Fiction Subjects, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Tales from planet Earth

Name: Tales from planet Earth
Author: Michael Whelan
ISBN: 9780743423793

by Michael Whelan

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Overview

If you want an omnibus of short fiction by Arthur C. Clarke, a Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master, then you want The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. If you're looking for a representative sample of Clarke's short stories, or for some examples of the creative and extrapolative abilities that established Clarke as one of science fiction's greatest and most important writers, then check out Tales from Planet Earth.
Tales from Planet Earth ranges widely across time, but the stories are centered on our home world. Many SF writers confine their visions of earth to its flatlands, but Clarke is three-dimensional; his stories "Hate," "The Deep Range," and "The Man Who Ploughed the Sea" plunge into the ocean, while "The Cruel Sky" ascends the Himalayas. Some stories, like "The Other Tiger" and "'If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth...'," end on chilling twists. "The Road to the Sea" spans centuries and millennia to explore how humanity's exodus to the stars may affect the world left behind. "Hate" considers how transcendence of the Earth's atmosphere may affect ancient enmities. "The Parasite" demonstrates a scary nastiness not usually associated with Clarke. "The Wall of Darkness" is set on an alternate-universe earth so different from ours, and "The Lion of Comarre" is set in a future so far away, that both stories feel like fantasy; but both are rigorously extrapolated from scientific theory. Two lighthearted entertainments, "The Next Tenants" and "The Man Who Ploughed the Sea," are from Tales of the White Hart. All of the stories in Tales from Planet Earth are recommended.

The iBooks 2001 Anniversary Edition of Tales from Planet Earth collects 14 SF stories first published between 1950 and 1987, including the satire "On Golden Seas," which has "never before [been] collected in any Clarke book." --Cynthia Ward

Review
"Here...is a collection of Arthur's science fiction stories, science fiction dealing with science, extrapolated intelligently. How you will enjoy it!" ISAAC ASIMOV"
Product Description The fiction of Arthur C. Clarke has spanned the universe. He has carried us across unimaginable distances to alien times and places. Yet he has not lost sight of his home. Many of his greatest stories are set-or have their roots-right here on Planet Earth. In this book, Clarke's best stories about our home planet are gathered together. For Arthur C. Clarke, more than any other science fiction writer, "home" is the entire Earth, through all of space and time. In this book, he shows us around his home to share his wonder. He invites us to share his vision and his dream.

About the Author Arthur C. Clarke is the author of many seminal works of science fiction, most noteably; 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Little Brown).

About the Author, Michael Whelan

Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke has long been considered the greatest science fiction writer of all time. He was an international treasure in many other ways, including the fact that a 1945 article by him led to the invention of satellite technology. Books by Clarke -- both fiction and nonfiction -- have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. He died in 2008.

Biography

Widely considered the greatest science fiction writer of all time, Arthur C. Clarke turned his formidable technical knowledge and lively creative imagination into an amazing career that spanned the fields of literature, invention, futurology, and entertainment.

Born in 1917 in the seaside town of Minehad in Somerset, England, Clarke developed an early interest in both science and its literary sister, speculative science fiction. After secondary school he moved to London and joined the British Interplanetary Society, where he contributed articles to the Society's bulletin. During WWII, he joined the RAF, working in the experimental trials of Ground Controlled Approach Radar, the forerunner of today's air traffic control systems. (This experience inspired his only non-science fiction novel, 1963's Glide Path.) In a technical paper written in 1945 for the UK periodical Wireless World, he set out the principles of satellite communication that would lead to the global satellite systems in use today.

After WWII, he attended King's College, London, on scholarship and received first class honors in Physics and Mathematics. He sold his first sci-fi story to Astounding Science Fiction magazine in May of 1946. From that point on, he never stopped writing. Some of his more notable works include Childhood's End, Rendezvous with Rama, and The Fountains of Paradise.

In 1964, Clarke was approached by film auteur Stanley Kubrick to collaborate on a science fiction movie script. The material chosen for adaptation was Clarke's 1948 short story "The Sentinel," an eerie tale about the discovery of an extraterrestrial artifact. Over the next four years, he expanded the story into a full-length novel, while simultaneously writing the screenplay with Kubrick. In 1968, both versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey debuted to great acclaim. Clarke also worked in television -- as a consultant during the CBS news coverage of the Apollo 12 and 15 space missions and as creator of two distinguished series, "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World" and "Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers."

In 1954, Clarke visited Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon). He fell in love with the country and settled there in 1956, founding a guided diving service and continuing to produce his astonishing books and articles. On March 19, 2008, he died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90, leaving behind an impressive literary legacy and millions of bereft fans.

Good To Know

Clarke shared an Oscar nomination with Stanley Kubrick for the screenplay of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Clarke was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998.

In 1986, the Science Fiction Writers of America bestowed on Clarke the title of Grand Master.

At home in Sri Lanka, Clarke survived the deadly Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 that caused the deaths of more than a quarter million people.

Clarke was an expert scuba diver and in 1956 founded a guided diving service in Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon.

In Profiles of the Future (1962), Clarke set forth his "Three Laws," provocative observations on science, science fiction, and society:

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."