thousand years hence the Lassans are visited by the last ship leaving Earth after it's destruction for a refueling mission before going on to their new home planet Sagan II

This book is quite good for a number of reasons, the first being the realistic portrayal of spaceships and the limits of technology; how will humans travel in the future? The second is Clarke's diatribe against religion, guns, and repressed sexuality on Earth. The only problem with the book was its length; I wish it were a lot longer. Another great book for one of our greatest science fiction writers