More Masterworks

Monday 15th December: Best laid plans of mice and men were thwarted on Friday evening when the non-appearance of a bus put a stop to me going out to see the Mojos again. Instead, cold and wet, I wandered home to curl up with my wife and a book. I've got through a few (books, not wives) since my last burst of reviews, so here's a very quick catch-up.

The Centauri Device (M. John Harrison, 1974) is yet another example of 70's SF that I just didn't get. It seems a simple enough story - John Truck, lowlife spaceship captain, is half Centauri and the last hope of defusing/activating a device found on Centaur after a long war. He is pursued across the stars by miltary groups descended from Arabs and Jews in a bid by both sides to get him to use the device for their aims.

Except, I hadn't got a clue what was going on. Harrison's style is overblown and verbose - "A Zen-master of prose" reads a quotation on the cover. Hmm, verbal diahorrea if you ask me.

Non-Stop (Brian Aldiss, 1958) was much more enjoyable. A small group of villagers set out to find "forwards" and find instead that their lives are a lie. The blurb on the back cover hints of secrets, twist and revelations and I was quite surprised to find, early on, that at least some of the characters already knew what I thought I had cleverly worked out. This didn't stop my enjoyment of this book, though as the ending was an even bigger twist than I expected.

Good action sequences, good characters and a plot that has been done a few times since this book was published. Very enjoyable ane one of the best books in the Masterworks series.

Fountains of Paradise (Arthur C. Clarke, 1978) is, in my opinion his best book and this was actually a reread (although in a new format). The science and technology of building the great space elevator is so believable that you can almost reach out and touch it. Add to that the novel's setting (a thinly disguised Ceylon), the mixture of technology and ancient religion (although Clarke frequently comes across as anti religion) and the truly believable characters and you get a very readable novel that should be held up to non-SF fans to show how good SF can be when written well.

OK, it does turn into a bit of a disaster movie derivative in it's latter stages and Clarke can't help but add in a benevolent alien intelligence but this is an excellent novel and one of my top ten of all time.

The City and the Stars (Arthur C. Clarke, 1956) starts of well as Alvin, citizen of Diaspar (the last city on a far-future Earth) dreams of leaving his home and seeing the outside (some that very few Diasparans ever dream of). Falling in with a jester, whose job it is to bring uncertainty to the controlled environment of the city, Alvin discovers a smaller settlement at the end of an old transit line and, eventually, a spaceship in which he explores the stars.

As the book went on, however, I couldn't help thinking of the two I had read earlier in the year by Olaf Stapledon. This should probably come as no surpise as the latter was the author who inspired Clarke, but I didn't like those books and, as this one became more and more similar, I found myself liking it less than when I started it. Which is a shame, really, as this is regarded as one of Clarke's finest works by most of his fans.

Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke, 1953) was Clarke's second novel and is equally as respected. Fortunately, I liked this one a bit more.

Just as mankind is about to reach the stars, huge spaceships arrive over capital cities across the world. The occupants, Overlords, hide themselves from humanity for fifty years but bring about an end to war and usher in a golden age for mankind. When they do reveal themselves, they prove to be the visual equivalent of the Devil, igniting questions about their role in the development of Man. However, the Overlords themselves are only workers for the galaxy-spanning Overmind and it may just be the time for mankind to take its ultimate place in the universe.

This is quite possibly the least scientific of Clarke's novel and falls in at barely 200 pages long. It is, however, full of ideas and speculations, not least on the place the supernatural has in our lives. Images from it have appeared in the likes of Independence Day and V but that just shows, again, the Clarke was way ahead of his time.

The Final Odyssey

Tuesday 18th March: Sad news...

Perhaps England's most famous science fiction author, Arthur C Clarke, has died, aged 90.

I have read many, but by no means all, of Clarke's books and most of them rank among my favourites in the genre. Brilliant works such as Songs of Distant Earth, Fountains of Paradise and 2001: A Space Odyssey have given me many pleasurable hours but, perhaps my overall favourite is Rendezvous With Rama.

Many years ago, while still at school, I was bought a book called Science Fiction: Ideas and Dreams (David Kyle, 1977). It was a book about science fiction authors and their works and, among the many covers reproduced in full cover, was one for Rendezvous With Rama. Something about that cover made me want to read the book but it took me a few years to find a copy. When I finally did, I devoured the book in just a couple of days. The story of a group of explorers as they, well, explored the interior of a giant object which was passing through our solar system had me gripped and the best thing was that nothing was explained. The final anticipatory line - "The Ramans did everything in threes" - left me waiting anxiously for a sequel.

Despite Clarke insisting that he never intended to write sequels and that the line was just a good way to end the book, in 1989 (17 years after Rama was first published), Rama II followed its predecessor's path past Earth and was soon followed by two more sequels which built on and completed the story. Written more by Gentry Lee than by Clarke, who edited, the books were entertaining but not as good as the original and, at the time, it was suggested that the storyline sprang more from Clarke's growing realisation of his own old age and his getting closer to the end of his life. If that was true, he still managed to hang on another fifteen years after the publication of the final book

Finding and reading that copy of Rendezvous With Rama remains a seminal point in my own enjoyment of written SF. The good news, for me, is that I still have Childhood's End and The City and the Stars still to read.

Rest easy, Arthur, your own odyssey is, hopefully, only just starting.