Arthur C. Clarke Earthlight (1955)
I hadn't really planned on reading any more Arthurs, but there I was in Half Price, and - for the first time in many years - without a to be read pile higher than the Empire State waiting for me back home, and thence did my eye come to rest upon a triumvirate of Arthurs, and the other two had great covers; and thusly didst I then recall the pleasure taken in previous Arthurs I had read many years ago, specifically taken in the economy of his prose, cool and clear as spring water lending an unexpected frisson of novelty to subjects which might be deemed a little dry under other circumstances.
I'm not sure why I've written that first paragraph in Marvel Shakespearean, but the point is that I've bought some more Arthur C. Clarke, of which this is the first. Naturally it's hard science-fiction - as the genre has come to be known - meaning speculation based upon scientific principles which are already fairly well understood, and nothing straying too deeply into the realms of aliens, time travel, hyperdrive, or anything too severely hypothetical. That said, our tale is set upon the moon, with colonies established on both Mars and Venus, Earthlight having been written before data from the Mariner or Venera space probes somewhat dispelled the possibility of the latter.
Earthlight is mostly speculation pinned on some story about a dispute between the Earth and moon which loosely alludes to the European colonisation of the Americas and the subsequent declaration of independence. The characters aren't very interesting because it's basically a novel about nerds, squares, Poindexters, and Brainiacs living on the moon with war breaking out because someone returned someone else's compass late and had quite clearly been using it to play darts, or summink. In fact, the central third of the novel is almost entirely unreadable, being mostly nerds, squares, Poindexters, and Brainiacs discussing vectors. Thankfully, Clarke really comes into his own when describing a weird and unfamiliar environment, such as are the lunar surface and outer space itself, so the first and final third of the novel are surprisingly gripping, even evocative for something so otherwise dry; seemingly suggesting the possibility of Earthlight being Clarke's attempt to transpose E.E. 'Doc' Smith style space opera into a working universe of known science; and certainly it foreshadows Stephen Baxter more than almost anything else I've read. Some twit on Goodreads described it as appallingly sexist due to the complete absence of female characters, but it seems a bit of a redundant observation, all things considered, and this would be a generally amazing book were it not for the big chunk of espionage landfill clogging up the central section.
I hadn't really planned on reading any more Arthurs, but there I was in Half Price, and - for the first time in many years - without a to be read pile higher than the Empire State waiting for me back home, and thence did my eye come to rest upon a triumvirate of Arthurs, and the other two had great covers; and thusly didst I then recall the pleasure taken in previous Arthurs I had read many years ago, specifically taken in the economy of his prose, cool and clear as spring water lending an unexpected frisson of novelty to subjects which might be deemed a little dry under other circumstances.
I'm not sure why I've written that first paragraph in Marvel Shakespearean, but the point is that I've bought some more Arthur C. Clarke, of which this is the first. Naturally it's hard science-fiction - as the genre has come to be known - meaning speculation based upon scientific principles which are already fairly well understood, and nothing straying too deeply into the realms of aliens, time travel, hyperdrive, or anything too severely hypothetical. That said, our tale is set upon the moon, with colonies established on both Mars and Venus, Earthlight having been written before data from the Mariner or Venera space probes somewhat dispelled the possibility of the latter.
Earthlight is mostly speculation pinned on some story about a dispute between the Earth and moon which loosely alludes to the European colonisation of the Americas and the subsequent declaration of independence. The characters aren't very interesting because it's basically a novel about nerds, squares, Poindexters, and Brainiacs living on the moon with war breaking out because someone returned someone else's compass late and had quite clearly been using it to play darts, or summink. In fact, the central third of the novel is almost entirely unreadable, being mostly nerds, squares, Poindexters, and Brainiacs discussing vectors. Thankfully, Clarke really comes into his own when describing a weird and unfamiliar environment, such as are the lunar surface and outer space itself, so the first and final third of the novel are surprisingly gripping, even evocative for something so otherwise dry; seemingly suggesting the possibility of Earthlight being Clarke's attempt to transpose E.E. 'Doc' Smith style space opera into a working universe of known science; and certainly it foreshadows Stephen Baxter more than almost anything else I've read. Some twit on Goodreads described it as appallingly sexist due to the complete absence of female characters, but it seems a bit of a redundant observation, all things considered, and this would be a generally amazing book were it not for the big chunk of espionage landfill clogging up the central section.
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