Rating: 
Summary: If they gave a nobel prize for science fiction......
Review: This is quite possibly the best science fiction
novel ever written. Aside from the lyrical
beauty of the prose, the impressions this
book leaves in your memory never leaves.
Diaspar, city of eternal youth, a God-like
computer, the ancient terror from beyond the
galaxy. It just doesn't get any better then this.
Rating:
Summary: Clarke's masterpiece. An incredible work of imagination.
Review: This is the story of the human race as it exists about a billion years in the future. A more ambitious premise for a novel is almost impossible to imagine, but Clarke pulls it off brilliantly. This is an incredibly imaginative work, and before it is over it offers a sweeping vision of human destiny. And all the while it does so by telling a good story too! This is a novel, not a work of philosphy.This is the story of Alvin, the first child to be born in over a million years in the great city of Diaspar, man's greatest and last city. But Alvin is different than his peers, because he alone in all of Diaspar is not pathologically afraid of the notion of leaving Diaspar, or of venturing into outer space. And thus Alvin's explorations, and the novel's story, begin. A great yarn with a startling and inspiring ending.
Rating:
Summary: Clarke's masterpiece. An incredible work of imagination.
Review: This is the story of the human race as it exists about a billion years in the future. A more ambitious premise for a novel is almost impossible to imagine, but Clarke pulls it off brilliantly. This is an incredibly imaginative work, and before it is over it offers a sweeping vision of human destiny. And all the while it does so by telling a good story too! This is a novel, not a work of philosphy. This is the story of Alvin, the first child to be born in over a million years in the great city of Diaspar, man's greatest and last city. But Alvin is different than his peers, because he alone in all of Diaspar is not pathologically afraid of the notion of leaving Diaspar, or of venturing into outer space. And thus Alvin's explorations, and the novel's story, begin. A great yarn with a startling and inspiring ending.
Rating:
Summary: One of the great SF novels
Review: This may have been the first sf I ever read. I am certain few others have ever topped it. [Note this is a 1956 expanded rewrite of the original version entitled "Against the Fall of Night" 1953] Clarke forms a world in the very distant future whose inhabitants live for hundreds of years on a ravaged planet earth in the oasis of the city. The city is an incredibly advanced utopia but an island of machines and somewhat bored inhabitants. The main protaganist is the youngest member of the community who ventures out into a voyage of discovery and onto another community which has also survived the ravages of time. The reuniting of the two tribes of mankind each a distinct culture at opposite ends of the spectrum is problem and goal of "Against the Fall of Night". This is science fiction storytelling at its best. A great story and a must have for all fans of the genre.
Rating:
Summary: One of the great SF novels
Review: This may have been the first sf I ever read. I am certain few others have ever topped it. [Note this is a 1956 expanded rewrite of the original version entitled "Against the Fall of Night" 1953] Clarke forms a world in the very distant future whose inhabitants live for hundreds of years on a ravaged planet earth in the oasis of the city. The city is an incredibly advanced utopia but an island of machines and somewhat bored inhabitants. The main protaganist is the youngest member of the community who ventures out into a voyage of discovery and onto another community which has also survived the ravages of time. The reuniting of the two tribes of mankind each a distinct culture at opposite ends of the spectrum is problem and goal of "Against the Fall of Night". This is science fiction storytelling at its best. A great story and a must have for all fans of the genre.
Rating:
Summary: One of the great SF novels
Review: This may have been the first sf I ever read. I am certain few others have ever topped it. [Note this is a 1956 expanded rewrite of the original version entitled "Against the Fall of Night" 1953] Clarke forms a world in the very distant future whose inhabitants live for hundreds of years on a ravaged planet earth in the oasis of the city. The city is an incredibly advanced utopia but an island of machines and somewhat bored inhabitants. The main protaganist is the youngest member of the community who ventures out into a voyage of discovery and onto another community which has also survived the ravages of time. The reuniting of the two tribes of mankind each a distinct culture at opposite ends of the spectrum is problem and goal of "Against the Fall of Night". This is science fiction storytelling at its best. A great story and a must have for all fans of the genre.
Rating:
Summary: The best novel ever written
Review: This novel is so awe-inspiring and yet so down-to earth simultaineously. The main character's struggles are rich in superb symbolism. The setting Clarke describes is fantastic.I wish a movie would be made.
Rating:
Summary: Clarke at his best
Review: This ranks up with, and probably surpasses "Rendezvous With Rama" as my favorite Arthur C. Clarke book (in the forward, ACC himself claims it as his personal favorite). Set millions of years in the future, the human inhabitants of a totally self-contained city believe theirs to be the last city left on the planet. People live for thousands of years before reentering a sort of hibernation chamber where their souls are put on ice for a few million years before they reemerge to live again and again. Society on-the-whole is content. Only one young man finds he lacks the inherent fear of exploring beyond the city's enclosure, and he sets out on a journey that forever changes the planet's history. This is one of those SF books that makes you wonder how any one person could think of so many wonderful, original nuances of the future
Rating: 
Summary: Wacky book.
Review: This was a very good book, but I really didn't like where it went. It really left a lot of questions unanswered
Rating:
Summary: Five stars are not enough.
Review: Virtually everyone here seems to agree with me, so I don't think I need to repeat these sentiments, so I'll just say this. The first time I read it, I was almost home in L.A., flying back from Europe. I was young, and the mere ideas of flying and travelling was magical ones for me. We were just passing over Las Vegas in the darkness, which was much smaller in 1973 than it is today, and it was a solitary brilliant jewel on the breast of the desert. I had just read the part about Alvin's first trip to Lys, and how that isolated place reminded me of the gigantic underground switching station that he passed through, midway during the trip!
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