This classic collection of short stories includes some of Clarke's finest work: vivid glimpses into the future, a year, a decade, a century, a millennium from now.
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Arthur C. Clarke, born in 1917, is the world's most famous living sf writer. He was knighted in 1998 for his services to literature, the first science fiction writer to be thus honoured.
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"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.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good collection, a few classics,
By
This review is from: Tales of Ten Worlds (Hardcover)
This is not his best collection, but Clarke afficiandos will find a lot to like here. The most famous story here is probably I Remember Babylon the (barely fictional) account that stars Clarke himself as it's protagonist, and focuses on some of the seemingly (at the time) unforseen negative consequences of the communications satellites, which Clarke, of course, had a big hand in bringing to fruition. Most of these fears have been justified. The Russian references in this story (and also in Hate) date it somewhat, but it is still as relevant today as the day it was written, perhaps moreso. If you are one who realizes the danger of modern television, then you should read this account written by one of it's fathers. Other good stories here include Who's There?, Saturn Rising, and others. Two of Clarke's most underrated stories are here as well: Death And The Senator (which, along with Dog Star and Hate in this volume, show an unusually emotive side of ACC), and the long epic The Road To The Sea. The is a reccommended collection for the ACC addict.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clarke's fifth short story collection: immensely diverse and brutally brilliant,
This review is from: Tales of Ten Worlds (Mass Market Paperback)
Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from Ten Worlds Pan, Paperback, 1983. 12mo. 205 pp. First published, 1962 Contents* I Remember Babylon [1960] Summertime on Icarus [1960] Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Orbiting . . . [1959] Who's There? [1958] Hate [1961] Into the Comet [1960] An Ape About the House [1962] Saturn Rising [1961] Let There Be Light [1957] Death and the Senator [1961] Trouble With Time [1960] Before Eden [1961] A Slight Case of Sunstroke [1958] Dog Star [1962] The Road to the Sea [1951] * In square brackets: the year of first publication, usually in a magazine. =============================================== This is Arthur Clarke's fifth short story collection, as well as one of the strangest and most powerful ones. Unlike the four previous volumes, published between 1953 and 1958, Tales of Ten Worlds consists - with one exception - only of pieces written no more than a few years earlier, namely when Clarke was in his forties and at the very beginning of his long prime. Of courses the collection is uneven, but any faults or limitations it might have are completely obscured by its considerable merits. The latter, in a nutshell, can be stated as follows: this is probably Arthur Clarke's most varied and richest collection; none of the pieces is dull or valueless; many of them are in fact genuine masterpieces. Where to start? Well, let me start with my absolute personal favourite: ''Death and the Senator''. Now, quite simply, this is one of the most perfect stories I have ever read: sounds trite but it happens to be true. Even on the most mundane level, the story is impeccable in terms of fine structure, narrative subtlety and sharp dialogue. The plot is perfectly conceived and executed with rare skill. Ironically enough, this is one of the stories that were ''spoiled'' for me by Arthur himself, for in one of his non-fiction works he gives away the plot completely. If anything, this only proves that when we're dealing with great literature such things like ''spoilers'' simply do not exist. It will be hardly difficult for anybody to guess the ending from the very title and, perhaps, the opening paragraph. What makes ''Death and the Senator'' a fabulously brilliant piece of writing is the character of Martin Steelman, drawn with such depth and shattering vividness that you find but seldom in a short story, and of course numerous hard questions about the meaning of life he comes to reflect upon just a little too late. All other characters are secondary, but none is any less alive or compelling for that. All those people who still rant about Clarke's ''flat characters'' should read this story very carefully indeed. To cut the long story short, ''Death and the Senator'' alone is enough to give this book five full stars. Not often do I find a piece of short-fiction so heart-rending and affecting and at the same time uplifting and even amusing. Here is an example that made me laugh: '''What's that?, cried Joey. 'It's an elephant, stupid,' answered Susan with all the crushing superiority of her seven years.'' And here is one that made me very sad: ''It was a sad reflection on Martin Steelman, if so commonplace a fact as showing an interest in his own grandchildren could cause curiosity.'' But there is so much more in this book, and the variety is so overwhelming, that I again don't know how to continue. True, these stories may not bring you to ''ten worlds'', but you can personally visit at least eight: Earth, Moon, Venus, Mars, Saturn, a glorious comet, a hot asteroid and the open space. There are few other stories, in addition to ''Death and the Senator'', in which science takes only a minor part, being used only as a supplement to plots concerned with social, political and personal issues that every great fiction is bound to deal with. Two immediate favourites are ''I Remember Babylon'' and ''Hate'', both of them nearly perfectly written stories with lots of food for reflection. ''I Remember Babylon'' is a very weird story indeed. Here Clarke did beat Maugham himself for a piece of fiction most firmly rooted in reality. Not only does he use his own name several times, but he describes a glittering diplomatic party in Sri Lanka which was surely drawn from life; there is even one compelling reference to Maugham himself, as Arthur was ''surveying the scene in my detached or Somerset Maugham manner''. It is not at all easy to realise where the non-fiction ends and where the fiction starts. Yet the story smoothly turns into a marvellous dystopian vision of worldwide TV propaganda beyond censorship, in which Clarke's own, and pioneering, ideas about communication satellites play a prominent role. Whether the world in general and the States in particular have fallen, are falling or will fall down as Babylon did is a matter of fascinating speculation, but Clarke was probably not so wide of the mark when he wryly remarked in the notes to his Collected Stories that virtually everything in this story has come true. The only difference, of course, is that TV has been considerably helped by the World Wide Wait (sorry, Web, as Arthur once joked) in the process of global mind corruption. Nobody disputes the great benefits, or even some noble intentions that may have been there in the beginning, but this is a very scanty compensation for brainwashing on a vast scale. ''Hate'' reflects another of Clarke's passions: diving and ocean exploration (more like exploitation in this case). The story takes place entirely in the ocean and on the board of a small boat, yet it is one of the most overtly political works in Arthur's oeuvre - who never shied away from dealing with politics in his fiction anyway, as obvious from ''I Remember Babylon'' and its ''minor political earthquakes''. The protagonist in ''Hate'' is a Hungarian who passionately hates the Russians, clearly a reference to the disturbing events from 1956, and what this fellow does when confronted with a Russian astronaut trapped, but still alive, at the bottom of the ocean you can imagine. Though predictable, the story has an excellent twist in the end which makes one contemplate with horror the prospect of being at Tibor's place. In addition to devastatingly perceptive description of love's antithesis, another strength of ''Hate'' lies in the vividly recreated life of the pearl hunters, where every mistake under water may well be your last, and particularly in the masterful description of the horrifying obsession that hate may easily turn to. Disturbing, provocative and not easily forgotten story that will bear a good deal of re-reading. (By the way, an interesting leitmotif in this collection is one of the most unfortunately natural states of the human beings: panic. In "Hate" you get an underwater example, and in "Summertime on Icarus" and "Who's There?" you get equally vivid examples in a space ship and in the open space, respectively.) Right on the other side of science fiction are stories like ''Summertime on Icarus'' and ''Before Eden'' which can be described, rather ineptly, as "hard science fiction", or ''gimmick stories'' as Arthur would snap, and which in lesser hands would be a tedious stuff to read. Not so here. ''Summertime on Icarus'' is perhaps the most suspenseful story in the volume, taking place, of all places indeed, on a small asteroid passing extremely close to the Sun. There Colin Sherrard crashed his ship and was about to be roasted alive by a merciless sunlight which has nothing to do with its feeble cousin that reaches the Earth. The story really should have been titled ''Dawn on Icarus'', but it is a superb piece of dramatic characterisation none the less for that. Colin's panic, accompanied with harrowing screaming, is reminiscent of ''Who's There?'' and ''Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Orbiting . . . '', two other tales of similar type but on a slighter and more humorous scale. As for ''Before Eden'', it transports us to the South Pole - of Venus, where the temperature is ''only a hundred degrees hotter than Death Valley in midsummer.'' Apart from the moral that we, humans, are very careless when we are handling any other kinds of life but our own, the story has a number of ravishing descriptions of the Venusian landscape. Some of these are as haunting and visionary as anything on paper: ''Jerry was still mulling this over when they came upon the lake. Even that first glimpse, it made him think not of the life they were seeking, but of death. Like a black mirror, it lay amid a fold in the hills; its far edge was hidden in the eternal mist, and ghostly columns of vapour swirled and danced upon its surface. All it needed, Jerry told himself, was Charron's ferry waiting to take them to the other side - or the Swan of Tuonela swimming majestically back and forth as it guarded the entrance to the Underworld...'' (Here is another piece of evidence that Arthur did love Sibelius - the composer I mean, not the computer program. While writing the above he must have been hearing in his head the beautiful tone pone The Swan of Tuonela, with that wistful English horn that's just about to break your heart...) Stories like ''Saturn Rising'' and ''Dog Star'' occupy the no-man's-land between pure science fiction and normal (scienceless?) fiction. Both combine adroitly poignant and amusing moments. ''Saturn Rising'' looks forward into the distant future when we shall, perhaps, have luxurious hotels on Saturn's satellites, with Observation Lounges from which to contemplate the rising of Saturn. That must be a sight all right, but the story goes much deeper than that, exploring our... Read more ›
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not Free SF Reader,
By Blue Tyson "- Research Finished" (Legion clubhouse) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Tales of Ten Worlds (Paperback)
Tales of Ten Worlds? Not quite. Of the 15 stories, there are Earth, Mars, Venus, Saturn stories - and some farther ranging, so I guess the generarl sense of that title is perhaps fair enough.
Half of this is just average stories, although it does include four 4 star tales, including Who's There (or The Haunted Spacesuit if you like). Hate is a little different, showing Clarke's marine interest in focus, in a story about divers, and is quite good, too. A 3.40 average here. Tales of Ten Worlds : I Remember Babylon - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Summertime on Icarus - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Out of the Cradle Endlessly Orbiting - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Who's There? - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Hate - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Into the Comet - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : An Ape About the House - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Saturn Rising - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Let There Be Light - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Death and the Senator - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Trouble With Time - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Before Eden - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : A Slight Case of Sunstroke - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : Dog Star - Arthur C. Clarke Tales of Ten Worlds : The Road to the Sea - Arthur C. Clarke Satellite broadcast instruction propaganda. 3 out of 5 Hot stuck time doesn't bear repeating. 4 out of 5 Space rugrat 1. 3 out of 5 Kitten score quite popular. 4 out of 5 Undersea Russian space wreck Hungarian backstab dead girl second take. 4 out of 5 Ship abacus report. 3.5 out of 5 Art can be done by smart monkeys. 3 out of 5 Titan tourist desire. 3 out of 5 Affair death ray. 3 out of 5 Zero G cardio cure. 3 out of 5 Siren Goddess nicked. 3.5 out of 5 Venusian botany on the run. 3 out of 5 South American soccer dodgy even in Clarke stories, but frying the ref probably wasn't intended. 3.5 out of 5 Pooch love warning. 4 out of 5 Last city exploration scene evacuation. 3.5 out of 5 3.5 out of 5
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