Tales of Ten Worlds
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| Author | Arthur C. Clarke |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction short stories |
| Publisher | Harcourt Brace |
Publication date | 1962 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 245 pp |
| ISBN | NA Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
Tales of Ten Worlds is a collection of short stories by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. The stories all originally appeared in a number of different publications.
Contents
This collection, originally published in 1962, includes the following:
- I Remember Babylon
- Summertime on Icarus
- Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Orbiting...
- Who's There?
- Hate
- Into the Comet
- An Ape about the House
- Saturn Rising
- Let There be Light
- Death and the Senator
- With Time
- Before Eden
- A Slight Case of Sunstroke
- Dog Star
- The Road to the Sea
Summaries
I Remember Babylon: The story is portrayed as if it had actually happened. The main character in this story is Arthur C. Clarke himself. He warns the US citizens that the Chinese were going to launch a satellite that will disrupt broadcasts with pornography and Propaganda.
Summertime on Icarus: The story is about a man named “Colin Sherrard” whom works as an engineer in space. Colin joins an expedition that is tasked with sending a research ship within seventeen million miles of the sun. The way that they ensure the safety of that ship is by using the shield of the asteroid Icarcus. While on this expedition Colin gets badly hurt and loses consciousness. When he finally awakens, he finds out that his pod was damaged so badly that he could no longer operate the controls. As he hurdled towards the sun in his now vegetable state, he knew his time was coming if nothing came along and saved him. A ship was sent out from the expedition and saved him just when he was about to be burned alive. When Colin returned from the expedition he no longer enjoyed the suns beauty for it nearly killed him.
Hate: The main character of this story is Szabo Tibor. Szabo was an ex-patriot to his country of Hungary. In 1956, Szabo’s brother was killed by Russians in Hungary. Szabo was a pearl diver around the Great Barrier Reef by Queensland. As Szabo is in the waters, a space ship crashed into the waters nearby. Szabo is the first being at the scene. Szabo examines the ship and finds out it’s a Russian ship. He hears that a person is still alive in the ship but because it was a Russian ship, he let that person’s air run out until dead. Szabo spoke words of hate towards the survivor, but the survivor could not communicate with Szabo. After the ship was found by officials, they found a pretty, young, lady that she had recorded proving Szabo to be a murderer for deliberately allowing the oxygen to run out.
Into the Comet: Scientists begin to take interest in close examination of comets so they send a ship up to orbit a comet and monitor its nucleus at a small distance. All was good until the computer of the ship got a quirk. Then the issue they had was the evasion of the comet for they could no longer orbit the comet at a safe distance. A Japanese journalist informs the fleet captain of a trick that may over-write the flaw in the system. He told him that a manual input of the orbit would be a specific command whereas an automatic input cannot be edited or fixed. The captain took his advice and it brought the ship back into human contact.
Death and the Senator: The story is about Martin Steelman, a US Senator that could more than possibly go presidential. As a member of a Senate, Martin used his social put-downs to decline the funding for an astrobiology project. Later in his life he found out he had a threatening cardiac condition. A scientist who worked for the project Martin refused to fund told him of a project the USSR had been working on in zero gravity. He was offered to join the program but he declined and stayed in Washington DC for a cure. His death approached slowly and silently years later.
Dog Star: This story is of an astronomer whom is best friends with his dog Laika. The astronomer is asleep and suddenly awakens, hearing the bark of his old pal Laika. He re-visualizes the day that he had met her at the side of the road and took her into his care. He also flashed back to an earthquake that she warned him about which saved his life. After the brief flashback, he noticed that there was a tremor. The bark of Laika was a sign of danger to him. When he sounded the alarm, it saved mostly everyone except two fellow astronomers. Sadly, his dog was dead so he could not reward her for her unconscious deed.
References
- Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 102. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
External links
- Archived (Date missing) at geocities.com (Error: unknown archive URL)