Clarke, Arthur C. Books

The Last Theorem

Arthur C. Clarke, Frederik Pohl

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Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Two of science fiction’s most renowned writers join forces for a storytelling sensation. The historic collaboration between Frederik Pohl and his fellow founding father of the genre, Arthur C. Clarke, is both a momentous literary event and a fittingly grand farewell from the late, great visionary author of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Last Theorem is a story of one man’s mathematical obsession, and a celebration of the human spirit and the scientific method. It is also a gripping intellectual thriller in which humanity, facing extermination from all-but-omnipotent aliens, the Grand Galactics, must overcome differences of politics and religion and come together . . . or perish.

In 1637, the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat scrawled a note in the margin of a book about an enigmatic theorem: “I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.” He also neglected to record his proof elsewhere. Thus began a search for the Holy Grail of mathematics–a search that didn’t end until 1994, when Andrew Wiles published a 150-page proof. But the proof was burdensome, overlong, and utilized mathematical techniques undreamed of in Fermat’s time, and so it left many critics unsatisfied–including young Ranjit Subramanian, a Sri Lankan with a special gift for mathematics and a passion for the famous “Last Theorem.”

When Ranjit writes a three-page proof of the theorem that relies exclusively on knowledge available to Fermat, his achievement is hailed as a work of genius, bringing him fame and fortune. But it also brings him to the attention of the National Security Agency and a shadowy United Nations outfit called Pax per Fidem, or Peace Through Transparency, whose secretive workings belie its name. Suddenly Ranjit–together with his wife, Myra de Soyza, an expert in artificial intelligence, and their burgeoning family–finds himself swept up in world-shaking events, his genius for abstract mathematical thought put to uses that are both concrete and potentially deadly.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone on Earth, an alien fleet is approaching the planet at a significant percentage of the speed of light. Their mission: to exterminate the dangerous species of primates known as homo sapiens.

Firstborn

Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter

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Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Firstborn–the mysterious race of aliens who first became known to science fiction fans as the builders of the iconic black monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey–have inhabited legendary master of science fiction Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s writing for decades. With Time’s Eye and Sunstorm, the first two books in their acclaimed Time Odyssey series, Clarke and his brilliant co-author Stephen Baxter imagined a near-future in which the Firstborn seek to stop the advance of human civilization by employing a technology indistinguishable from magic.

Their first act was the Discontinuity, in which Earth was carved into sections from different eras of history, restitched into a patchwork world, and renamed Mir. Mir’s inhabitants included such notables as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and United Nations peacekeeper Bisesa Dutt. For reasons unknown to her, Bisesa entered into communication with an alien artifact of inscrutable purpose and godlike power–a power that eventually returned her to Earth. There, she played an instrumental role in humanity’s race against time to stop a doomsday event: a massive solar storm triggered by the alien Firstborn designed to eradicate all life from the planet. That fate was averted at an inconceivable price. Now, twenty-seven years later, the Firstborn are back.

This time, they are pulling no punches: They have sent a “quantum bomb.” Speeding toward Earth, it is a device that human scientists can barely comprehend, that cannot be stopped or destroyed–and one that will obliterate Earth.

Bisesa’s desperate quest for answers sends her first to Mars and then to Mir, which is itself threatened with extinction. The end seems inevitable. But as shocking new insights emerge into the nature of the Firstborn and their chilling plans for mankind, an unexpected ally appears from light-years away.


From the Hardcover edition.

Time's Eye (A Time Odyssey)

Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Sir Arthur C. Clarke may be the greatest science fiction writer in the world; certainly, he's the best-known, not least because he wrote the novel and coauthored the screenplay of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He's also the only SF writer to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize or to be knighted by Her Majesty Elizabeth II. This god of SF has twice collaborated with one of the best SF writers to emerge in the 1990s, Stephen Baxter, winner of the British SF Award, the Locus Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award. Their first collaboration is the novel The Light of Other Days. Their second is the novel Time's Eye: Book One of a Time Odyssey.

As the subtitle indicates, Time's Eye is the first book of a series intended to do for time what 2001 did for space. Does Time's Eye succeed in this goal? No. In 2001, humanity discovers a mysterious monolith on the moon, triggering a signal that astronauts pursue to one of the moons of Jupiter. In Time's Eye, mysterious satellites appear all around the Earth and scramble time, bringing together an ape-woman; twenty- first-century soldiers and astronauts; nineteenth-century British and Indian soldiers; and the armies of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. The characters march around in search of other survivors, then clash in epic battle. It's not until the end that the novel returns to the mystery of the tiny, eye-like satellites (and doesn't solve it). In other words, the plot of Time's Eye is a nearly 300-page digression, and 2001 fans expecting exploration of the scientific enigma and examination of the meaning of existence will be disappointed. However, fans of rousing and well-written transtemporal adventure in the tradition of S.M. Stirling's novel Island in the Sea of Time will enjoy Time's Eye. --Cynthia Ward

The War of the Worlds (Modern Library Classics)

H. G. Wells

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 236 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This is the granddaddy of all alien invasion stories, first published by H.G. Wells in 1898. The novel begins ominously, as the lone voice of a narrator tells readers that "No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's..."

Things then progress from a series of seemingly mundane reports about odd atmospheric disturbances taking place on Mars to the arrival of Martians just outside of London. At first the Martians seem laughable, hardly able to move in Earth's comparatively heavy gravity even enough to raise themselves out of the pit created when their spaceship landed. But soon the Martians reveal their true nature as death machines 100-feet tall rise up from the pit and begin laying waste to the surrounding land. Wells quickly moves the story from the countryside to the evacuation of London itself and the loss of all hope as England's military suffers defeat after defeat. With horror his narrator describes how the Martians suck the blood from living humans for sustenance, and how it's clear that man is not being conquered so much a corralled. --Craig E. Engler

Sunstorm (A Time Odyssey)

Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 49 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

When Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the greatest science fiction writer ever, teams up with award-winning author Stephen Baxter, who shares Clarke’s bold vision of a future where technology and humanism advance hand in hand, the result is bound to be a book of stellar ambition and accomplishment. Such was the case with Time’s Eye. Now, in the highly anticipated sequel, Clarke and Baxter draw their epic to a triumphant conclusion that is as mind-blowing as anything in Clarke’s famous Space Odyssey series.

SUNSTORM

Returned to the Earth of 2037 by the Firstborn, mysterious beings of almost limitless technological prowess, Bisesa Dutt is haunted by the memories of her five years spent on the strange alternate Earth called Mir, a jigsaw-puzzle world made up of lands and people cut out of different eras of Earth’s history. Why did the Firstborn create Mir? Why was Bisesa taken there and then brought back on the day after her original disappearance?

Bisesa’s questions receive a chilling answer when scientists discover an anomaly in the sun’s core–an anomaly that has no natural cause is evidence of alien intervention over two thousand years before. Now plans set in motion millennia ago by inscrutable watchers light-years away are coming to fruition in a sunstorm designed to scour the Earth of all life in a bombardment of deadly radiation.

Thus commences a furious race against a ticking solar time bomb. But even now, as apocalypse looms, cooperation is not easy for the peoples and nations of the Earth. Religious and political differences threaten to undermine every effort.

And all the while, the Firstborn are watching...


From the Hardcover edition.

Childhood's End

Arthur C. Clarke

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 286 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A true classic 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Old fashion Sci-Fi by one of the titans of the genre, Childhood's End keeps you guessing. It's not the typical story about aliens coming to earth and dominating man you might be expecting. It delves into the deeper issues of mankind's future and place in the universe with an interesting array of characters and situations.

Most books aren't much of a surprise; you pretty much know what's going to happen ahead of time, not true here. I loved the story, and couldn't put the book down. Clarke hasn't been considered a master of Sci-Fi for nothing, and here he's at his best.

An imaginative story that's very well written, it's a short book at 212 pages, and a quick read, making it a must for any Sci-Fi fan.

Editorial Review:

Without warning, giant silver ships from deep space appear in the skies above every major city on Earth. Manned by the Overlords, in fifty years, they eliminate ignorance, disease, and poverty. Then this golden age ends--and then the age of Mankind begins....

Rama Revealed (Bantam Spectra Book)

Arthur C. Clarke

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 95 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Is there less then 1 star? 1 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I shan't repeat what has been said so viscerally before. Book one was a good and original book, not exceptional but very good; book two was not in the same vein filled with vapid, whiney and totally unappealing characters. Book three was an extension into absurdity of book two, and book four, well I have run out of adjectives to describe it. If I want to abase myself in the lives of self-centered brats with no redeeming qualities (for good or evil) I'll watch some reality tv. After re-reading all the books in the series I'm keeping book one and the rest go into the trash, I won't burden Goodwill with them. Save your money, you'd be better off spending it on toe nail clippers.

Editorial Review:

On its mysterious voyage through interstellar space, a massive alien starship carries its human passengers to the end of a generations-long odyssey. But the great experiment designed by the Ramans has failed, and Rama III has become a battleground. Fleeing a tyrant, a band of humans ventures into the nether regions of the ship, where they encounter an emerald-doomed lair ruled by the fabulously advanced octospiders. As the octospiders lure the humans deeper into their domain, the humans must decide whether the creatures are their allies of enemies. All the while, Rama III continues its inexplorable journey towards the node, where the climax of their voyage awaits the stunning revelation of the true identity of the beings behind this glittering trek across the cosmos.

3001 The Final Odyssey

Arthur C. Clarke

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Total reviews: 306 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

It began four million years ago when a gleaming black monolith cast its shadow on the stark African savanna *an inexplicable apparition that ignited the spark of human consciousness, transforming ape into man.



It continued at the dawn of the 21st century when an identical black monolith was excavated on the moon *propelling Dave Bowman and his deputy Frank Poole on a mission to Jupiter that ended in the mutiny of the supercomputer HAL.



Only Dave Bowman would survive to encounter a third, and far more massive monolith on Jupiter's moon Europa *and be forever transformed into the star child.



It is the world of 2001: A Space Odyssey. And now, the odyssey enters its perilous ultimate stage. In 3001, the human race, incredibly, has survived, yet lives in baffled fear of the trio of monoliths that dominate the solar system--until a ray of light beams forth from a totally unexpected source. The body of Frank Poole, believed dead for a thousand years, is recovered from the frozen reaches of the galaxy, restored to conscious life, and readied to resume the voyage that HAL abruptly terminated a thousand years back. He knows he cannot proceed until he reestablishes contact with Dave Bowman. But first he must fathom the terrifying truth of what Bowman *and HAL *have become inside the monolith.



In 3001: The Final Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke brings the greatest and most successful science fiction series of all time to its magnificent, stunningly unforeseen conclusion. As we hurtle toward the new millennium in real time, Clarke brilliantly, daringly leaps one thousand years into the future to reveal a truth we are only now capable of comprehending. An epic masterpiece at once dazzlingly imaginative and grounded in scientific actuality, 3001 is a story that only Arthur C. Clarke could tell.

2010: Odyssey Two

Arthur C. Clarke

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 103 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

If you liked... 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Years ago I read 2001 and recently decided to re-read it and follow up with the rest of the series. 2010 does not follow exactly from 2001. I am not going to give anything away, but if you are a purist and want utter consistency you will be perturbed. The book is an easy read, the character development is pretty good, but what keeps your interest is the plot. Even as we approach 2010 you can't help but think what if...

Editorial Review:

2001: A Space Odyssey shocked, amazed, and delighted millions in the late 1960s. An instant book and movie classic, its fame has grown over the years. Yet along with the almost universal acclaim, a host of questions has grown more insistent through the years, for example: who or what transformed Dave Bowman into the Star-Child? What alien purpose lay behind the monoliths on the Moon and out in space? What could drive HAL to kill the crew? Now all those questions and many more have been answered, in this stunning sequel to the international bestseller. Cosmic in sweep, eloquent in its depiction of Man's place in the Universe, and filled with the romance of space, this novel is a monumental achievement and a must-read for Arthur C. Clarke fans old and new.
"A daring romp through the solar system and a worthy successor to 2001."
Carl Sagan

Against the Fall of Night (Ibooks Science Fiction Classics)

Arthur C. Clarke

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A little too open ended for my tastes. 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Alvin had grown beyond the pleasures of his world, Diaspar. I expect he saw them as indolent, apathetic, soft, and disinterested. He may even have perceived them as pathetic. In any event, he certainly didn't share his people's terror of the world beyond their city. Lys was much more to his liking and, indeed, may have persuaded him to stay permanently had he not hatched the plan of stealing the machine to retain the memories that the Lysians wanted to wipe out.

As a pure hard-core science fiction entry, the tale was great - high speed mass transit using "sidewalks", faster-than-light travel, robots accepting voice and telepathic commands with built-in programming overrides and safety features, rocket ships, skyscrapers that are literally "sky scrapers", mass with properties different than the solid, liquid, gas paradigm of the day and so on. All of these speak to Clarke's vision and imagination. Some real vision on the soft sci-fi side as well - the obvious need for a reduction in birth rate to coincide with the reduction in mortality rates as health improves and longevity increases, the differing paths that evolution can take, the effect of isolationist policies, the inability of people to accept change in the face of long-standing tradition and "religious" ideas and so on.

That's it, though. Unfortunately, I give the book overall (at least, for me) a failing grade!

While the ideas are timeless and the book could easily have been written yesterday with only minor modifications in the science, I thought the overall plot was weak and watery - an obvious prelude to the Odyssey and Rama series. In my humble opinion, Clarke is perennially unable or unwilling to provide a real or hypothesized source to his artifacts and is equally unwilling to provide a real resolution to the questions posed by the artifacts. Where does Alvin go from here? What is he likely to encounter? Why would he choose to do what he does? There are also several plot questions that remained, for me, annoyingly unresolved - namely, where the heck did Alvin come from? Was he born - if so, how? Was he hatched - if so, how and perhaps even more important, why? Lys's belief that Rorden was somehow more trustworthy than Alvin in keeping the secret of their existence seems to me naïve at best, misplaced at worst and a feeble plot contrivance to allow the story to move forward. Who was Alaine of Lyndar and why did the story that unfolded with Alvin not happen with Alaine? If the climate of earth has evolved to the point that the hydrological cycle is so totally trashed and the oceans are non-existent, how does Clarke figure that humanity would survive that? With records as extraordinary as those to which Rorden had access, it seems impossible to conceive that Shalmirane, a weapon capable of destroying a moon whose orbit had decayed to the point it was "falling", would ever be relegated in history to a legendary battle with space invaders.

I've always been unable to figure out why Clarke is perceived as such an icon in the field of science fiction! Some fellow readers tell me that some of these questions get answered in The City and the Stars. That may be so but it didn't help me out with this one, I'm afraid.

Editorial Review:

The 10-billion-year-old metropolis of Diaspar is humanity's last home. Alone among immortals, the only man born in 10 million years desperately wants to find what lies beyond the City. His quest will uncover the destiny of a people—and a galaxy. This book also includes the classic short story "Jupiter V."