Comarre is a beautiful story, and there are many other but not all of same quality, spanning whole life of the author. ( )

A wonderful variety

A chronological collection of Clarke's short stories. There is a delightfully wide range of ideas and themes to explore. I especially enjoyed the eclectic variety of the stories told in the pub! ( )

There are many early 20th century writers whose SF and fantasy continue to be read today.

The very successful literary writer James Branch Cabell would find half his novels categorized as fantasy today, including his most famous, Jürgen. Though he predates the period, the equally talented Robert Chambers was an excellent literary fantasist; his book the King in Yellow had vast influence over the 20th century "weird" fiction sub-genre including the lesser writer H. P. Lovecraft whose works are still enormously influential. Lord Dunsany's eldritch tales are still widely read. H. G. Wells has not faded away. Then of course there's Tolkien, whose early works appear in this period, not to mention C. S. Lewis who also published "Out of the Silent Planet" in 1938. Thorne Smith with his Topper books and other light, humorous fantasy is also still quite readable today.

And even amongst the pulps, Robert E. Howard still has enormous influence today, with Conan remakes apparently never going to come to an end. Similarly it's not as if anyone will forget Tarzan and other creations of Edgar Rice Burroughs. It's true that many of stories from this era are socially retrogressive or otherwise "problematic", while the science in some of the science fiction is no longer accurate, but they cover the same range of literary quality as do current works."Against the Fall of Night" and "The Lion of Comarre", once collected together in one paperback, were a different class from the 'scientist with a pipe' and spunky glamorous assistant that prevailed in much genre SF.

"The Lion of Comarre" is my favourite of Clarke's shorter works, because it postulates an almost perfect society, those who do not fit in, search for a place of dreams: Comarre. This turns out to be real, it contains two wonders, hidden away because either could so disturb society, as to break it.

One is the only truly conscious AI, a benevolent intelligence, looking after the second hidden invention, those who find Comarre looking for dreams or peace, find both. They live in dream worlds of virtual reality so perfect, none wish to wake to mundane reality. This is Comarre's most dangerous secret, in effect the ultimate in addictive drugs, you can live out your whole life in perfect bliss. Going back to the real world however, would be almost impossible, would it not?

Society might adapt to AI`s, but could it do so to people being able to escape into perfect virtual reality computer simulations, of anything you desire? Your body aging in coffin like boxes that feed & clean you as the decades pass. Your body wasting away to times melody, as you drift in your own personal nirvana.

I remember this story so well, because I rather think this may come true. Humans after all, can always resist anything but temptation & what greater one could there be than that? Sadly books don't sit there if they are not borrowed. They are simply sold off or recycled. Libraries today tend to favour the magical-fantasy kind of 'Sci-Fi' or series based on franchises like Star Trek/Star Wars ... They often have a token book by the golden age writers, but the current trend seems to be less and less science, and more fantasy.

NB: Maybe one day I'll write a proper review of this trove of Clarke's goodies... ( )

These are the collected shorter works of Arthur C. Clarke, and that almost ought to be enough to say about it. It spans his entire career, and includes his best-known classics, lesser-known works, and has the Tales From the White Hart stories sprinkled throughout. The stories here are funny and grim, optimistic and pessimistic, and feature the best and the worst of the human race. I found Clarke's view of women's and girls' roles to be interesting. He seems to have never thought women were less intelligent or less capable, but at the same time he started out taking women's roles for granted. Only later in his career do we start to see women who are not only intelligent and capable, but also having independent lives and careers.

Unlike some male writers of his generation, though, he doesn't seem to have resisted the realization that social roles were changing.

He was a good, solid, entertaining writer who took his science seriously. The ones we have now with that same seriousness about the science are mostly edgier, and you wouldn't want them not to be. It's a different time and a different culture. Clarke's perspective on the universe is still his own, though, and well worth a read or a listen. Ray Porter, Jonnathan Davis, and Ralph Lister do excellent work in reading these stories.

Note that at 51 hours, this is quite a few listens!

I received a free copy of this audiobook from Audible in exchange for an honest review. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2733494.html

I liked the original version of "Earthlight" much more than the novel (which I reread only this summer); it much better constructed and pacier, and I would go so far as to call it the best discovery in the collection for me. However, I could also see why Clarke revised it so heavily for publication as a novel - the science had dated really rather rapidly after the 1951 publication. It's a shame that he took most of the steam out of it.

Otherwise this was mostly a reunion with old friends - almost all of the best stories by Clarke have been printed elsewhere in other collections that I own or have read, and one can see certain themes rise and fall (a lot of unsuccessful marriages at one point). I had not previously read many of the Tales from the White Hart, and I fear I did not have cause to regret that lapse. I was struck by how concentrated Clarke's successful story-writing career actually was, despite his longevity: the first really good story is probably "The Fires Within", from 1947, and then there is a steady rate of production with 87 stories in total from there up to "A Meeting With Medusa" in 1971; then the last stories are from 1977, 1984, two in 1986, 1992, 1997 and 1999, which is about one every four years on average.

But the good stuff remains very good, and it's nice to revisit material that had a formative effect on my thinking as I grew up, even if its limitations in terms of gender representation are a bit more obvious to me now. ( )