Earthlight

I rarely rate a novel so highly, and when I do it is because it offers something really special. What Earthlight offers is Clarke's broad and deep understanding of the physical environment and of pure and applied sciences, which throw the whole story into brilliant relief. Travelling around the lunar environment with Clarke is a trek of wonder unsurpassed by modern SF movies with all their CGI; his lunar city and astronomical observatory are fascinating; light beams don't show in the low atmosphere, explosions don't sound. But there is story as well, and it reflects Clarke's sensitive understanding of the politics of war and espionage. His main character is an accountant who has been press-ganged into acting as a spy, and he is show more portrayed, as are his many suspects, with empathetic roundedness rather than as caricatures. And instead of plunging hurly burly into action as seems to be required in modern genre fiction, he thoughtfully unfolds his tale in delicious prose.

It is of course fun decades after the fact to see where Clarke's scientific prognostications succeed or fail, but the clarity of his vision is what stands out above all. I only wish his vision of the dying out of warfare were as correct.

One puzzle: the original publication date is 1935, but there are numerous references to the Second World War. I am guessing a short story or novella reflecting the core story was published in the thirties and the novel came later.

A nice feature is the cover by Richard M. Powers--my all time favourite SF illustrator.

Wonderful book. show less

Old, scientifically dated, boring, and appallingly sexist.

(The only women mentioned, besides a wife back on Earth, are the six "girls" from computing who have fragile reputations, and an expensive mistress. Only the wife has a name, and none have voices.)

Normally I don't need interesting characters so much in SF, as I'm more interested in the What If ideas... but this doesn't even have a sense of wonder.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2699804.html

This 1955 novel did disappoint me a bit. It's the story of a counterespionage accountant on a lunar observatory at a moment of interplanetary conflict between Earth and The Rest Of The Solar System; obviously the Moon becomes a critical location in that conflict (and equally obviously there are Cold War parallels in the author's mind). There are some vivid observations of base life in the observatory (where again all the staff are white men) and the high-tech battle at the climax of the plot is well described. But otherwise the whole thing is a bit subdued, and the framing narrative of the protagonist's mission gets a particularly unconvincing resolution.

Clarke, Arthur C. Earthlight. 1955. Introduction by Stephen Baxter. Orbit, 2019.
Earthlight is a book that stands up well after almost seventy years from its first magazine publication. Later writers are still reworking its story of scientists living on the moon being coopted into an interplanetary conflict that mirrors terrestrial geopolitical conflict. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Moon (2018) and Michael Weir’s Artemis (2017) come immediately to mind. The theme of colonial revolt in a near-future solar system also powered much of James S. A. Corey’s Expanse series. One can still appreciate the cleverness of some of Clarke’s scientific speculations, though some are outdated. Venus, for example, is not likely to be the site of much show more near-future colonization. It is too bad the place does not really have a tropical environment. Clarke is not usually a writer whose stories can be said to be character-driven, but the three main characters in Earthlight are believable. There is Sadler, a nerdish accountant, a newbie on the Moon, who is also an intelligence agent. His struggles to do both his jobs while trying to acclimate to low gravity are fun to observe. Jamieson and Wheeler are two working stiff astronomers who chat entertainingly as they speed their lunar rover over the dangerous regolith. Finally, Earthlight is a wonderfully evocative title. No wonder the Apollo 15 astronauts named a crater in its honor. 4 stars. show less

Some interesting ideas but not as epic as Clarke's more famous works. It is amazing to consider it was written a decade before humans landed on the moon.

An interesting story, but somehow it doesn't catch me. The science - the practical aspects of living on the Moon - are interesting, if slightly retro. Punch-card computers (run by the only women in the place, under a male supervisor, at that), manually-developed photographic plates...it gets amusing at times. Then the thrust of the story is the search for a spy, by a man not used to the task - so there's an awful lot of second-guessing and eyeing everyone and every act or comment with suspicion. The climactic battle is fascinating, for an odd reason - the description reminded me of a dozen battles in the Lensmen series, where a fixed fortress is struck so by beam-rays that the ground around it turns molten. But here, the description is show more not made by either side in the fighting, but by a man outside and at least mildly exposed to the effects...that's rather neat. The aftermath strikes me as a trifle ingenuous - or at least, overly hopeful. I don't see why "never again... would the human race be divided against itself." And the last sentence has a major problem, which may again be a product of when Clarke was writing - nowadays, we don't see natural resources as "inexhaustible" so much. I also have a problem with the science of the reveal - I'm no optics expert, but I don't see why an optical telescope, designed to draw in light from a wide expanse of sky and focus it down to the aperture, should send out a focused beam if a light is shined into the aperture. Maybe it does, at least for some types of telescopes - I know there are several different mirror arrangements that work, and I don't _think_ Clarke would have left such a gaping hole in the story if it totally didn't work. But it bothers me. So my overall conclusion is that I'm glad I read it and I don't think I'll reread. show less

A decent read, though it does show its age in some ways. Clarke is very good in imagining in realistic fashion what life on a moon colony would be like and his intellectual curiosity and interest in science imbues the setting of an observatory on the moon with real tangibility. The plot unfolds in a stately fashion and the main character - a secret agent posing as an accountant sent to the observatory to uncover a spy is much more in the Smiley or even Father Brown mould than the James Bond one that is ubiquitous in contemporary science fiction. A 50s Oxford Don atmosphere hangs heavy over the whole thing and as is often the case there is nary a female character to be found (except as a minor presence off-page).