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Das Lied der fernen Erde
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Das Lied der fernen Erde
'Thalassa was a paradise above the earth. Its beauty and vast resources seduce its inhabitants into a feeling of perfection. But then the Magellan arrives, carrying with it one million refugees from the last mad days of earth. Paradise looks indeed lost...
Published
1987
by Heyne
(first published January 1st 1986)
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The Songs of Distant Earth is a very thoughtful science fiction novel. It's not chock full of chases and weird experiments or other derring-do, but it keeps the reader involved and more importantly it makes the reader think. It is a good example of what is known as “hard science fiction”. Written by Arthur C. Clarke, a man who is no stranger to science, the book deals more with real possibilities than with theories that have no apparent foundation in reality.
The main portion of the...more
The Songs of Distant Earth is a very thoughtful science fiction novel. It's not chock full of chases and weird experiments or other derring-do, but it keeps the reader involved and more importantly it makes the reader think. It is a good example of what is known as “hard science fiction”. Written by Arthur C. Clarke, a man who is no stranger to science, the book deals more with real possibilities than with theories that have no apparent foundation in reality.
The main portion of the...more
One of the only sci-fi books I've ever read twice. This book is a great example of hard sci-f-- the characters are all basically ancillary to exploring and explaining the central premise of colonizing other planets in a future where the sun goes nova in about 1600 years from now. Arthur C Clarke has an amazing way of picking one technology that is so far beyond what we have that it might seem impossible, but explaining it in such detail that it becomes totally plausible, and making that the one...more
This is the first text I've read by Arthur C. Clarke and I can understand why this was his favorite of his own writings and why he was a pillar in sci-fi writing. It's the story of a dying Earth and how humanity attempts to save itself through different waves of colonization. It takes place on one of these colonized planets and describes how the world was colonized, how the inhabitants differ from their Earth ancestors, and the new society they've created. The conflict in the story occurs when a...more
I enjoyed this book a great deal. It plays with a lot of interesting ideas. While on the surface, Thalassa is portrayed as some kind of Eden, under the surface it represents something that has become rather unhuman. The people who live there have been manipulated by the people who planned the colonization of the planet to be stripped of all the nasty bits of humanity. By doing this, though, they become something that's not quite human and live a mundane existence where they're not even curious a...more
When Clarke dealt with science, he was brilliant. When Clarke dealt with sociology and the nature of man as he did in this work, he did not shine so brightly. If you want to know what an atheist thinks mankind could or would be if he could just rid himself of all that cumbersome superstition (aka religion and morality) and also shed all his violent tendencies including the will to power, then you should read "Songs of Distant Earth" because that is the main theme of the work.
You should be warne...more
You should be warne...more
Songs of a Distant Earth was by no means my first Sci-Fi book, but I still consider myself fairly new to the genre. I have started and abandoned a variety of sci-fi books, and this was the first in a while that I have been able to get through. I think what I liked most is that Clarke just goes and head and outright explains things. He doesn't just throw you into the deep end and make you wait 10 long character ridden chapters to get a glimpse at the bigger picture. Maybe I have a short attention...more
As usual, Clarke has an interesting premise. Faced with the Sun going nova in the year 3600, humanity launches seed ships with the necessities for creating earth life, including humans. Some of these colonies succeed, including one on the island paradise of Thalassa. After seven hundred years, a manned colony ship with a million frozen humans appears in orbit. The (not frozen) crew of the ship needs water ice in order to rebuild the ablation shield on the ship and continue their journey. The nov...more
I read this book back in 1987 and rediscovered over the holidays. Earth and the solar system has been destroyed by a dying sun. The last of mankind has set out on a long journey to a new home on a rugged distant planet. Very much like sailors traveling the oceans they stop along the way for supplies and discover that a colony they feared was destroyed hundreds of years ago is actually doing quite well. Do they stay with the colony or continue on to their destination?
I really enjoyed the book an...more
I really enjoyed the book an...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
the songs of distant earth: clarke imagines a splendid future for the human race in this novel. thousands of years in the future, the final ship from doomed earth makes a stop at an old earth colony, now a culture in its own right, on its way into the unknown. the inhabitants of the world and the passengers on the ship intermix, making a fascinating blend of the old and the new.
this is a thoroughly enjoyable book. thalassa is a wonderfully drawn paradise. the thalassans still retain enough 'fla...more
this is a thoroughly enjoyable book. thalassa is a wonderfully drawn paradise. the thalassans still retain enough 'fla...more
Goodreads' plot summary of this book is completely misleading: it is not about an invasion of millions of refugees flooding into Edenic Thalassa.
I read this book every year around the beginning of summer starting when I was about 13. Thalassa, Greek for ocean, is a tropical island on a watery colony planet where reason has broken out. There is no religion or poverty. People are even reasonable about their personal lives. While Arthur's vision is, at times a bit simplistic, even bordering on par...more
I read this book every year around the beginning of summer starting when I was about 13. Thalassa, Greek for ocean, is a tropical island on a watery colony planet where reason has broken out. There is no religion or poverty. People are even reasonable about their personal lives. While Arthur's vision is, at times a bit simplistic, even bordering on par...more
This is another book that I bought in Sierra Leone. I loved the 2001 books when I was a kid, and reading this I was quickly reminded why: I'm a giant dork. Clarke is really good at considering the limits of scientific possibility and probability. In this book, the sun has gone nova and humans have long been sending unmanned "seeding ships" to distant planets where humans are created from genetic information and raised by robots. A much later manned mission lands on a previously seeded planet, an...more
...Whether Clarke managed to write something that is less fantastical than shall we say Star Wars is questionable. Clarke's futures always carry a touch of utopia, something that in my opinion at least, is most certainly not supported by history of the 20th century. Progress is one thing, what we're doing with it is quite another. Mix in the controversial science and highly speculative solution to the solar neutrino problem I'd say Clarke would have been wise to stick to a somewhat wider definit...more
Feb 25, 2013
My Inner Shelf
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
relecture,
science-fiction
17 ans plus tard la magie du récit de Clarke est toujours là. J’ai eu mes premiers émois de SF grâce à Clarke et Asimov, et ce n’est donc pas rien d’y revenir des années plus tard. Mais voilà, l’émotion est à nouveau présente. Clarke évoque plus qu’il ne développe, le thème de la fin d’une ère, de la destruction totale de la Terre et du système solaire. Le comble du tragique ! Mais il ne faut pas s’attendre à du grandiloquent, du spectaculaire, du feu et du sang. Pour les protagonistes, cette tr...more
Aug 16, 2011
Elisabeth
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Elisabeth by:
Audrey
Shelves:
science-fiction
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
A ship called Magellan carries a million refugees in hibernation; refugees escaping the spectacular destruction of the solar system in ~3500 AD. A handful of them are awakened for a stopover (don't be fooled - this 'stopover' lasts a couple of years) at a planet called Thalassa - they need to collect water ice for replenishing their ablative shield. Thalassa, however, is not empty - it has a flourishing human colony built up from a seeding done 700 years ago. Most of the book is about the intera...more
Hay muchas historias sobre primeros encuentros con inteligencias extraterrestres. En esta variante, el gran Arthur Clark describe un encuentro entre una lejana y bucólica comunidad humana con un muy modesto desarrollo -"sembrada" por una nave robot enviada por la Tierra antes de ser destruida por su inestable sol- y un otro grupo humano, sobreviviente de la catástrofe y heredera de todo el conocimiento acumulado por el hombre. El encuentro es pues entre dos realidades alejadísimas. La sofisticad...more
This book was good but I was expecting much more. There were some amazing ideas and it really got your brain jump started into imagining what the future could be like, because Clarke makes it a point to NOT use any technology that we wouldn't see as being possible today. He has long been good at showing you a future by feeding you scientific ideas and predictions and leting your own imagination do the leg work, not by lecturing you to death (one thing about Hienlien that REALLY annoys me). The s...more
I just finished it and, eh, I have mixed feelings. When I started reading it I was immediately taken in. I just started easing myself back into reading SF last month and this is the first Clarke novel I've read in over a year. So I felt warm and fuzzy, glad to be back reading probably my favorite author.
I've never been a huge fan of sex scenes (and all the baggage that comes with them) in science fiction. I can put up with some as long as they don't hinder the progress of the main storyline, but...more
I've never been a huge fan of sex scenes (and all the baggage that comes with them) in science fiction. I can put up with some as long as they don't hinder the progress of the main storyline, but...more
Songs of Distant Earth has a very different tone than other scifi that I have read. Some have bemoaned the book as lacking a compelling plot, but I found the lack of grand upheavals to make the story that much more realistic. A lot of "the point" of the story is learning the backstory of Earth's last days, and I found the story to be a near continuous supply of excellent food for thought.
My two somewhat minor complaints are these. The sea creature plot line has such compelling and relevant impli...more
My two somewhat minor complaints are these. The sea creature plot line has such compelling and relevant impli...more
Fabuloso! Adorei esta história: a aventura mais épica de todas contada com o rigor científico a que Arthur C. Clarke nos habituou. Este é daqueles livros luminosos que nos agarram na primeira página e nos deliciam continuamente até ao final; é uma história absolutamente fascinante de Arthur C. Clarke que nos transporta para uma era futura de esplendorosa exploração do universo pela raça humana e de colonização de outros planetas por intermédio de naves que transportam as sementes da humanidade a...more
As a fan of both science fiction and Arthur C. Clarke, I must admit that I was disappointed with this book.
There were some positive aspects to this book. The writing style is characteristic of Clarke with it's convincing descriptions of science fiction worlds and technology. There is also a fairly convincing romantic relationship that developed in the story. I especially enjoyed how this relationship was not of the usual sort but rather based on post-WW2 progressive/liberal notions of sexual fre...more
There were some positive aspects to this book. The writing style is characteristic of Clarke with it's convincing descriptions of science fiction worlds and technology. There is also a fairly convincing romantic relationship that developed in the story. I especially enjoyed how this relationship was not of the usual sort but rather based on post-WW2 progressive/liberal notions of sexual fre...more
"The Songs of Distant Earth" by Arthur C Clark is a lovely story set in the far future where humans have seeded other planets with the hope of preserving the species. The premise of "The Songs of Distant Earth" is that due to the low solar neutrino count coming from the Sun it was realised that the Sun would one day go nova. However, since the publication of the book, the reason for the low solar neutrino count has been identified (neutrino oscillation) and so the the neutrino problem has been s...more
Een ruimteschip van de - vernietigde - aarde, op doorreis naar een nieuwe planeet om te koloniseren, maakt een korte stop op de bounty-eilandplaneet Thalassa, waar lang geleden een aardse kolonie is gesticht. Dit verandert het leven van zowel de ruimtevaarders als de eilandbewoners.
Waar Larry Niven bij science fiction meer nadruk legt op 'fiction', zo is Arthur C. Clarke met name gericht op 'science'. Bijna alles wat hij vertelt klinkt tamelijk plausibel en het is duidelijk dat hij zijn erg mild...more
Waar Larry Niven bij science fiction meer nadruk legt op 'fiction', zo is Arthur C. Clarke met name gericht op 'science'. Bijna alles wat hij vertelt klinkt tamelijk plausibel en het is duidelijk dat hij zijn erg mild...more
The planet Thalassa's utopian society, with a population of only a few tens of thousands, was set up by a robot spacecraft, one of many that Earth sent out after its scientists discovered that the Sun was going to go nova. Now, with the nova past and Earth dead, another spaceship unexpectedly arrives on Thalassa, carrying live refugees. They intend to stop briefly for maintenance of the ship and continue on to another planet. Their internal politics threaten the mission and they make a tremendou...more
In this late and underrated novel, Clarke charts the future human exploration of the galaxy at speeds slower than light. Find out what happens when the last humans from a dying Earth meet the long-abandoned human colonists of ocean planet Thalassa. Clarke has always damned hyperspace as a sham, no more than convenient device allowing the Great Producer in the Sky to get between locations in time for Next Week's Exciting Episode. But this doesn't mean we're without the usual parade of Clarkian wo...more
I am slowly but surely reading all Arthur C. Clarke's books. This one is a great story of what happened to the human race once they new that the Earth would be destroyed. The cause is a build of neutrinos in the Sun that will make it go supernova. Humanity sends space ships to distant star systems to reseed the human race.
One such ship reached the planet Thalassa and machines created humans from DNA stored in the ship's libraries. The ship also had vast knowledge stores and a thriving civilizati...more
One such ship reached the planet Thalassa and machines created humans from DNA stored in the ship's libraries. The ship also had vast knowledge stores and a thriving civilizati...more
Да послушаме “Песните на далечната Земя”, тихи, тъжни и обречени: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/p...
Една от онези любими книги, четени безчет пъти преди години, и които имам нужда да си припомням понякога, за да знам кой съм и какъв съм бил. Нека е наивна “Песните на далечната Земя”, нека е твърде семпла и несложна – но е толкова красиво атеистично-вдъхновена, толкова изчистена от тинята на историята на човечеството и настоящето, в което се е забатачило като в плаващи пясъци – Артър Кларк...more
Една от онези любими книги, четени безчет пъти преди години, и които имам нужда да си припомням понякога, за да знам кой съм и какъв съм бил. Нека е наивна “Песните на далечната Земя”, нека е твърде семпла и несложна – но е толкова красиво атеистично-вдъхновена, толкова изчистена от тинята на историята на човечеството и настоящето, в което се е забатачило като в плаващи пясъци – Артър Кларк...more
A Ricky Gervais movie came out a few years ago, I think called "The Invention of Lying." The premise was funny enough as it was shown in the previews - a man lives in a society in which nobody lies. Nobody even conceives of lying. It's not a matter of a highly morally upright group of people, they literally can't even think of lying. One man develops the ability and uses it to get what he wants. Hilarity ensues.
That's what the previews showed, anyway. In reality, the movie was a diatribe against...more
That's what the previews showed, anyway. In reality, the movie was a diatribe against...more
This was my first attempt at Science Fiction, therefore, I am kind of a noob to this genre. To my astonishment, I became amazed with the genre when I read the first 20 pages of this book. I became petrified when I read the views of the Author on the relative near future and the way he explained how those people came to be in thalassa.
I found the story to vbe so mystical and at some times, romantic.
The problem I found with it wwas the short chapters. It was like every single chapter was a rando...more
I found the story to vbe so mystical and at some times, romantic.
The problem I found with it wwas the short chapters. It was like every single chapter was a rando...more
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Arthur C. Clarke was one of the most important and influential figures in 20th century science fiction. He spent the first half of his life in England, where he served in World War Two as a radar operator, before emigrating to Ceylon in 1956. He is best known for the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he co-created with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.
Clarke was a graduate of King's Co...more
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“...if one had to think about every footstep one took, ordinary walking would be impossible.”
—
3 people liked it
“He felt like a young student again, confronted with all the art and knowledge of mankind. The experience was both exhilarating and depressing; a whole universe lay at his fingertips, but the fraction of it he could explore in an entire lifetime was so negligible that he was sometimes overwhelmed with despair.”
—
3 people liked it
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Aug 24, 2011 04:38am