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The Best Of Arthur C. Clarke 1937-1955

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Alternate cover for 0-7221-2410-4
( 978-0-7221-2410-9)

Includes the following short
- Travel by Wire!
- Retreat from Earth
- The Awakening
- Whacky
- Castaway
- History Lesson
- Hide and Seek
- Second Dawn
- The Sentinel
- The Star
- Refugee

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 1976

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About the author

Arthur C. Clarke

1,646 books11.5k followers
Stories, 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.

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5 stars
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Profile Image for Nanu.
338 reviews46 followers
March 28, 2023
Travel by Wire ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Retreat from Earth ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Whacky ⭐⭐⭐
Castaway ⭐⭐⭐
The Awakening ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
History Lesson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Hide and Seek ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Second Dawn ⭐⭐⭐
The Sentinel ⭐⭐⭐
The Star ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Refugee ⭐⭐
Profile Image for Larry.
321 reviews6 followers
March 8, 2024
Great little collection of stories. Contains The Sentinel which became the basis for the screenplay of 2001 A Space Odyssey
14 reviews
March 13, 2024
It's endearing and inspiring to read such a compilation, where the author's progression as a writer is so nakedly displayed.
I particularly enjoyed his musings on the nature of responsibility concerning prince Henry, and the idea that ruminants with limited ability to manipulate matter might also be capable of abstract thought. The latter idea is pertinent to the current "Will large Language Models be capable of generating new knowledge" debate.
AI researchers and metaphysicians in our world are still divided on whether true understanding requires embodiment - i.e. can a being that is unable to manipulate the world around it, and is also unaffected by the world around it, truly project meaning onto concepts? AI can read a million descriptions of a wall, but until it's placed in a body, and bumps up against a wall, can it really do anything more than distill commonalities from those million descriptions?
A grazing beast like those in Second Dawn would certainly have plenty of time for thought, but could it have the impetus? I had in my head an assumption that the bootstrapping into consciousness of our own species required some feedback loop between our ability to perceive and our ability to manipulate, and find it hard to imagine how one could reach escape velocity from pure instinct without both of the them.
Assuming it were possible, what consciousness might form in an evolved 'brain in a vat' type being, where ability to perceive is heightened, and ability to manipulate is diminished?
After language, for humans, mathematics derives in part from the necessity to allocate resources, and keep account of those in the tribe. Being unable to hoard objects, migratory ruminants' only domains of resource allocation are grazing-land and mates, could this be sufficient to spin up the first threads of abstract thought?
Profile Image for Tara J..
74 reviews
June 25, 2022
Not a huge Sci-fi fan. Liked some of the stories, some I didn't get.
Profile Image for Metalfist.
383 reviews4 followers
February 20, 2023
The Best of Arthur C. Clarke is op papier wel een interessante bundel. Ik heb een editie die is uitgebracht in 2 volumes (van 1937-1955 en van 1956 - 1972) waar om de één of andere reden het verhaal Hide and Seek is uitgelaten. Soit, dit is een collectie die gevuld is met verhalen die origineel gepubliceerd zijn geweest in magazinevorm. Klinkt mooi, ware het niet dat eigenlijk het merendeel al eens eerder is uitgebracht in boekvorm waardoor het nut me eerlijk gezegd wat ontgaat.

Het zijn dan ook enkel Travel by Wire!, Retreat from Earth en Whacky die nog niet eerder gepubliceerd waren. Drie kortverhalen (en dat mag je letterlijk nemen, want Whacky is nog geen anderhalve pagina lang) die dateren uit de beginperiode van Arthur C. Clarke en het deed me deugd om te zien dat zijn typische schrijfstijl al duidelijk aanwezig is. De combinatie van science-fiction en humor komt goed tot zijn recht, zeker Travel by Wire is erg leuk met het testen van een materie transporteur, en Clarke blijft meester in het vertellen van een spannend verhaal. Iets wat je vooral merkt in het relaas van de onderzoeker in Retreat from Earth. Whacky daarentegen had voor mijn part nooit op papier moeten gezet worden. Een onnavolgbaar gesprek tussen twee mannen waar echt geen touw is aan vast te knopen.

Beetje lastig te beoordelen dit. Arthur C. Clarke heeft volgens mij een kleine 60 kortverhalen geschreven dus een volledige collectie is dit niet en van de 18 verhalen die hierin gebundeld worden zijn er maar 3 echt 'nieuw'. Gelukkig is het niveau van Travel by Wire! en Retreat from Earth hoog genoeg, al is Whacky wel een domper.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews

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