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Summary: The Quintissential Clarke
Review: Make no mistake, this book is perhaps the most prophetic and mind-bending book by my favorite Sci-Fi author. Clarke has created a manifestly plausible vision of the far future that is also less grim than most apocalyptic futures favored by many authors. I feel very strongly that this is one of the best works by Clarke. I would unhesitatingly rate this higher than 2001 or Rendezvous with Rama. Wonderful read.
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Summary: Perhaps my favorite SF novel
Review: Many years ago when I was quite young (11 or 12 perhaps) I first read this novel's sister book, Against The Fall Of Night, on the recommendation of my mother. I loved it and soon moved on to The City And The Stars, which I enjoyed even more. Over the ensuing twenty years I have re-read it several times, and cannot think of any SF book that I have consistently enjoyed more.This is not "gadget SF", where the plot turns on clever use of some little-known technical gizmo. Nor is it "hard SF" that delves deeply into the domain of hard chemistry or physics to drive the story. Instead, this is a "big picture" novel. A million years pass. A billion years. What happens to the human race? What social impacts might occur after every question we know how to ask has been answered? How might people live when advanced science begins to resemble our conception of magic? This is speculative fiction at its finest, and my favorite Clarke novel.
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Summary: The City and the Stars - Science Fantasy at the limits!
Review: The City and the Stars is my favorite book. Set unimaginably far in the future and yet written in the 1950's with the technological knowledge of that time. The story involves the reader's imagination from the very start, trying to visualise the splendor of the city of Diaspar in the mind's eye. The concept of mankind evolving down two completely different paths cut off from each other for eons was brilliant. This is science fiction/fantasy at it's best. With today's computer special effects I await a film version with keen anticipation
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Summary: Large Themes Made Digestible
Review: The city has always symbolized of the pinnacle of human achievement. From Babylon to the Greek city-state to Ancient Rome to modern cities like Tokyo and New York, the city has epitomized progress and achievement. How subversive then to see this symbol extended to its highest utopian degree, then promptly inverted and stood on its head. Clarke shows us once again why he is one of the grand masters of science fiction. Are all utopias also dystopias? Is immortality a truly desirable goal? Is security worth the sacrifice of curiosity? In achieving paradise, do we surrender our humanity? These are large questions that this book answers provocatively and incompletely, itself a tribute to the author's good sense. Too complete an answer would not only be pedantic, it would deprive us of the pleasure of our own ruminations. His detractors will cite his usual shortcomings: flat characters, slow plots, pedestrian imagery and merely adequate writing. While true, such complaints miss the point because Clarke has never pretended to great literature. His purpose is to provoke: with the facility of his intelligence, the depth of his creativity, the breadth of his imagination. Expecting depth of character from Clarke is just as misplaced as expecting alien planetary vistas from Shakespeare. Such expectations say more about the limitations of the reader than those of the author. The City and the Stars was written years before the dark urban vistas of Dick and Gibson. If others have constructed more compelling visions of futuristic dystopias, it is because they have had the benefit of standing on Clarke's shoulders. But even in the venue of dystopias, Clarke's questions go beyond the merely dystopian. He isn't interested in obvious dystopias; he wants to explore the underpinnings of utopias that are not what they seem. In this respect, only Huxley comes to mind as someone who trod the same path, and Huxley was too cynical a writer to allow us much room for our own reflections. While not in the same league as 2001, Childhood's End or Rama, this is a very worthwhile read from a uniquely inventive writer. The book is enjoyable and thought provoking and far better than the vast majority of science fiction from lesser authors.
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Summary: The Holy Grail
Review: There are many SciFi books that I hold in great regard. But this book is by far the best. I agree with the other reviewers that this is without a doubt the best story ever written. I regard this book with the same reverance and awe that Christianity has for the Holy Grail
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Summary: The Holy Grail
Review: There are many SciFi books that I hold in great regard. But this book is by far the best. I agree with the other reviewers that this is without a doubt the best story ever written. I regard this book with the same reverance and awe that Christianity has for the Holy Grail
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Summary: Is this a novel?
Review: There's a certain kind of vision of the future ... anyone who's seen the film version of "The Time Machine" will know what I mean. A sort of peaceful, insipid, utopian decadence which was rife in the screen science fiction of the 1960s. The women wear diaphonous tinted miniskirts, the men wear vaguely Greco-Roman tunics, both sexes lie around on the lawn and munch on fruit. Don't get me wrong. For some reason I don't understand, this image of the future is a powerful one. It's almost a Jungian archetype. Clarke presents the image very well in "The City and the Stars" - the trouble is, that's all he does. It isn't easy to find a Clarke novel that has a story to tell. "The Deep Range", "Rendezvous with Rama", "The Fountains of Paradise", "The Songs of Distant Earth" ... all are just collections images from an imaginary future, and they succeed or fail according to how well the images work when made into a slide show. I don't think they work too well here. There aren't enough pictures; and at any rate, Clarke tries too hard to pretend that he is telling a story, when he isn't.
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Summary: In my opinion the best scifi book ever written
Review: This book is a classic of science fiction,If you will read only one SF story in your life this has to be it. I have been reading and collecting SF for over thirty years now and this book is the one I return to again and again.
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Summary: A fascinating, mind-opening story.
Review: This expanded version of the author's earlier, equally excellent book "Against the Fall of Night," contains awe-inspiring, very imaginative and well thought out ideas and situations. The protagonist is someone I can relate to; I wish I were having his experiences. One of my all-time favorite books.
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Summary: One of the very best
Review: This is definitely one of the best SF books I've ever read, and I have re-read it many times. One thing that bothers me is how the heck this book can be out of print. It's one of those classics that should always be available to new readers, and don't worry about it being dated because it was written in the fifties - nobody's running around with a slide rule here. Just a wonderful, wonderful book.
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