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Against the Fall of Night / Beyond the Fall of Night
Against the Fall of Night is one of Arthur C. Clarke's earliest extended works of fiction. Set in the very far future, it tells the story of a young man, Alvin, the only child to be born in the enclosed city of Diaspar for many centuries.
Dissatisfied with the stasis of Utopian life in the city, Alvin discovers that Diaspar is not, as its inhabitants believe, the only city left on an Earth turned to desert. There is another city, Lys, whose people have remained close to nature. For Alvin, this discovery is the first step in a journey that will take him to the stars - and to the truth about the universe.
In Benford's sequel Alvin's discoveries have led to a renaissance; man is reclaiming the Earth and even recreating earlier species of humanity. But along with creativity, evil has returned to the Earth...
Dissatisfied with the stasis of Utopian life in the city, Alvin discovers that Diaspar is not, as its inhabitants believe, the only city left on an Earth turned to desert. There is another city, Lys, whose people have remained close to nature. For Alvin, this discovery is the first step in a journey that will take him to the stars - and to the truth about the universe.
In Benford's sequel Alvin's discoveries have led to a renaissance; man is reclaiming the Earth and even recreating earlier species of humanity. But along with creativity, evil has returned to the Earth...
326 pages, Paperback
First published April 11, 1991
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158 people want to read
About the author
Arthur C. Clarke
1,632 books11.4k followersStories, works of noted British writer, scientist, and underwater explorer Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, include
2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968).
This most important and influential figure in 20th century fiction spent the first half of his life in England and served in World War II as a radar operator before migrating to Ceylon in 1956. He co-created his best known novel and movie with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.
Clarke, a graduate of King's College, London, obtained first class honours in physics and mathematics. He served as past chairman of the interplanetary society and as a member of the academy of astronautics, the royal astronomical society, and many other organizations.
He authored more than fifty books and won his numerous awards: the Kalinga prize of 1961, the American association for the advancement Westinghouse prize, the Bradford Washburn award, and the John W. Campbell award for his novel Rendezvous with Rama. Clarke also won the nebula award of the fiction of America in 1972, 1974 and 1979, the Hugo award of the world fiction convention in 1974 and 1980. In 1986, he stood as grand master of the fiction of America. The queen knighted him as the commander of the British Empire in 1989.
This most important and influential figure in 20th century fiction spent the first half of his life in England and served in World War II as a radar operator before migrating to Ceylon in 1956. He co-created his best known novel and movie with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.
Clarke, a graduate of King's College, London, obtained first class honours in physics and mathematics. He served as past chairman of the interplanetary society and as a member of the academy of astronautics, the royal astronomical society, and many other organizations.
He authored more than fifty books and won his numerous awards: the Kalinga prize of 1961, the American association for the advancement Westinghouse prize, the Bradford Washburn award, and the John W. Campbell award for his novel Rendezvous with Rama. Clarke also won the nebula award of the fiction of America in 1972, 1974 and 1979, the Hugo award of the world fiction convention in 1974 and 1980. In 1986, he stood as grand master of the fiction of America. The queen knighted him as the commander of the British Empire in 1989.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 4, 2023
Note, my score is based on the sequel!
The Clarke story is great but buy a different edition.
First thing to note is that this is the novella version of Against the Fall of Night, not the later version Clarke turned into a novel. I read the novel version in April 2023. The novella I read in 2021. So I gave myself a refresher and quickly reread the novella which is the first half of this book. Still a great story!
Now on to the sequel. The first few pages of Beyond the Fall of Night seem to be trying very hard to be descriptive. I find them just annoying to read. It’s not a good start. It’s a bit mysterious what’s going on and then everything becomes clear by the end of the second chapter and how it ties in to the original.
Occasionally the writing is straightforward.... and then the purple prose starts up again.
It’s bad.
Chapter after chapter is spent describing these weird space-going biosphere animal things and a lot of it just makes completely no sense.
It bears such little relation to Clarke’s story that it’s a wonder he allowed it to be published. Funnily enough, Clarke even mentions in the Foreword that he was approached by someone else to write a sequel but alas had already agreed to Benford. Alas, what might have been.
Look, I could go into all sorts of detail but I’m not going to waste your time - trust me, it’s just bad. I don’t understand how so many words can be used to say absolutely nothing.
The Clarke story is great but buy a different edition.
First thing to note is that this is the novella version of Against the Fall of Night, not the later version Clarke turned into a novel. I read the novel version in April 2023. The novella I read in 2021. So I gave myself a refresher and quickly reread the novella which is the first half of this book. Still a great story!
Now on to the sequel. The first few pages of Beyond the Fall of Night seem to be trying very hard to be descriptive. I find them just annoying to read. It’s not a good start. It’s a bit mysterious what’s going on and then everything becomes clear by the end of the second chapter and how it ties in to the original.
Occasionally the writing is straightforward.... and then the purple prose starts up again.
It’s bad.
Chapter after chapter is spent describing these weird space-going biosphere animal things and a lot of it just makes completely no sense.
It bears such little relation to Clarke’s story that it’s a wonder he allowed it to be published. Funnily enough, Clarke even mentions in the Foreword that he was approached by someone else to write a sequel but alas had already agreed to Benford. Alas, what might have been.
Look, I could go into all sorts of detail but I’m not going to waste your time - trust me, it’s just bad. I don’t understand how so many words can be used to say absolutely nothing.
August 21, 2023
"Against" is cool in a kinda retro way but not to my mind as good as the re-write City and the Stars. Couldn't get into the sequel.
September 22, 2020
A must read for the true science fiction afficionado, these two novellas are not for the novice sci-fi reader. However, for those willing to put in the effort, they are very much worth the effort. The works span an immensity of both time and space. Arthur C Clark fans will notice the difference between his work and that of Benford. I have to admit that the denouement and climax of Benford's contribution came as a disappointment to me, but every reader has to come to his or her own conclusion on this point.
August 13, 2018
The first book of this collection is the first longer work by Arthur C. Clarke, and it kinda shows. It’s a simpler story than most that he wrote and if you only count the books he wrote by himself it is also the worst of the ones I’ve read.
The sequel by Gregory Benford however brings to mind Clarke at his peak with some pretty extreme science fiction concepts that will attempt and sometime succeed to blow your mind.
The sequel by Gregory Benford however brings to mind Clarke at his peak with some pretty extreme science fiction concepts that will attempt and sometime succeed to blow your mind.
August 30, 2022
I'm giving this a four star rating primarily for the original book, "Against the Fall of Night", which presents a most interesting world and manages to tell a rich story despite being only around 150 pages. While the sequel, "Beyond the Fall of Night" was enjoyable, I didn't think it really compared to the first, and shifted further from speculative sci fi towards the realm of fantasy.
February 15, 2016
I read this back in junior high, and it has always been one of those books you remember and compare against new books. This is two stories in one... The first is an Arthur C Clark book from the fifties (Against the Fall of Night), followed by a sequel written by Gregory Benford (Beyond the Fall of Night). I don't think I realized at the time that the stories were by different authors despite the different styles... both were excellent in their own way, and left me with a sense of wonder.
The two stories are very different, however, and the links between them tenuous.
The first book follows Alvin, a member of a human city in the middle of a barren wasteland a billion years in the future. The city seems to be alone on Earth, and most of the people in the city are effectively immortal humans who live in mechanically constructed human bodies that a central computer downloads their minds into over and over, and have an ingrained aversion to leaving the city. Alvin is a 'unique', has no prior lives, and is compelled to explore! He does, and finds all sorts of things, including still working spacecraft and a colony of geniuses that live elsewhere on the planet, but aren't as long-lived as Alvin's group, nor do they download their minds. With the help of a kid from that clan, Alvin opens up long all sorts of long lost technologies... although I don't remember they ever really figure out what exactly happened to the humans of the past to stick them in that city for so long.
The second book barely features the members of the first book, but the idea is that Alvin and the other humans unlocked some kind of crazy futuristic seed/genetic bank and just let everything go wild. But, not just on earth, there are all sorts of insane space based plants and animals, and most of the action is, if I recall correctly, based around some girl from the distant past that gets taken out of stasis, befriends an intelligent space otter, and ends up attempting to cross half the solar system in order to make it to the other humans... but they aren't what she's expecting either, because even they are more genetically advanced than she is, which is a bit of a shock after reading the first story, where you don't get this impression. There's some kind of giant pinwheel plant that they're on for a while, which in retrospect felt like the author trying to one-up the space trees from his own 'Galactic Center' series.
The two stories are very different, however, and the links between them tenuous.
The first book follows Alvin, a member of a human city in the middle of a barren wasteland a billion years in the future. The city seems to be alone on Earth, and most of the people in the city are effectively immortal humans who live in mechanically constructed human bodies that a central computer downloads their minds into over and over, and have an ingrained aversion to leaving the city. Alvin is a 'unique', has no prior lives, and is compelled to explore! He does, and finds all sorts of things, including still working spacecraft and a colony of geniuses that live elsewhere on the planet, but aren't as long-lived as Alvin's group, nor do they download their minds. With the help of a kid from that clan, Alvin opens up long all sorts of long lost technologies... although I don't remember they ever really figure out what exactly happened to the humans of the past to stick them in that city for so long.
The second book barely features the members of the first book, but the idea is that Alvin and the other humans unlocked some kind of crazy futuristic seed/genetic bank and just let everything go wild. But, not just on earth, there are all sorts of insane space based plants and animals, and most of the action is, if I recall correctly, based around some girl from the distant past that gets taken out of stasis, befriends an intelligent space otter, and ends up attempting to cross half the solar system in order to make it to the other humans... but they aren't what she's expecting either, because even they are more genetically advanced than she is, which is a bit of a shock after reading the first story, where you don't get this impression. There's some kind of giant pinwheel plant that they're on for a while, which in retrospect felt like the author trying to one-up the space trees from his own 'Galactic Center' series.
November 19, 2010
This is really two books, but since they're crammed into one volume I'm being consistent and calling them one. I picked this up at that same awesome bookshop in Kathmandu and had been looking forward to getting stuck into them for a while, finally achieving this aim in Delhi and the Golden Temple at Amritsar. The first novel is a classic Clarke story written in the 1940s and set an unbelievable one billion years in the future (this must be some kind of record) after Earth has won and lost a galactic empire and is now suffering from the dessication wrought by its expanding sun. A boy called Alvin is bored being confined by Earth's single known city and discovers the remnants of Earth's lost civilisations. Beyond the fall of night is so different from Against that I'm amazed Benfold bothered to make it its sequel. This one involves a woman being chased around a newly rejuvenated Earth by a 'Mad Mind' and out into space via a biological orbital tether where she and a ferret-like being explore the explosion of space-based life-forms. Amazing ideas, like Benfold's other books such as Heart of the Comet, but the whole thing was way too rushed - he crams in about 500 pages of action and ideas into 170. The ending is resolved on the last page almost as an afterthought.
May 5, 2016
Classic Arthur C Clarke novelette, one of my favourite Sci-Fi stories. I first read Against the Fall of Night as a youngster and the imagery of the underground transport system and mega machines has stuck with me ever since. Still a hugely enjoyable (if compact) read, full of wonder and discovery.
You can forget Gregory Benford's sequel (Beyond the Fall of Night), - full of Darwinistic mumbo jumbo; the Alvin of the original novel is unrecognisable (and condescending); the writing overly elaborate. Just boring.
You can forget Gregory Benford's sequel (Beyond the Fall of Night), - full of Darwinistic mumbo jumbo; the Alvin of the original novel is unrecognisable (and condescending); the writing overly elaborate. Just boring.
October 20, 2008
The timescale is all off here and the characters are pretty thin, but it's fun and reads quickly enough that I'd recommend it to any classic sci-fi fan.
May 9, 2013
Wonderful! It ended as if there was a sequel planned, but otherwise a good read.
November 13, 2016
Two great short novels in one volume. Clarke's classic and Benford's sequel to it.
August 24, 2016
Another ratings
Against the Fall of Night: 8/10
Beyond the Fall of Night: 7/10
Overall: 8/10
Against the Fall of Night: 8/10
Beyond the Fall of Night: 7/10
Overall: 8/10
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews