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Summary: Childhood's End was my beginning to reading.
Review: I read this book when I was about 15 and I absolutely loved it. It was the first book that really gripped my imagination. I'm decades older now and have recently re-read it and it still had the same impact as before. A classic science fiction read that needs to be made into a movie.
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Summary: The Art of Science Fiction
Review: You don't like SF? Then read this book - and you will change your mind. One of the best novels I ever read.
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Summary: Childhood's End as Classic Sci Fi
Review: I read this book a few years ago and it still stands out in mymind as one of the best examples of Science Fiction. It challenges our definitions of "Alien Intellegence" while giving a healthy dose of surrealism at the same time.
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Summary: Its the best Science fiction book I have ever read.
Review: I had to read this book in school for a grade. I am a really big science fiction fan and have read many books in this catagory. This is (by far) the best science fiction book I have read.
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Summary: Excellent...with a little relation to Independence Day.
Review: This was in fact one of Arthur Clarke's best. I suggest that if you did like this book, read also Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I really did not care for science fiction before this. I also saw the movie, Space Odyssey: 2001. Sound effects: annoying, story line: ok. In fact, Childhood's End had many similarities to Independence Day...i.e. the covering of major cities by large spacecraft and the eventual plot of destruction. However, the book provided a much more realistic and horrific side to the many possible truths about the future. This Utopia, which was indeed textbook up until the coversion of Earth's children, provides one of the most realistic and possible views of the future I have ever seen. Although many would classify this as a Dystopia, in my compare/contrast essay between Childhood's End and Ayn Rand's Anthem, I indeed state that I believed Authur Clarke's Earth was a true Utopia. After all, the resistance had eventually been conquered, people knew about their past, learned the facts of religion, and fear of the Overlords began to disappear with further generations. Only one past Utopia (in the US state of New York, Oneida), had been able to survive. It only broke up because of mutual understanding between the people that it should become a larger industrial giant that it already was. I believe that it is possible, then, for a Utopia to survive on this Earth. And if it is not Aurthur Clarke's doomed Utopia, then it will be Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a trecherous dystopia.
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Summary: Clarke's best
Review: This and "The City and the Stars" are Clarke's best works. Great characters and great ideas.
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Summary: Childhood and the Foundation
Review: It seems to me that the basic message conveyed by "Childhood's end" - i.e., that we must grow up before we can seriously think of reaching the stars and, ultimately, the other galaxies - is quite similar to the one Asimov chose to - finally - conclude his Foundation Saga, "Forward the Foundation". In both books, we are left - or should I say abandoned - with the ultimate thought that we are still much too far away from making our dreams come true, and may only approach them with outside guidance - in those cases, Asimov's Gaya or Clarke Over-overlords. As I see it, the question is, would it be better to be shown a shortcut by an Alien civilization or to keep stumbling until we eventually grow up by ourselves? Too bad we don't have a choice as yet...
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Summary: Paved the way for Independence Day...
Review: By far one of the best ACC book's I have read.Very thoughtful & provoking work by the master of science fiction. Kalleren, Stormgren, Jan and George really come alive. Clarke poses the real question of if the stars are really for us, and can be rivalled to a thinking man's Independence Day, but, in my opinion, a lot more engrossing.
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Summary: Childhood's End: Happy Ending vs. Ironic Tragedy?
Review: I read Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" during a course in science fiction literature I took during my senior year at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy this novel, which reads so briskly that I finished it in three nights, but it is the most powerful and influental book I have read in my career as a student. Clarke uses the genre of science fiction and the backdrop of an alien invasion of planet earth to illustrate larger themes about how small the human species is, how inferior we our to both ourselves and the cosmos, and how infinite the Universe really is beyond the friendly confines of our home planet. Although numerous lenghty critiques have been written on this work by Clarke, the issue that really interests me is the true meaning of the books' title, and whether the ending can be read as a "happy" ending or a tragic one. On the one hand, I believe it is tragic, for obvious reasons, which I will not list as to spoil for those readers who have yet to read the book. However, I believe it is a happy ending because it symbolizes the unification of an already diverse and divided species, one that is more likely to destroy itself by its own means than to be destroyed by an alien civilization. I believe this is the central theme of Clarke's vision of the fate of the human species. Clarke made the Overlords want to have the children, and not the adults, because children are innocent, and therefore, naive. Children have yet to concern themselves with the materialistic desires, racial bigotry, and conflict that plagues modern society. Clarke illustrates that, while many have lost hope in the adults who are in charge of the globe - politicians, military leaders, and the media - there is still hope in the future of children, which Clarke restricts to those under the age of 12. Through a tragic ending we arrive at an optimistic message, that if humankind invests in its youth, we can save our species and, with the guidance of those who are older, wiser, and who think beyond religious, cultural, and even planetary restrictions, the species Homo sapiens can continue to progress in an evolutionarily successful manner. It is through the end of childhood that children gain the intellect and experience necessary to lead our species into the scary but nonetheless challenging adult world.
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Summary: Powerful
Review: This book hits the top of my list as the most influential I have ever read. Despite the paranormal subplot, and some bizarre examples of luck, Clarke scores big by making the point that mankind is not ready for the stars, and makes the statement powerfully. I put the book down, truly sad and overpowered. It does make one think about the true meaning of our ventures. Childhood's end also shows he can write decent characterizations, but the main impact of Clarke's writing on this reviewer has always been his vision and opinion on larger issues.
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