Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke
Details
In the near future, enormous silver spaceships appear without warning over mankind's largest cities. They belong to the Overlords, a technologically advance alien race whose purpose is to dominate Earth. Their demands, however, are surprisingly benevolent: end war, poverty, and cruelty. Their presence signals the end of humanity as we know it. The only question: will it evolve into a new enlightened consciousness or face apocalyptic destruction?
Determined to learn the Overlords' secrets, one brave soul stows away aboard one of their ships by hiding in a taxidermized whale specimen.
Childhood's End (1953) by Arthur C. Clarke is "a first rate tour de force," remarkable for its pioneering use of "science fiction as the vehicle of philosophic ideas." It was retrospectively nominated for a Hugo Award in 2004, and was adapted into a 2015 TV miniseries by the Syfy Channel.
Childhood's End:
Supplemental:
- Childhood's End 2015 TV miniseries trailer
- Childhood's End song by Pink Floyd
- Oh! You Pretty Things song by David Bowie inspired by the book
- Watcher of the Skies song by Genesis inspired by the book
Extracts:
- "All round and round does the world lie as in a sharp-shooter's ambush, to pick off the beautiful illusions of youth, by the pitiless cracking rifles of the realities of the age." (Pierre, 15)
This meetup is part of the series In the Belly of the Whale.