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The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke E-mail
Book Reviews - Science Fiction
Friday, 10 October 2008
First Published: 1987

Rating: Good

"Even before the boat came through the reef, Marissa could tell that Brant was angry." 
 
Arthur C. Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth is not an earth-shattering work of literature, but it does have an earth-shattering plot. Actually, I guess it's more like earth-melting...

The story starts years and years after the destruction of the Earth when the sun goes nova. Before the end, scientists managed to send out ships containing genetic material to "nearby" earth-like planets in the hopes that upon arrival the ships' computers would be able to rear a new generation of humans. And in at least one case it worked--the human colony on Thalassa, a world covered mostly in water save for a few small islands, is thriving.

Unbeknownst to the Thalassans, the last ship that left the dying Earth was carrying hundreds of thousands of survivors in a state of suspended animation and a few hundred crew members who have just woken from their 200-year sleep. This ship (Magellan) lands on Thalassa on its way to the planet Sagan Two and the crew discovers that the Thalassan colony, which they'd given up as lost, is anything but.

Now, the way the blurb on the inside of the book jacket tells it, this is a story about how Magellan's crew showed up and everyone on Thalassa wrung their hands and worried that the ship and its near-million inhabitants would decide to stay. And true, that is part of the plot, but it's a very small part. Mostly the novel is about the clash between the two societies. In fact, the plot is a rather lazy, crawling thing; the meat of the story comes from Clarke's ideas and imaginings of the end of days on Earth, humanity's new beginnings elsewhere, and what would happen if the people involved in both events met.

Unfortunately, it's a little heavy-handed at times--in his later years, Clarke was especially heavy on the philisophical rants, and while I don't mind people having different views on God, guns, and religion, I'd rather those views have some particular relevance to the story into which they're interjected. And because the plot is so slow and there aren't any major conflicts, the story ends with an anticlimax. It's such an anticlimax that the excerpt on the back of my copy of the book comes from a few pages from the story's end.

The Songs of Distant Earth is a good book--not life-altering, but a fun, imaginative read over a couple of long afternoons.

 [Buy The Songs of Distant Earth at Amazon.com]

Last Updated ( Friday, 14 November 2008 )
 
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