Childhood’s End (1953)

Clarke’s third novel was Childhood’s End, published in 1953. It is based on a short story he wrote in 1950 called Guardian Angel, then in 1952 he started work on expanding it into a full novel. In latter part of the 20th century the US and the Soviets are engaged in a space race (remember, this was before Sputnik), but suddenly alien spaceships arrive and station themselves above Earth’s major cities. They announce that they are taking control over all international relations in order to prevent the extinction of the human race. This was at the height of the Cold War when nuclear annihilation seemed imminent, and was right around the same time That Asimov was writing novels where the surface of the Earth was largely radioactive. So it was in the air at the time. These aliens become known as the Overlords, and in time people become used to them. But they never show themselves. They say they will when the time is right, some time in the future. This does make some people suspicious of their intentions, though. But the Overloads are clearly more technologically advanced than the humans, so there isn’t really anything the humans can do.

The Overlords show a particular interest in psychic research, though they are interested in learning everything about humanity. By eliminating war, the Overlords have created an age of prosperity for the whole planet, and people start to relax and enjoy its benefits. But curiosity still exists in humanity, and some people figure out the home planet of the Overloads, and one man stows away on a supply ship heading back to their planet. Finally the Overlords do reveal themselves, and the reason they hid this for so long becomes apparent: their appearance resembles the classic pictures of demons in Christian mythology, with cloven hooves,, leathery wings, horns, and barbed tails. But they waited long enough that this does not cause an uproar now because we are in a golden age of prosperity.

About a century after the Overlords’ first appearance, human children begin to display mental powers such as clairvoyance and telekinesis, and the Overlords reveal their true purpose. They serve something called the Overmind, a vast galactic intelligence. Their role is to serve as a bridge to other species to help them develop to the point of eventual union with the Overmind. But the Overlords themselves will never be able to join, that is their sad fate. Meanwhile, the time when humans were individuals is coming to an end. The children of humanity are already starting to merge into a collective consciousness. For their safety they are moved to a continent of their own, segregated from the rest of humanity, but many of the parents commit suicide. No more children are being born.

The Overlords are still watching and monitoring, and as this happens that stowaway returns. He is now the last human on Earth. And when the merged children start manipulating the Moon and the planets, the Overlords decide is too dangerous to stay. They offer to take the stowaway with them, but he refuses and stays to report on the end.

This is still considered a classic, and was nominated for a Retro Hugo for Best Novel in 2004, though losing to Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Also nominated that same year was Asimov’s Caves of Steel. Stanley Kubrick expressed interest in filming this novel, but instead went with 2001: A Space Odyssey. The BBC did an audio adaption in 1997 that can be found at the Internet Archive. Then in 2015 the SyFy channel did a three-part miniseries adaptation which can be purchased as a DVD.

While this holds up much better as a novel than The City and the Stars, I again find little in it to support Clarke’s reputation as a writer of hard science fiction. I have enjoyed reading it several times, but while Telepathy, group consciousness, and the Galactic Overmind are clearly speculative, it is hard to claim that there is much science it. The Overlords clearly have advanced science and technology, but we never really see anything more than the effects of it. The science behind this technology is never brought up, and is really not part of the plot to any degree. But the next story remedies this deficiency.

A Fall Of Moondust (1961)

One of the dangers in writing hard science fiction, as opposed to fantasy, is that the facts can change as new science comes in. When Giovanni Schiaperelli described the canali of Mars in 1877, he used a word which meant “channels” in Italian, but which later on got translated as canals. And well into the 20th century these “canals” were seen by astronomers. Since canals are obviously something constructed, it meant there had to be inhabitants of Mars who constructed them. So H.G. Wells could use these inhabitants are characters in his The War of the Worlds (1897). But why canals? Science fiction writers developed a whole mythology about this. The canals were clearly build to transport water. They could see the polar ice caps expand and contract seasonally, so the canals must have been to carry water from the poles to the inhabited areas. In Wells’ story, Mars was starting to dry out, which is why they invaded Earth. Imagine how all of those stories look after we have been to Mars (robotically) and discovered that there never were any canals, that was all an optical illusion caused by the human brain’s tendency to look for patterns in random data. And no Martians either. Similarly, Venus was covered in clouds, so writers imagined a planet that was swampy and humid, thus causing the clouds. And filled with inhabitants adapted to swamp conditions Now we know that Venus’ clouds are made of sulphuric acid, and the surface temperature is 464 degrees Centigrade.

Well, at one time There was a theory that large parts of the Moon’s surface were covered in deep layers of dust. We now know that is not the case. There is a layer of dust, but it is not particularly deep, and every lander and spacecraft to touch down has landed on a solid surface. So Clarke, like many science fiction writers, has been let down by the advance of knowledge in this respect. But you have to give him a pass, he didn’t know what we now know, and his extrapolations were legitimate given the then state of knowledge.

The Moon has by this time been inhabited by scientific missions for a while, and now tourists have started to come. One company offers a tour of a lake of dust, on which boat floats. The dust is so fine it behaves like water, so this works. Then disaster strikes: a cave-in below the boat causes it to sink into the dust, and now it is a race against time to find a way out. Within the boat they are mostly waiting to be rescued. They are in a sealed vessel, and are fine for the moment, but problems are looming. The dust is a very efficient insulator, and the heat starts to build up. The air supply is limited, communications are impossible, and they have no way of communicating. On the outside, people know the ship has been lost, but they don’t know where exactly it is. They might have to abandon the search, but then an astronomer in a satellite above the moon says he has found heat signature. They send out a rescue vessel, and are able to make contact, but time is running out. They do finally succeed in running a pipe into the ship to deliver oxygen. But the heat buildup is still going on. They know they have to get the people out, and hit on a plan to drop a caisson onto the buried ship, with a tube running back to the rescue vessel, so that people can climb out, but then the sunken ship lurches into angle instead of being level. They have to try a different approach, but another problem arises when the holes they have cut are leaking in dust, which gets into the batteries and shorts them out. This starts a slow burn that will ultimately create an explosion. In the end everyone is saved, but the suspense is maintained throughout. This is a really enjoyable story that keeps you on the edge of your seat all the way through.

This is exactly the kind story people mean they talk about hard science fiction. The problems they face are perfectly reasonable from a scientific and engineering perspective, and they are solved one by one through the application of science and engineering. There is no “Use the force, Luke” going on here, no made up imaginary future science. The fiction, once you give Clarke the idea of deep moon dust, is entirely the location: It is happening on the Moon.

This story was adapted for radio by BBC in 1981. It is available for purchase, and can be found at The Internet Archive. It was also released as a CD audio, but it is out of print to you would have to look for it.