Review: Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke

What will happen when, if, humans make contact with an alien species has been the subject of lots of science fiction books, movies, TV shows, video games, and the like. There is a lot of room for creativity here. For one, how these aliens will look is up to the imagination. For another, what level of technology they have attained may vary. Finally, how both the aliens and humans will react to one another can range from hostile to friendly. In most such stories, alien contact ends in violence. Arthur C. Clarke takes the exact opposite route in Childhood's End. Contact with aliens ends in peace on Earth rather than violence. This has implications itself, as Clarke describes throughout the course of the novel, but the ending will leave you with more food for thought than most other alien invasion stories out there.

These aliens are named the Overlords, for they appear to be acting as lords over the human race. Once they arrive and hover in the skies, people find no reason for war or violence. Indeed, the Overlords intervene in nonviolent ways to help influence humans to stop fighting. In one instance, they take away sunlight from a region momentarily to show there are other means than violence to show one's power. Only one man has any contact whatsoever with the Overlords, and his name is Stormgren, Secetary-General of the United Nations. Every now and then he rides up in the Overlord ship and speaks to Karellen, known to humans as the Supervisor. Stormgren never sees Karellen or any of the Overlords, but he trusts Karellen's purpose. There are small groups of people who rebel against the Overlords in their small ways, and one of the major complaints is that the Overlords do not show themselves. Karellen satisfies them by saying humans will get to see the Overlords in fifty years. A small satisfaction, but he says humans aren't yet ready to see them. Once they do reveal themselves, Karellen's rationale makes perfect sense.

The book jumps ahead in time, when people have flying cars and some of the Overlords freely mingle with certain humans and share technology. Two important characters are George and his wife Jean. At a party of a wealthy eccentric named Rupert they meet an Overlord named Rashaverak, who is reading Rupert's library of books on the paranormal. Why he is studying the paranormal becomes apparent only at the end. Rupert pulls out a Ouija board with mixed reactions from his guests. Rupert's brother-in-law, Jan, is purely a scientist at heart, but on a whim he asks the location of the Overlord's planet's star, and the Ouija board spells it out. The significance of these details become known only much later into the novel.

Like Clarke's Songs from a Distant Earth, the science is fascinating, but the human drama: not so much. While Clarke doesn't make any of his characters overtly atheist, they seem to view human sexual relations as being open to multiple partners. This is apparent as George ogles Rupert's beautiful new wife and seems to have an inkling that a relation with her is possible, not that it ever comes down to that. The female characters play minor roles when compared to the males. Although at one point Rashaverak confides with Karellen that Jean might be the most important person on the planet, the events at the end contradict that statement and it doesn't come to fruition. When the story focuses on any human characters, it's on the male ones, and even the Overlords, though sexless, seem male.

It's the bigger ideas that make this novel such an interesting read. While the Overlords do bring peace, that peace comes at a cost. Humans have no need to create art anymore, and life has grown dull. The Overlords act as a Big Brother entity, sometimes intervening when humans are misbehaving, and sometimes, such as when one country launches a nuclear missile at an Overlord ship, they do nothing, which is just as effective. The psychological toll is immense. People always wonder if the Overlords will do anything in reaction to bad behavior. It's almost as though the Overlords are god-like beings, or at the very least a manifestation of Santa Clause, but their presence is both felt and seen with inconclusive evidence.

The goal of the book is to learn of the Overlords' purpose, and the book provides some red herrings so that you might think you know what will happen in the end, but it's pretty unlikely you will guess correctly. The conclusion is fascinating and terrifying all at once. Clarke puts readers in a position to wonder about the future and what it would mean for humanity to be placed in the role it finds itself at the end of this novel. True, the ending will also require some suspension of disbelief, as Clarke treads off the path of his more realistic sci-fi elements, but even Clarke admits in the introduction of the book that this is a work of fiction and what happens does not necessarily reflect his own views. If you can look past some of the silliness, you will find an intriguing novel with fascinating ideas and an ending that is hard to stop pondering long after you finish reading the novel.

Review: The Songs of Distant Earth, by Arthur C. Clarke

With The Songs of Distant Earth, Arthur C. Clarke wanted to tell a realistic science fiction story about long distance space travel and interplanetary relations. It was written partly in reaction to the fantasy science fiction of Star Trek and Star Wars, which were both popular when Clarke wrote this. Star Trek and Star Wars are great entertainment, mainly because they have some excellent stories and enjoyable characters. The Songs of Distant Earth does not have a very engaging cast of characters, nor does it have a particularly engaging storyline. It's at its best, however, when it makes readers pause to think about such wonders as the realities of space travel or the terror of a helpless population facing inevitable destruction by the expanding sun. This isn't a despairing novel, however, but one of hope and faith in the adaptability of the human race.

In Clarke's fictional tale, 20th century scientists discover signals radiating from the sun that predict its demise by the year 4000. This didn't alarm most of humanity right away, but as time advanced nearer, people realized they needed to act more quickly. Scientists sought out planets that might sustain human life if conditioned just right. Seedships were sent out, commandeered by robots and stocked with all of the pertinent knowledge these new men and women would need to know in order to begin again. These planets were hundreds of years away, so humanity had to be patient to await the news of success. Meanwhile, scientists were frantically trying to figure out faster means of space travel and people were growing increasingly hedonistic, or increasingly religious, whichever suited their needs.

The planet of Thalassa was one such planet chosen for colonization, and with the exception of a tiny landmass, it was a perfect place. It was among the first, colonized in about 2900, and surviving still for 700 years due to its wise leaders and non-violent people. Population control measures were also necessary to reduce strain on the planet's resources. Among the Thalassans is Brant, an engineer who is frustrated that his fish traps keep getting sabotaged. Mirissa is his girlfriend, and she, it seems, is also the most knowledgeable Thalassan on the planet, having read most everything handed down from the mothership (where they originated). Mayor Waldron is a middle-aged lady who oversees South Island, and she also has a sexual appetite with a special interest in Brant.

One day this planet's peaceful operations are interrupted by the visitation of an alien ship. From this ship step two men who claim they have come from Earth. These men are Loren Lorenson, ship commander, and Moses Kaldor, ship ambassador. Apparently Earth did figure out how to create improved space travel using the quantum drive. The quantum drive uses the vacuum of space to propel it forward and can move for an unlimited amount of time. It can't approach the speed of light, just one-twenthieth of the speed of light, and that's one of the points Clarke wanted to make. People cannot approach the speed of light. That means no warp speed a la Star Trek or Star Wars. After 200 years of travel the ship, called the Magellan, arrives at Thalassa because it needs ice. Yes, ice. Ice is the best asteroid shield in space, but after 200 years of travel the crew of the Magellan are worried they don't have enough of a shield to make it to their destination, still 300 years away, of Sagan Two.

So the humans from Earth and the Thalassans socialize together as the Magellan does its work of making ice and raising it to form the ice shield, a two year process. This is where the novel becomes less compelling, broken into a series of mini-events, most of them unconnected. Loren and Mirissa of course fall in love, but Brant doesn't seem too upset about this. There's a discovery of some strange lobster creature in the sea, Mayor Waldron hitting on Loren, a mutiny aboard the Magellan, conversations between Moses and Mirissa about Earth, Mirissa's brother Kumar developing a close bond with Loren, and so on and so forth. The drama is hardly compelling and mostly boring. These people are way too nice. This is great
for the hopes for humanity's future, to be sure, but when I'm reading a novel I want a little more tension, conflict, and cohesion than this novel has to offer.

So while Clarke offers this up as a realistic version of those fantasy sci-fi blockbusters of Star Wars and Star Trek, it is hardly their equal. The story is very compelling for the first third, on and off compelling for the next third, and then dull for the last third. I can understand and appreciate a good sci-fi story that doesn't make use of lightsabers and phasers set to stun and amped-up action scenes. I can appreciate a good piece of speculative fiction, giving realistic thought to what could possibly happen to humanity in case the sun blew up. It's a frightening thought to see that everything mankind has created could just melt away, but there is some comfort in realizing that doesn't have to be the end. Mankind just might be able to continue on after all. There was a part of me, while reading this, that wanted to be among the crew of the Magellan, hibernating for hundreds of years and waking up to find myself in a whole new world, and that's how evocative this novel was when it came to its big ideas.