Childhood's End

It's probably sacrilege in some circles to say, but I find Arthur C. Clarke soooo unimaginative. Oh, how I do. Or I did, at least, reading this.

Presented as part of the excellent, British S.F. Masterworks series, the introduction to this book celebrates this as Clarke's best novel. It then goes on to make big promises about how it's not only the bestest Clarke novel ever, it's actually the most mind-blowing SF we mere mortals could ever hope to read. Yea, it is TRANSCENDENTALLY SUBLIME. Big words, intro man! After actually reading it, I can report not being sublimated into a higher state of aesthetic rapture. It was a page-turner, sure; the writing is super clear, it goes down a treat. But I also found it simple-minded, predictable, and really, really unimaginative - i.e. locked into a very narrow, ethnocentric, old timey perspective of the world (let alone the universe!).

In the near future, giant space ships arrive and hover over all the major US cities... or, rather, all the cities Clarke would have considered ‘major' (New York, London, Rome, Paris). The aliens are quickly dubbed ‘Overlords' (heh) and they seem to be wise, powerful, benevolent dictators. At least, they love the UN and the EU, and they want to restructure everything into a super-awesome World Government, and they talk a lot about purging humanity of its old-fashioned superstitions. These superstitions do not, however, include something as simple as women's lib - every female in this story (of which there are 3) is either (1) an infant, or (2) a wife. A wife, I should specify, who does nothing but WIFING (i.e. listening to Husband tell of the day, cooking, entertaining guests, looking sexy, and tending to the baby).

Thanks, Arthur.

The ostensible point - the AWE-INDUCING SUBLIMITY - of this book is meant to be unraveling the mysterious Overlordly mystery. If you're familiar with Clarke's other work though (e.g. 2001), it's not such a big mystery.

And pleeeeease don't call this hard sci-fi. This is not hard sci-fi. This is mansplaining for 300 pages; by which I mean, extended sections full of straightforward exposition (“Then history happened. This meant X. Also, people thought about Y. This was important because of Z.”), interrupted by shorter passages where a (male) character ponders the marvels of it all (again, via telling - ‘He pondered marvels.'' - rather than showing - ‘He gasped, his heart rate bounced.'). I define hard sci-fi as being sci-fi that uses existing or hypothetical science to do something which, at the moment, we can't do, but is really cool. Good hard sci-fi then uses this scientific future to examine something philosophical, and fundamental to humanity's perceptions of whatever (itself, the universe, etc). Examples include: Rudy Rucker's Postsingular (nanotech, wifi, fun), Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars (way too much NASA funding), or Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (post-scarcity economics in a replicator-happy world). Or anything from The Next Generation, really.

I don't call any fiction written by a trained scientist (as Clarke was) ‘hard'. There ain't no science in here. It's all just hand-waving, and sleek designs, and wonder-and-awe, and wives worrying about their (transcendentally?) intelligent children. It's not forward-looking, not by any definition I'd use, and it feels very much a product of its time (and its place, and its gender, and its upbringing).

I can't say I'm surprised. The Golden Age of sci-fi is mostly a good ol' boy's club, where women aren't really allowed (except as objects - cf. Bester) and everything is patterned on a very Euro-centric, post-WW2 worldview. Some of this stuff has a wonderful central idea that is unfortunately ruined by this narrowness (e.g. James Blish's Cities in Flight - awesome idea, but, seriously, Pittsburgh in space!?). That's also why I tend not to read anything before the 1970s New Wave period - and also prefer that period, since writers from then (Le Guin, Pohl) were actively influenced by the existing sociopolitical movements of the 60s and 70s, and so it's a lot more intentionally diverse, and open-minded, and quirky.

Clarke, though... Clarke's writing, his plotting, his ‘big ideas' (at least in this) just made me feel like I was being lectured to by a stodgy old British professor, who can't fathom things beyond his very specific life. Yes, it's a page-turner. I read it almost straight through. But no, I wouldn't recommend it.