Resumo de The Science Fiction Work

ARTHUR C. CLARK STORIES AND NOVELS
Arthur C. Clarke is a great writer with strong concerns for the future of humanity, and so its not surprising that he takes a Wellsian humanistic position, but his work is often mystical and religious in its sense of awe. His gods are alien travellers often depicted as gently creating quantum leaps in human evolution, In the film of 2001; A Space Odyssey (co-scripted by Clarke and released as a classic novel as an expansion of his own short story, The Sentinel) we see a prehistoric ape, driven by a monolithic artefact, throw a bone that spins through the magic of instant celluloid evolution into a spaceship. Later the monolith returns and turns a man into the Star Child; the next phase of our evolution. Sequels of declining quality were later to emerge to take the story up from there, but like many of the giants, Clarke had run out of steam and true visionary insight by the 1980?s. 2001 overshadows his better novel, Childhood's End (1953) written when Clarke still showed considerable sense of awe and vision, plays the same themes better; here in this novel, which screams out to be filmed, aliens looking. like Satan, arrive and create a quantum leap that turns us into pure cosmic energy; a beautiful divine fate they are doomed not to share; serving only as tragic catalysts for some higher entity. His aliens are depicted as angelic, beautiful, and often benevolent. In Rendezvous With Rama, (1973), probably his last masterpiece, a vast alien artefact flies past Earth, and astronauts land on it, explore it and are simply overwhelmed by its power, scale, and complexity, before it goes away again, raising more questions than answers. Sadly he tries to answer those questions in the sequels. Clarke depicts aliens as of such higher intelligence and power that we cannot help being spiritually humbled and transformed by meeting them. The religious spark is carried further in Clarke's short story masterpiece, The Nine Billion names Of God, (1967) where monks believing that a collection bearing all the known names of God will lead to the end of the world. Scientists install a computer in the monastery to speed up the compilation work. Even as the scientists leave they see the stars starting to go out one by one. Clarke denies that he has strong religious, and spiritual considerations, but they pervade his greater books. ?The opinions in this book are not those of the author.? he says in Childhood's End's introduction but his continual return to such considerations makes many readers doubt it. In the short story, The Star, a super nova in the distant past is seen from Earth by the Magi, and proves to be the Star Of Bethlehem. He also presented Television?s Mysterious World programmes in the 70?s and 80?s which gave credence to many new age beliefs about pseudoscientific subjects like astrology, and dowsing. (though Clarke was capable of great Skepticism on such matters too). His later novels reflect a lazy need to recycle old plot material, but in the early days, Clarke was a true giant of the science fiction golden age.
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