Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! - Hardcover

Clarke, Arthur C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312198930 ISBN 13: 9780312198930

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1999

Synopsis

An anthology of futuristic nonfiction essays by the best-selling author of 2001: A Space Odyssey spans more than sixty years of work in a collection, organized chronologically, that includes his prophetic predictions about geosynchronous satellites, space travel, and the Internet. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

Reviews

"During the last sixty years," Clarke says, "I must have written at least a thousand pieces of nonfiction of every possible length, from a few paragraphs to entire books." (Not to mention his many works of fiction, including the famous 2001: A Space Odyssey.) Here he collects 110 of his nonfiction pieces, mostly short and having to do with his prophecies for science and technology. He has organized the entries by decade, and for each decade he provides an introduction intended to "serve as a reminder of the profound cultural, political, and scientific revolutions that were taking place while the pieces were being written and that are, of course, being reflected in them." Among his topics, suggesting the breadth of his range, are space exploration, thinking machines, the uses of the moon and his adventures in scuba diving. Looking back over his work, he finds that it has often "been more interesting to see where (and why) I went wrong than where I happened to be right." Serious in his thinking, lighthearted in his approach, he has composed his own epitaph: "He never grew up, but he never stopped growing."

A science fiction giant (3001: The Final Odyssey, 1997, and many others), Clarke has always been equally at home in nonfiction. This selection shows his remarkably wide range of interests during seven decades. The early pieces include fannish appreciations (``Dunsany, Lord of Fantasy'') as well as book and film reviews (``The Conquest of Space,'' ``Destination Moon'') that tend to elevate scientific accuracy above artistic impact. A talk on the history of fictional space travel shows a wide range of reading, well beyond what usually ends up on a library's sci-fi shelves; later articles include prefaces to classic works by Wells and tributes to such colleagues as Robert Bloch and Gene Roddenberry. Clarke has also been an active force in creating the future, as the 1948 paper in which he invented the idea of artificial communications satellites reminds us. He has also been a speaker for rational investigation of the fringes of science: two articles on UFOs from the 1950s show an impressive knowledge of unusual optical and meteorological phenomena, as well as of scientific history. Clarke's pioneering interest in underwater exploration finds expression in an early article on the future of scuba-diving resorts and in excerpts from several books that grew out of his own diving expeditions. This collection is also a reminder of Clarke's rarely matched knowledge of the nuts and bolts of space travel, from the days when the V-2 rocket was state-of-the-art to the shuttle era. Topics range from a look at astronautical fallacies (e.g., the difference between orbital weightlessness and ``escaping gravity''), to the potential of the space age in opening a new Renaissance, to a proposal to safeguard Earth from meteor and comet impacts, to orbital sex. This just scratches the surface of this fascinating collection, in which Clarke's reasonable, witty, and often elegant approach illuminates subjects from fractal math and Martian geology to advanced communicationsall given context by Clarke's entertaining prefaces. Essential Clarke; highly recommended. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Though best known as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke has been a scientist and writer of nonfiction for almost two-thirds of a century. This collection is organized chronologically by decade, affording the reader insights into Clarke's odyssey from gifted amateur to cultural icon. In his essays, Clarke promotes the notion that science fiction's role should be inspirational rather than informative, but that science itself is merely a tool to serve the higher ends of humankind. Clarke retains uncommon sense regarding scientific pursuits: "We must not mistake ever-increasing scientific knowledge with 'progress,' however that is defined." Part of the Clarke legend springs from how much of our technology and its cultural effects he has foreseen. Included here is a 1945 paper that Clarke calls "the most important thing I ever wrote," in which he invented the idea of geosynchronous satellites for telecommunications. Despite the length of Clarke's career, his language, like his thinking, is always fresh, even contemporary. When he critiques New Age believers, he does so because "their New Age is exactly the opposite, a thousand years past its sale date." As a whole, this collection provides an island of promise for those who fear technological disaster in their future, and a look into the mind of one of the leading intellectual lights of this half century. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Written over seven decades, these essays by Clarke, most famous for his sf novels (e.g., 2001: A Space Odyssey), cover a range of science topicsAespecially space exploration. Arranged chronologically with an introduction by Clarke for each decade, they provide a kind of eyewitness history of how the scientific community's dreams and hopes changed over the course of the 20th century. The book isn't a detailed accounting of events but a scholar's reflections. It is interesting to see where scientific vision has been mistaken over the yearsAand even more interesting to see how often the vision was correct. Recommended for academic libraries supporting history of science programs and for large public libraries.AWilliam Baer, Brigham Young Univ. Lib., Provo, UT
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Clarke, one of the best-known science fiction writers, culls from 64 years of his nonfiction, most of it reviews, columns, tributes to colleagues and others, opinion pieces, and other journalism. The majority of the 110 selections in the fat volume are quite short, and their subjects are quite diverse. The selections are presented chronologically by decade of first publication, from the '30s and '40s (two decades' work gathered into one section) through the '90s, and three new essays on, respectively, the interaction of science and society, communications after the TV era, and what the twenty-first century will and may bring. Clarke introduces each decade's work and often annotates particular pieces. Since he is who he is, there is a sizable audience curious to read his assessments of an sf classic like When Worlds Collide, of the career of Robert A. Heinlein, of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, of Carl Sagan, etc., etc. Ray Olson

Edition details

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312198930
• ISBN 13: 9780312198930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 558
• Editor: Clarke Arthur C.