Rating: 
Summary: Breathtaking and enduring
Review: I read this book when I was a teenager, almost 10 years ago. It remains fresh in my mind and imagination. Arthur C Clarke is one of my favorite authors, and this is one of his best books. It stands apart from the rest, not related to them yet encompassing their themes and offerings. The almost mythological quest to leave the Cradle of earth and venture out into the stars is a sad and romantic tale. Clarke renders it with precision and passion in this work. When humanity is faced with the almost overwhelming possibility of complete annihilation, their last selfless union for the survival of the species is admirable. When the travellers arrive at the new planet, seeded eons ago by their progeny, a haunting tale of the human spirit is laid out. Clarke remains a master of technological tale weaving. His fiction is based on fact, and this fires the imagination even futher. He always presents a concise and powerful version of science, one that is almost artistic and poetic in its manifestation. Crudeness and raw brutality have no place in this enlightened frontier of space exploration and planetary colonization. The emphasis is laid on the preservation of the sum and substance of human civilization. Knowledge, and wisdom, are revered and given their due weight. No longer does power of arms and might hold sway; rather the bonds of lower aspirations are broken. I venture to say if indeed humanity should ever be faced with complete destruction, and the need arises to flee the cradle, then it should be done according to the edicts and principles laid out in this book.
Rating:
Summary: A very moving book
Review: Plausibility and readability come as standard with Arthur C Clarke's novels. And these are two features that are far from guaranteed in the sci-fi arean. In fact, Clarke writes SO convincingly, that you can easily believe you are reading a factual account rather that a hugely imaginative work of fiction. With this novel there is an additional dimension. Emotion. Sure, it is there in his other novels, in the same way the emotion is with our every living moment. But this book is genuinely moving as it tells the tale of two cultures meeting and overlapping. It tells of love and loss, of heartache and tragedy, but without ever ceasing to be a ripping good yarn. The pages skip by - it can be read in a few hours - but its memory will linger. And for me it is one of those few books that I will recommend to others without any reservations. It is impossible to pick a single one of Clarke's novels as his best, but the Songs of Distant Earth are guaranteed a place in any shortlist.
Rating:
Summary: Realistic Space Opera
Review: Arthur C. Clarke wrote his first draft of The Songs of Distant Earth back in the 1950s, and kept refining his story until setting down to write this novel in 1987. While I have a fondness for 2010: Odyssey Two and The Fountains of Paradise, this is still one of my favorite Clarke stories. The opening chapters of The Songs of Distant Earth alternate between life on the human colony on the planet Thalassa, a warm, wet world with a climate similar to Clarke's native Sri Lanka, and a dying Earth. Thalassa is the product of a computer-supervised seeding program. Using only human embryos (and later, DNA patterns), fully-automated robot factories and tutors raised the first generations of humans (and those born thereafter) without religion. Clarke shows how the Thalassans (or Lassans) create a peaceful society without it, and manage to not create religions of their own. Earth is dying--or, more to the point, does die--because of instability in the Sun. Having learned that the sun will explode in the year 3600 (give or take a decade), humanity launches into space in order to ensure that it will not die off completely when its homeworld is destroyed. The last spacecraft to launch live humans (as opposed to DNA patterns) is the starship Magellan. Carrying only a fraction of remaining humanity, it carries with it the last pieces of our history, dreams, and culture with it. Bound for a harsh, habitable world light-years away, Magellan makes a stop at Thalassa to rebuild the ablation shield that protects it from interstellar dust. Clarke posits his scenario as "realistic" space opera, in that nothing flies faster than light. Magellan uses an advanced "quantum drive," which is powered by the subatomic fluctuations that cause--among other things--electrons to deflect from circular orbital paths. The quantum fluctuations, each emitting and reabsorbing the equivalent of atomic bombs, still do not provide enough power to reach "warp speed," or anything close to it. The colonizer ship flies at something like half the speed of light, but is also powerful enough to correct the spin of a planet when the ship lands on it. Anyhow, because Thalassa had lost contact with Earth hundreds of years ago, the Magellan crew was not even expecting to find the planet inhabited, much less with a civilized society. The crew must face all the problems of "first contact," especially cultural contamination, since the humans from Earth still have their religions. Also, the Magellan crew must face "the Bounty Syndrome," as Thalassa is a lovely planet, in stark contrast to Sagan 2, Magellan's final destination. As another neat aspect of the story, Clarke adds a semisentient species beneath the waters of Thalassa. These beasties look like enormous lobsters, and Clarke manages to read these aliens' minds very well. He makes a good case for alternate, marine-based evolution. In the midst of all these larger issues, Clarke does something unique in this book--he manages to develop some personal relationships between the characters. The main characters--Captain Bey, Mirissa, Brant, Loren, Kumar, and Moses Kaldor--actually seem human. This was a refreshing change for Clarke, and The Songs of Distant Earth really stands out from all of his previous or subsequent works. Clarke would really like to see this film made into a movie, and I can't blame him. It might give critics of "sci-fi" some food for thought. The prose of this book is also easier to read than in other Clarke works--not as poetic as Childhood's End, perhaps, but much easier to read for all that. Despite some of the heavier overtones in the book, Clarke's writing is brisk and lighthearted, and even the technical parts are told in clear, simple analogies. A non-SF ("mundane") reader could dig it! As a major Clarke fan, I found this book fun and well worth reading. Two thumbs up, five stars, whatever. Buy it!
Rating: 
Summary: Arthur C. Clarke's vision of Star Trek
Review: In his author's foreword, Arthur C. Clarke writes that this is his vision of the "space opera" or Star Trek, and here he uses real science to give us a more realistic view of inter steller travel. No Warp Six could get you to another solar system in just a week's time. The actual travel would last several centuries. Hence this book deals with the last races of man who travel to another solar system to begin a new life, after Earth's sun goes Nova. They land for refueling and rest on a planet called Thalassa where human beings have already lived for 300 years, and this clash of cultures could alter the planet's culture in very harmful and unseen ways. Great book. Should also be made into a movie.
Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: I have read almost all of Clarke's books, including the entire Rama series, the 2001 series, Childhoods End an others. In my view, this is the very best of them all, combining plausable future science with equally plausable human situations. I have never seen the speed of light so masterfully woven into a story of human emotion as in this book, where the receeding spaceship is visible for the entire lifetime of the female lead character while her lover on board ages only minutes. The 2nd best Clarke book, Fountains of Paradise (where he "invents" the Space Elevator) is great, but this is still the best of the works of probably the best SF author of all.
Rating:
Summary: Some of Clarke's best later work
Review: "The Songs of Distant Earth" is an engaging story centered around one of Arthur C. Clarke's deceptively simply plot hooks: Prior to the destruction of the Earth in a nova 1,500 years from now, "seedships" were sent to the stars so humanity could live on. An early seedship birthed a small, Eden-like civilization on a planet called Thalassa.
Now, hundreds of years after this society achieved near perfection, another seedship has arrived. And it is carrying people who have come directly from the now destroyed Earth. Like most of Clarke's work, "The Songs of Distant Earth" is a story driven by ideas. Ideas about how the future of humanity will turn out. Ideas about how we will eventually solve the problems of today. And ideas about how we will finally reach the stars, and what we'll do when we get there. Unlike much of his later work, "Songs" holds up well. This is not only the best of his late-period writing, but falls in with the very best novels he has written no matter the era. The pacing is quick, with a new revelation or theory around every corner, luring the reader deeper into the story with short, pithy chapters, each revealing a small (but fascinating) part of an intricate whole. Most of the classic Clarke hallmarks are here, including the handful of themes that grew to dominate his later works. The space elevator, the possibly intelligent yet wholly alien lifeform, the theories on how humans will cross the gulf between the stars, and the diatribes against religion. The cast of characters is not huge, but he rotates the viewpoint from chapter to chapter between about half-a-dozen of the people. The variety is good, as subtlety in painting his characters has never been a Clarke strong suit. As mentioned, "Songs" is driven by ideas. The first third of the book, maybe even the first half, is a never-ending stream of theories and predictions and discoveries. One of the author's great strengths is his ability to easily yet convincingly paint a picture of mankind's future. What takes other authors chapter after chapter to flesh out Clarke manages in small and succinct bites. This book is heavy with the hallmarks of later Clarke. Those of a strongly conservative philosophy may be uncomfortable with some of Clarke's blunt thoughts on matters like religion, guns and sexuality. Like all of his later works, the book is permeated with Clarke's disdain for organized religion (save his soft spot for Buddhism). Sometimes he is subtle, sometimes not; here, one entire chapter is devoted to one character's monologue about why religion is The Great Evil. And Clarke does not limit the anti-religious sentiments to his characters; he openly debases the entire concept of God in the narrator's voice on several occasions. It's somewhat jarring to have the author's philosophy pushed in the voice of the narrator rather than through a character. Of course, Clarke readers should not be surprised by this, as it has been a running theme in his stories for years. The inclusion of one specific passage on another subject, however, is puzzling, as it serves no purpose to the story and seems only to have been included for Clarke to expose a political viewpoint. Clarke uses the irrelevant scene to espouse his view that gun ownership is a "perversion," notes that the character has stirrings in his loins when holding the gun, and passes the gun off as a phallic symbol. The gun never comes into play again. A puzzling and an unnecessary intrusion of politics. Also like later Clarke, the author runs with the presumption that everyone is somewhat bisexual. At one point, he indicates that in the future people who are 100 percent heterosexual are considered flawed and borderline psychotic. The author isn't always so heavy-handed, however, and his frank but not in-your-face treatment of the subject is almost refreshing in its casualness. None of this should serve to ruin the story even for those who lean to the right, because like Arthur C. Clarke at his best, he lays out a possible future and how we got there with almost flawless execution. Only once or twice does his handling of political and social issues feel heavy-handed. Also like Clarke at his best, he lures the reader along with hints of discovery at every turn; discovery, not preaching, drives the story. This is best reflected in the discovery of a life form indigenous to Thalassa. Clarke's revelations about them are spaced evenly throughout the novel - the better to lure you along - and walk that fine balance between telling you enough to keep you interested but not so much that your imagination is spoiled. Because Clarke's stories generally don't hitch on some raging conflict or objective-based scenario, this one included, the ending may seem anti-climatic. Plot threads introduced midway through the book that look as if they will heat up are resolved well before the end. But that is Clarke. He presents an idea, a snapshot of the future, serves up a slice and gets out before the idea wears itself thin. That is a great strength of his work. All in all, "The Songs of Distant Earth" stands as one of Clarke's best novels, surpassed only by his true classics. It is certainly the very best of his later work. No Arthur C. Clarke fan should go without reading this one, and probably neither should any fan of the genre.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Miss It
Review: In "The Songs of Distant Earth", Arthur C. Clarke seems to have a good grasp of the elements of writing, and he's eliminated some of the flaws that appeared in his earlier works. Like most of his novels, this one presents a lot of ideas in a small space and leaves some major questions unresolved at the conclusion. It's a book that will leave you thinking for days afterward. The story, which is told partially in explanatory flashbacks, begins when scientists discover that the sun will explode within a few thousand years, leading to the destruction of Earth. In order to save humanity, several small colonies are established on nearby planets. Later, after the discovery of a new technology, large spaceships are able to carry millions of colonists out to the stars. Most of the plot concerns what happens when one of these ships arrives on a planet that was already colonized earlier. The original concept that drives this book is that the first round of colonies was very carefully engineered by people from Earth. They were designed to be paradises where people would be raised in an environment quite different from Earth. Thus, there is a definite culture clash when the big spaceship arrives. I found that Clarke handled the characterization of the two different groups of people quite well. It was really possible to understand how their backgrounds were totally different and how this gave rise to two different worldviews. Also, Clarke cut down on unnecessarily thorough descriptions, so "The Songs of Distant Earth" is more compact and readable than some of his earlier efforts. Finally, as others have mentioned, his language and dialogue is very lyrical and poetic, which helps the reader understand the mood of the characters in this distant paradise.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous!
Review: Arthur C. Clarke has done a fantastic job with this book. A wonderful story of the end of the world, and survival of the species, this novel has great depth and character development. We also get a taste of sociological strength, as we see two divergent social groups of humans interacting through necessity. As usual, A.C.Clarke does a masterful job of combining scifi with a great story, compelling characters, and a bit of tragedy thrown in, but not without the hopeful ending. I have read most of his work, and this book draws me back at least every couple of years. I would say that Songs of Distant Earth is one of his all-time greates works in character development and human drama. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good book. (this review is specific to the mass-market paperback)
Rating: 
Summary: I don't know about this one...
Review: Part of me really wanted to like this novel, after all, I am a big fan of Clarke's work. But I must say, I was somewhat disappointed with the story. After such successes as Rendezvous with Rama and 2001, you would expect the works to only get better, but the results are not up to par. My first problem with this book is its lack of centrality. There is really no "protagonist" character, unless Loren is counted, and there is very little in the way of plot, complication, or conflict. I'll admit, I was not exactly sure how the entire planetary-travel idea would be fixed, but the solution was presented within the first 100 pages, and the rest of the book was anticlimatic to the nth degree. Also, Clarke seems to be using this work as merely an excuse to push an anti-family, anti-religion platform, which would be fine if it was that sort of a story, but the ideas don't seem to go with space theater very well. On a related (sort of) note, there is something to be said for conciseness. The chapters dedicated to how this "futuristic" technology was "discovered" or "works" are unnecessary, and detract from the meat of the story. And, yes, there is some meat to this story, with a good amount of character development. But there is still no conflict, and very little in the way of interesting plot twists. Subplots detract from the main action, and in this case there is little enough of that to go around. To simplify: what substance is here is an excellent morsel of food for thought. Unfortunately, there is so much fluff around it and nothing to keep the reader's attention after some time. You're better served with one of the 2001's or Rama's than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book
Review: I found it compelling and impossible to put down. I read it in less than a day. The Mike Oldfield album by the same name (inspired by the book) is also excellent.
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