By Bill Higgins: Today is the 100th anniversary of Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s birth. I would’ve liked to attend a Clarke centennial event of some kind, but I live far away from any of them.
I did celebrate in a small way on Twitter: I rounded up links to interesting reviews for each of Sir Arthur’s solo novels, and tweeted them out in chronological order, along with cover art.
#ArthurCClarke's CHILDHOOD'S END (1953) subverts SF expectations, says reviewer @BluejoWalton.https://t.co/jRe1guBz4F pic.twitter.com/qfhfCYy5D7
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 12, 2017
@BluejoWalton admires "the poetry of Deep Time" #ArthurCClarke brings to AGAINST THE FALL OF NIGHT (1953).https://t.co/yI8fGWxZzK pic.twitter.com/q9FJdm8RaK
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 12, 2017
Thomas M. Wagner reviews #ArthurCClarke's 1955 novel EARTHLIGHT. Espionage—and astronomy—on the Moon!https://t.co/1cw12ZUsVd pic.twitter.com/QP3WSOAoTe
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 12, 2017
Review of THE CITY AND THE STARS by Daniel Bastian. It's 1956; #ArthurCClarke rewrites AGAINST THE FALL OF NIGHT. https://t.co/JhRSJPLTm4
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 12, 2017
City of Diaspar, though it defied Time for a billion years, could not withstand #ArthurCClarke's urge to rewrite it.
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 12, 2017
Odd. George Salter painted covers for both UK (left) & US (right) editions of THE CITY & THE STARS. I like UK better. pic.twitter.com/ClktPGM61t
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 12, 2017
A suboceanic future: Richard Pickard of @UVicEnglish reviews #ArthurCClarke's 1957 novel THE DEEP RANGE.https://t.co/3ge6QyNJBM pic.twitter.com/wpuXFjTaIx
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 13, 2017
Jo Walton (@BluejoWalton) examines 1961 #ArthurCClarke tale of disaster & rescue on the Moon, A FALL OF MOONDUST.https://t.co/UJnTbyALjF pic.twitter.com/fxVMCikqMv
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 13, 2017
FALL OF MOONDUST's quicksand-like dust sea did not turn up on the Moon. But asteroid 433 Eros has hundreds of dust ponds.
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 13, 2017
Radar fiction: @DavidSzondy reviews #ArthurCClarke's 1963 autobiographical novel about electronics in WWII, GLIDE PATH. https://t.co/93cn4QNBmL pic.twitter.com/0TMENBv0ZM
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 13, 2017
In 1963's DOLPHIN ISLAND, #ArthurCClarke communicates with Tursiops truncatus. Review by Jules Jones.https://t.co/ryfUUu9QbE pic.twitter.com/Nqka0rrydX
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 13, 2017
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY made #ArthurCClarke a star; written alongside Kubrick's filming. Review by Josh Edelglass.https://t.co/qv9GNObjo6 pic.twitter.com/RIyYzLfBaN
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 13, 2017
Sam Jordison on #ArthurCClarke's 1973 RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA: "A pleasure to be in the company of such genial intelligence."https://t.co/rRvarZBnCX pic.twitter.com/dS9ULkTZAc
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 13, 2017
Best read w Cadbury Eggs: Jo Walton (@BluejoWalton) remembers when #ArthurCClarke's IMPERIAL EARTH (1975) was new.https://t.co/RY8stLgFwM pic.twitter.com/xZSIIDlURm
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 13, 2017
Voyager Jupiter pix tempted #ArthurCClarke to pen a 1982 sequel. For Josh Edelglass, 2010: ODYSSEY TWO's a favorite.https://t.co/MQst8mmyuD pic.twitter.com/rAF4SexyDZ
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 14, 2017
#ArthurCClarke's book 2010 soon became a film,
by which time a @DelReyBooks paperback was out.
Everybody was reading it. pic.twitter.com/iCro1TDQhx— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 14, 2017
For MGM/UA #2010 poster I thank https://t.co/dE3Q7FqkhN, whose watermark appears here. #eMoviePoster #ArthurCClarke
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 14, 2017
#ArthurCClarke tackles slower-than-light romance: Paul Wake Baker reviews 1986's THE SONGS OF DISTANT EARTH.https://t.co/ys9WtCmwsH pic.twitter.com/ZdgyB4C5W3
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 14, 2017
Steven H Silver examines 2061: ODYSSEY THREE (1988), as #ArthurCClarke sends Heywood Floyd to tour Halley's Comet.https://t.co/us7qoSVyGf pic.twitter.com/LKCUW2pAdr
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 14, 2017
Thomas M. Wagner reviews #ArthurCClarke's 1990 attempt to raise TITANIC, his novel THE GHOST FROM THE GRAND BANKS.https://t.co/AWPU2VOZlR pic.twitter.com/E9Bo956gMi
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 14, 2017
In 1993's THE HAMMER OF GOD, #ArthurCClarke saves Earth from asteroid impact. Read Kate Atherton's review. https://t.co/hsKzS5xHGj pic.twitter.com/SNIRBgtjoh
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 14, 2017
3001: THE FINAL ODYSSEY (1997) was also #ArthurCClarke's final solo novel; here's Steven H Silver's review.https://t.co/nFkyZrNVPR pic.twitter.com/Ti0OwZJEyb
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 14, 2017
All praise to the mighty and indispensable https://t.co/EWym5NAwqo, whose very existence seems a secular miracle.
— Bill Higgins— Beam Jockey (@MrBeamJockey) December 14, 2017
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Thank you, Bill! This is a hugely entertaining (and nostalgic) survey. Wishing I had some more of those earlier editions …
So this is rambling, but: I followed the link to Jo Walton’s review of A Fall of Moondust where she comments
This caught my eye because there is a university press version of Shane; the University of Nebraska Press published one in 1984, and it’s the version of Shane I read. I’m not a big fan of the Western genre, so I found the essays included to be very interesting.
When I was a forecaster at Cape Canaveral in the mid ’70s, I could (and did) arrange for people–fans and pros–to launch weather rockets from the pad at the tip of the Cape. Alas, I never got to have Arthur Clarke launch a rocket: the only time I met him at the Cape (specifically at one of Joe Green’s famous launch parties), his schedule didn’t allow him to: a disappointment to him and me.
You’d be surprised, or maybe not, that some writers who had been sending rockets across the galaxy for decades, would be blase about such things as launching a weather rocket. But no…with a real countdown and a real switch to throw, and a real whoosh as the rocket took off–they one and all *loved* it. Every fan or pro looking out the window of the “block-cottage” (it wasn’t big enough to be called a blockhouse) and seeing the rocket take off had a great big grin on his (or her) face. I remember that Gordon Dickson’s grin went all the way to the back of his neck! Guest launchers would get a certificate and a copy of the data their rocket collected. (The weather rockets were solid-fueled and about 6 ft long and 3-4 inches in diameter, and had a yard-long, inch-diameter dart on the nose containing the temperature probe hanging from a small parachute. The rocket motor would burn for 2-3 seconds and reach a height of some 5,000 ft, at which point the dart would detach and coast up to 200,000 ft or more. The probe would be deployed and tracked by radio direction finding, from which air temperature, wind speed and wind direction at various altitudes would be calculated. The motor casing, the empty dart, and the probe would fall into the ocean off the Cape. They still launch weather rockets from the Cape, but don’t allow “outsiders” to launch them now, I understand.
I have a printers’ proof (without lettering) of Paul Lehr’s cover for the first paperback of “The Deep Range” hanging on my wall.
http://bookscans.fatcow.com/Publishers/signet/images/signetS1583.jpg
Mm-at the UK’s annual Natl SF Con (Eastercon) 2001 (I think it was in Hinckley that year) I arranged for a large p/card to be sent to ACC (he and I are both FRASs so I had his Colombo address). It originally was only to comprise Cttee and Guests but like topsy it got out of hand. Everyone at the Con (even the Gen Mgr of the Con Hotel put his Hotel official stamp thereon) wanted to add to it so we had to keep adding sheets of white paper to the p/card. Artistes there also added to the glee-with illustrations. Before airmailing it to SriLanka (registered) I took p/copies of same (those are now in the SF Foundation at Univ of L’pool). ~ 3 weeks later a nice thankful reply came from ACC: as usual on one side was a pre-typed piece saying what he was doing or planning -with a hand written item on the reverse.
Samuel Long: Thanks for a fascinating and obscure bit of space history! I had no idea.
I’ve shown a lot of fans and SF writers around Fermilab but could not offer them the experience of pushing any buttons, let alone the thrill of launching a rocket.
Once in 1988, though, I did get to show Jack Williamson, author of the classic Seetee series, a real-life antimatter factory and storage ring. We gazed out the window at it– nobody was allowed in the tunnels while the beam was operating!
Joel Zakem: The Deep Range is a novel set largely under the sea. It’s surprising then that a painter like Paul Lehr, renowned for populating so many of his SF landscapes with his signature shimmering spheres and hemispheres, passed up the opportunity to put a lot more bubbles into this particular cover.