Sadly, Arthur C. Clarke isn't that great a writer

[Orrex]

Yes, he has fantastic ideas and his attention to technical detail is striking, but his writing is really simplistic, and his characterizations are little more than outlines.

Of course, he's part of the old s/f "plot-must-be-foremost" school of thinking, so one can hardly condemn him for being a product of his environment. For that matter, much of his writing from a few decades ago likewise clings to the "women are girls who stand by" s/f meme, too. His later stuff improves upon this, though it's hard not to notice it while reading from the perspective of today.

But I've read Rendezvous with Rama, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 3001: The Final Odyssey, and most of his collected short stories, and the plot-is-primary pattern holds true across all of them.

Even more jarring, I notice that he falls into conspicuous (and ultimately unhelpful) repetition of words and phrases. Rama is peppered with a serious overuse of "quite," along the lines of

Norton was quite sure that he'd exhausted every possibility. It would be quite a while before he could get back to the ship. Meanwhile, his crew couldn't quite figure out what had gone wrong.

(That's not a real quote, but you get the idea). Other examples abound; I don't have the texts with me at the moment.

Fans might defend this habit of repetition as deliberate, perhaps intended to evoke a certain thematic flavor, but in practice the effect is somewhat clanging. IMO Clarke should have picked up on this himself, but at the very least his editor should have stepped up and addressed it.

He's rather good at futurist writing, in which he posits what technology or discovery will have been achieved by the time his story takes place. Of course, the HAL 9000 didn't go online in 1997, but in other ways Clarke creates a future (now our past) that seems to hold up pretty nicely against the way things really unfolded, tech-wise. Bravo to him also for rejecting the notion that a human body would explode in a vacuum; he correctly describes the boiling-away of the body's fluids, even when the myth of explosion persists in some circles to this day!

Clarke's strict adherence to the known limits of physics is admirable, and he goes to some length to establish why such-and-such a law prevents such-and-such an action in the real world. For my money, his greatest technique as a writer is then to diverge from that established reality, because it's all the more world-shattering (e.g., the Star Gate in 2001, or the reactionless drive in Rama) when the "impossible" phenomenon finally takes place.

Overall, though, I'd hoped for something more sophisticated than a tech manual with a pair of cardboard astronauts pasted to the page.

Oh, and Clarke has famously backed those cold fusion guys from several years back, so he loses a few points of credibility for that reason!

[msongs]

1. OMG, books with plots? what will they think of next? nt

[Orrex]

2. Nothing wrong with plot, unless that's all there is

Reading a book with plot and no character is like reading a crude summary of an actual book.

[bigmonkey]

3. Have you read "Childhood's End?"

I remember it as a deeply creepy book, and less programmatic than his later stuff. Of course, what we see as devolution may have been a conscious effort on his part, following the principles you mentioned.

[Orrex]

5. I read it about 20 years ago--I should read it again

I hear that one mentioned over and over again, but I recall very little about it. I'll give it another look when I get the chance.

[YankeyMCC]

4. Ever read Michael Flynn?

This is a bit OT but I'm guessing you'd much prefer his style. In particular "The Wreck of the River of Stars"

I had the opposite complaint with this book the first time I read it. I was frustrated by the plot, essentially a lack of plot. I grew up reading the "plot is king" generation (even though I'm not that old :) I just gravitated to Asimov, Clark etc...) and I had to learn to appreciate 'character'.

I have to say now that after reading the River story I'm glad I stuck with it and have re-read it twice now. I credit it with giving me (or at least improving) my appreciation of character development. I still favor plot but I now insist a good character development and more importantly know what to look for - at least I feel like I know even if I can't explain it.

It's been a long time since I've read the Rama books (I have problems with the series too but not the ones you speak of) but it struck me that those books are the exception to Clark's lack of character development. I seem to recall very strong characters in those books.

[Orrex]

6. I haven't read Flynn, but...

Just this past weekend I was packing some books into attic-destined boxes to make room on the shelf, and I came upon a copy of Firestar. I haven't read it, and I don't even know where that book came from, but maybe I'll give it a shot.

I only read the first Rama book. Commander Norton is the lone one who really stands out in my mind, which I suppose is appropriate since he was in charge of the mission. Come to think of it, Boris Rodrigo (the "Cosmo-Christer") was pretty good, too. I guess my problem is that (Norton aside) the characters are sort of single-purpose, rather than being actual people who do a job.

I guess I should disclaim that plot-heavy science fiction (in particular so-called "hard" scifi) has its own passionate adherents and advocates, but the style doesn't do anything for me.

I recently finished Asimov's Foundation trilogy, the first book of which I described elsewhere in this forum as resembling the story-synopsis on the back of any current computer game. The latter two books were better by far, but the first one remains a real stinker to me, no matter how urgently Asimov wanted to set up the plot.

Incidentally, once I finished that series, I recalled that Donaldson's five-book Gap Cycle followed a similar format, wherein the first book was all exposition and summary, with the action really beginning in book two.

[YankeyMCC]

7. I read Firestar

and it wasn't nearly as good as "The Wreck of the River of Stars" IMHO

Firestar was ok but it didn't inspire or impress me enought to continue with that series. River on the other hand I have reread and will I'm sure reread again.

[Mz Pip]

8. Childhood's End

is one of the best sci-fi books I've ever read. Against the Fall of Night is very good also.

Mz Pip
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