Expedition to Earth

I don't think there's a better book by Arthur C. Clarke than this. These stories are taut, memorable, moving, full of the pain of one form or another of exile. Sure, there are one or two amusing throwaways, but has there ever been a more poignant story of homesickness than "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth", or a more bleakly ironic memorial to human folly than the closing paragraphs of the title story? If you, like I, have found much of Arthur C. Clarke's late work less than inspiring, read these early stories to discover what a tremendous writer he was at his peak.

With the exception of one work in this short story collection, I wasn't very impressed. I realize taking into account when the stories were written, Clarke should get some credit for his imagination, but overall the writing seemed too scientifically dry. I would take Ray Bradbury's work any day over Clarke's. Still, if Bradbury isn't handy and your a fan of science fiction, you might give Clarke a shot.

Stories were good, the writing excellent of course, but a little dated from a technology standpoint. Still, well worth the read.

The first collection of Clarke's science fiction short stories, and it's a good one. It includes one of Clarke's best stories, "The Sentinel", which was the genesis for "2001: a Space Odyssey". "Loophole" is kind of a hoot, combining legal wrangling with interplanetary conquest. I can't remember reading a mediocre Clarke story, and I remember several of sublime power and effect.

Really a lot of these short stories would have made great episodes of The Twilight Zone or Outer Limits or series like that. Good old-schools science fiction.

Good early collection of Clarke's short stories. These show the diversity of his ideas. This is why he is considered to be one of the best writers of the golden age of SF.

Second Dawn
“If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth...”
Breaking Strain
Expedition To Earth
Superiority
Nemesis
Hide-And-Seek
Encounter in the Dawn
Loophole
Inheritance
The Sentinel

Eleven short stories including the story that inspired 2001 A Space Odyssey. All entertaining in the vein of Bradbury. This book also contains an interesting preface by AC himself describing his collaboration with Stanley Kubrick. Below are my synopses of each tale:

Second Dawn: unicorn race defeated mentally inferior race using mind control. One unicorn, presumed dead was found living with a new race of beings, trading his superior knowledge for their dexterous craft skills. Having together designed and built a boat, they discover a new and fertile land. Optimistic potential of friendship between alien cultures.

If I forget thee, oh Earth: (describes in words a Simon Stalenberg landscape), a boy on a trip with his father to observe the show more ill earth as pilgrimage to never forget the home he will never know, but generations after him will return to once earth is healed.

Breaking strain: two crew on flight to Venus running out of oxygen.

Expedition to Earth: ice age last human survivors artefacts found by Venusians . Puzzled over Walt Disney animation film

Superiority: military tactics lost the war because the initial strongest army ceased fighting to develop a superior "exponential" weapon that distorted space

Nemesis: the master thanked his staff for their military assistance then left them to die, himself cryogenically frozen for a century, but an accident disrupted the sensors, failed to wake him until a very long time later, and is found by a lone evolved telepathic person who was so distraught by the master's ideas of military tactics and destruction.

Hide and Seek: using the analogy of a squirrel being hunted around a tree, protagonist describes how a man hid from an attacking spacecraft around Phobos, until help arrived.
(Standing on Phobos, mars appears to fill a quarter of the sky.
If you jump up on Phobos, it can take a long time to get to the ground again, but unlikely to reach escape velocity by jumping. Possible to do this on Mars' other moon, Deimos)

Encounter in the Dawn: first contact on an alien planet, one man sits in a chair reading. He befriends a native, but is summoned back home, to war, before he can establish a long-term friendship.

Loophole: having achieved atomic power, earth is sent a message from Martians to cease attempts for rocket propulsion and discontinue attempts to cross space via rockets. Earth agrees, but secretly manage to reach mars another way ("squirted through space at the speed of light" and "materializing through machines"), defeat the Martians, and start working on the rockets again.

Inheritance: change from chemical rockets to atomic powered propulsion test pilot with extra confidence of success from a dream he had had. Reference to An Experiment with Time by Dunne, and Igor Sikorsky's The Story of the Flying S.

The Sentinel: marvellous description of living and travelling on the moon. Set at Mere Crissum, the Sea of Crises, flying supplies from main base at Mere Serenitatis, 500 miles away. Vehicles used on the moon, the distances to the horizon, the gravity (especially in relation to climbing), the use of earth for directional navigation. The story of discovering an ancient but technologically advanced artefact, and conclusion that it wasn't left by lunar civilization, but a marker by a travelling race who passed our solar system when Earth was too violent with volcanoes to land on. By breaking open the artefact, it sent a message to it's designers (by not sending) to say Earth's civilization had advanced to space travel. show less