So good. So, so good ( )

Confessional: this review will be very brief. As I have said before, I am not a fan of science fiction. Boo. The first section of Childhood's End is based on a short story called "Guardian Angel". Earth is controlled by the Overlords. They provide security, peace and prosperity but their interests lie in human psychology, mysticism, telepathy, the occult, second sight, and psychic phenomena. Fact meets fiction. The other aspects of Childhood's End I found curious were the social commentaries Clarke was making about the human race. When we cannot pronounce a name that is unfamiliar to use (like Thanthalteresco) we come up with nicknames (like the Inspector). The Overlords are like parents, banning something (space) because they think their children (humans) are not ready for it. My favorite part was when Jan Rodricks, a Cape Town engineering student, pulled a Trojan Horse stunt and stowed away in a giant whale replica to visit the Overlords on their turf.
The moral of the story could be that without conflict there is no passion. Without passion there is only apathy and with apathy comes boredom. With boredom comes the need to rile things up. ( )

Billed as one of his best works along with the short story The Final Theorem, it offers a version of the last days of humanity, but doesn’t evoke the same mystery and wonder as the Odyssey series. Perhaps in part because of being far more locked into older sci fi tropes and social observations that felt extremely dated. ( )

I love the concepts but I wish it could have been a larger book with more background on the paranormal part and more character development for those involved. ( )

A science-fiction masterpiece. This simply must be part of any sci-fi buff's library. ( )