According to Clarke’s author’s note, this book started out as an 850-word outline for a movie script that was turned into a novel outline which was eventually fleshed out into a full manuscript by Mike McQuay shortly before his untimely death. If you’re looking for a good example of Clarke’s writing prowess, this ain’t it. But if you’re looking for the best/worst mid-90’s disaster movie that was never officially made (to my knowledge), this may be a winner.

Richter 10’s mid-90’s disaster movie origins are super obvious in every facet of the book. This filled me with unspeakable sadness because I freaking love a good disaster movie (and a bad disaster movie, let’s be honest), and this story would have played out much better in a visual medium. Well, it would if you cut the entire cringe-inducing “black and brown people are sequestered in communities called War Zones and have all converted to Islam and are violently trying to create their own autonomous Islamic State in the Deep South” subplot and rolled the credits after about the 60% mark and pretended the rest of the book didn’t exist, especially the epilogue (which is what I’m going to do because damn, this book did not know when to stop and just kept going and going way beyond what I felt was the natural conclusion).

You’ve got your main character, Protagonist McManpain, who lost his parents as a child in a deadly quake that nearly took his life as well. He came through with a magic injured arm that senses tectonic activity, and a burning desire to slay the Beast, which in his case means stopping earthquakes from killing people. And he’s gonna do it with science! And maybe nuclear weapons, if he can just convince everyone he’s not insane and survive all the betrayal by trusted allies and the sabotage from government/corporate entities. And if you’re thinking wait, I’ve seen this made-for-TV movie, it’s because this idea is about as unique as old white men in politics and has been riffed on ad nauseam. But I’d still watch the hell out of it. Again. As a book? Meh. I have to say, though, some of the slang Clarke/McQuay thought we might be using in 2024 is freaking hilarious. Hurry up, everybody! We’ve only got five years to make “juice” and “teev” popular in the vernacular!

Ok, I don't understand why people hate on this book so much. Yes it starts slow giving the background of events and politics for the human race since the first Rama, but once the crew get to Rama II, things pick up. It's not perfect, but all in all it's not a bad story and I will definitely read Rama III.

There are many early 20th century writers whose SF and fantasy continue to be read today.

The very successful literary writer James Branch Cabell would find half his novels categorized as fantasy today, including his most famous, Jürgen. Though he predates the period, the equally talented Robert Chambers was an excellent literary fantasist; his book the King in Yellow had vast influence over the 20th century "weird" fiction sub-genre including the lesser writer H. P. Lovecraft whose works are still enormously influential.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

“No one of intelligence resents the inevitable.”

In “Childhood’s End” by Arthur C. Clarke



One of my favourite long novel is `Childhoods End`, but commenting on it without revealing the ending is difficult. That is the whole point after all, but still, think the early 80`s TV mini series/series of `V` - with Jane Badler as a seriously sexy, sociopathic alien - think they really were benevolent and took humanity to generations of peace and prosperity. Well, not exactly many `generations`!

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.