Book Review

A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke

   Imagine what would happen if a group of tourists on the moon suddenly found themselves stuck in a dangerous situation that they might never escape from. That is the scenario that Arthur C. Clarke tackles in A Fall of Moondust. Despite their precarious situation, the story is one that depicts optimism about both technology and human nature.

     Since A Fall of Moondust was published in the early 1960s, hundreds, if not thousands, of Hollywood movies have used a similar dilemma for action, suspense, and disaster films. A busload of tourists on the moon gets buried under a ton of the semi-liquid and semi-solid dust that forms seas all over the surface. These seas are made of a silty substance somewhat like mercury and somewhat like quicksand; the tourist bus sinks into an empty pocket and can not escape. They have a limited amount of time before the vessel collapses under the weight of the moondust and their oxygen and food run out; a team of engineers set out to save them before it is too late. It sounds like a typical action story line but Clarke’s unique imagination and high-quality writing style make this short novel a good read.

There are three main strands to the narrative. The first is the story of the tourists who get trapped. The driver, named Pat, teams up with an experienced astronaut named Hansteen to manage the situation and keep the other tourists safe. Pat takes control over the physical aspects of the bus and Hansteen realizes the importance of maintaining psychological comfort for the passengers. Boredom, fear, and despair could destroy the their lives just as easily as being buried alive so Hansteen does what he can to keep the people busy and sane. Luckily, the passengers are all educated, intelligent, and socially extroverted enough to keep each other company with a minimal amount of conflict. The passengers are multi-racial and mutli-ethnic; this is a theme in the book that Arthur C. Clarke can be given a lot of credit for. Many people have said that the Star Trek tv show was a pioneering work of utopian science-fiction because the crew was multi-racial but Clarke apparently envisioned outer space as a place where humanity’s social problems could be overcome at about the same time, possibly even before that program was first broadcast. But the larger theme involving the passengers is that they are all individual humans. The victims in these types of stories are often one dimensional characters, just people who need to be saved. But Clarke gives each tourist a voice in this story; each one is portrayed as a unique human with their own life, their own history, their own problems, and their own merits. The way they coexist and cooperate with each other in the face of possible death is one of the ways that humanizing these characters makes this a unique novel.

     The second important plot element of A Fall of Moondust is the engineers who set out to save the tourists trapped in the Sea of Thirst, as that area has been named. The Chief Engineer Lawrence has to assemble a team to first locate the missing bus and then find a way to dig it out of the dust. The pressure is on heavily since time is limited and a rescue operation like this had never happened before on the moon. They have to act quickly but carefully since a wrong move could endanger the victims and easily destroy them. The scientists and engineers are sufficiently humanized like the tourists but the focus of this thread is a problem solving motif that occurs in many of the better science-fiction stories. While the scenes inside the trapped bus are mostly about the people, the scenes on the moon’s surface are mostly about the technology that people create to make life better. One character in the book says that there are no problems that can not be solved if they are thought of in the right way. From there we see how these people engineer a rescue mission using what tools they have available to them. While professional physicists may debate the veracity of the science used to solve this problem, the lay reader can still get the point that a proper combination of human ingenuity and technology can be enormously beneficial to humanity.

     The third, and probably least important strand of the story is about the media’s reporting on the rescue mission. The news anchor Spenser waits in a spaceship with a cameraman on a nearby mountain; this is the first rescue of tourists on the moon and history and he wants to make a name for himself by broadcasting it to the world. There is nothing remarkable about this and it actually is one thing that makes this novel look a little dated. At the time of publication, television was still a fairly new technology and the use of satellite relays for the transmission of communications was hardly understood by most people. What we take for granted now must have looked futuristic to people in 1961. This is a fundamental problem of depicting technology in art but also what makes retro-futurism a never ending source of interest.

     Even though the ideas of Arthur C. Clarke did not exactly come true, A Fall of Moondust is still very much worth reading. The scientific details he portrayed may be sketchy and inaccurate, the social problem of racism is still with us, and moon colonies and moon tourism are not a reality. But the narrative threads are effectively woven together, the characters are well drawn, and, most importantly, the optimism about both humanity and technology is strong without being overblown or sentimental. The adversary in the book is not a person or even a hostile space monster; the adversary is a tough situation and it is one that can be overcome with effort and intelligence. That optimism is refreshing in our times even if A Fall of Moondust is an old novel. 

Clarke, Arthur C. A Fall of Moondust. Dell Books, New York: 1963. 

Book Review: Childhood"s End by Arthur C. Clarke

     At the beginning of Childhood’s End, two scientists from the USA and the USSR look up at the sky and realize their attempt to win the historical Space Race is futile. A giant space craft has just descended to Earth and the two representatives of their respective nations feel humbled by the realization that the human race is not at the apex of all existence or the center of the universe. So begins this classic novel by Arthur C. Clarke which takes us up to the last days of the human race. While the story itself is completely imaginary, it does force the reader to consider what our place in the universe truly is.

     The extra-terrestrial invaders, subsequently referred to as the Overlords, contact Stormgren, the Secretary General of the United Nations in New York City. Through the spokesman Karellen, Stormgren is given instructions on how to steer the world towards an era of material prosperity and peace. Warfare, poverty, racism, and disease are eliminated and a kind of utopia is achieved. The Overlords, however, never reveal themselves since their appearance would frighten the masses of humanity.

     An interesting narrative technique gets established from the start. Most of what happens at the beginning takes place in human society. The Overlord Karellen makes brief appearances, mostly for the sake of explaining to Stormgren what is going on. As the story continues, the Overlords interact more and more with the humans though they mostly remain in the background until the end of the novel. This alternation of presence and absence of the Overlords creates a rhythmic framework in the narrative that results in a type of depth that might not have been achieved without them lurking in the background. Through this framing device, a tension is built between the humans and the overlords; the inavaders establish from the start that their intentions for making Earth a peaceful planet are entirely benevolent but the audience is left with the question of what their ultimate plans actually are. One thing becomes certain though; their control and manipulation of humanity is minimal and they mostly just observe from their hiding places.

     After Karellen finally reveals himself to the world, a pivotal point in the story comes at a party given by a game warden in Africa named Rupert. He owns the world’s largest collection of books on parapsychology and the Overlord Rashaverak is there to read all his books. Two key events happen at this party. One is that Rupert’s step-brother, the astrophysicist Jan Rodderick, decides he wants to become a stowaway on an Overlord ship and travel to their planet. The other is that Rashaverak learns that the unborn son of Jean Greggson will play an important part in the later events of the story. These revelations occur when the people at the party engage in a ouija board-type séance; Jan learned the name of the star that the Overlord’s planet revolves around and Rashaverak learns that the unborn child is the one psychically transmitting the information to the people at the party.

     Some readers have taken issue with Clarke for including this parapsychology in the story. While in reality, parapsychology may be the domain of frauds and pseudo-scientists, the fact that this novel is a work of science-fiction, with the emphasis on fiction, has to be taken into account. Why would a work of the imagination have to necessarily be based entirely on authentic science to begin with? The psychic transmission of information plays a significant role in moving the narrative forward since Rashaverak later meets with Karellen to inform him of what he learned about Jean’s unborn son. In the context of this fictional story, the element of telepathy makes perfect sense, especially considering that the Overlords are endowed with mental powers that are far superior to those of humans.

     The utopia created by the Overlords is boring for some people. In a society without need or conflict, some people get restless. Thus Jean and her disgruntled husband Greg move to an artists’ colony on an island called New Athens. It is there where their children learn their true purpose in the scheme of evolution and the intentions of the Overlords is finally revealed. But their purpose is still shrouded in mystery. The Overlords are carrying out orders given to them by the Overmind, a being which they themselves do not understand or comprehend. And so the human race is merely serving a function for an unknown purpose in an incomprehensible cosmos where nothing can ever be known with true certainty.

     Meanwhile, Jan Rodderick is warmly received on the Overlords’ planet even though he went there illegally. When they bring him back to Earth he is the last man to ever exist.

     Childhood’s End is not a novel of action and events. Most of what happens takes place in situations and the significance of it all is explained in the course of conversations, inner monologue, and narrative explication. Readers who want to see monstrous aliens being blown to pieces with laser guns and UFOs smashing up big cities will be disappointed. It is more of a meditative and contemplative novel written in a calm and somber tone. The plot moves along like gentle waves on a calm beach. It is meant to make us think about what our lives really mean, especially if we are only a speck of dust without any real significance in the grand scheme of everything. Does that mean all the religious beliefs in the world are merely simple stories we tell to make ourselves feel more important than we really are? Are all the bluster and egotism of power and politics nothing more than a waste of mental energy? Is there any sense in war if we all die in the end anyways? Why do we think of children as being so important? What does evolution actually feel like?

     Arthur C. Clarke has written a work of fantasy that causes us to ask realistic questions about life. So many other writers have done this before. He has done this in a way that elevates this science-fiction novel to the realm of true art. Through effective use of imagery, narrative technique, and philosophical enquiry, Childhood’s End definitely transcends its genre.

     It also opens up themes that get taken up again in 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood's End. Ballantine Books, New York, 1953.