"Tales from the White Hart" by Arthur C. Clarke (1957)

"One of the reasons why I am never too specific about the location of the 'White Hart' is frankly, because we want to keep it to ourselves.  This is not merely a  dog-in-the-manger attitude: we have to do it in pure self-protection.  As soon as it gets around that scientists, editors and science fiction writers are forgathering at some locality, the weirdest collection of visitors is likely to turn up.  Peculiar people with new theories of the universe, characters who have been 'cleared' by Dianetics (God knows what they were like before), intense ladies who are liable to go all clairvoyant after the fourth gin -- these are the less exotic specimens."

Arthur C. Clarke has been discussed here several times already, so I'll dispense with the short biography and bibliography.  Needless to say, I regard him as one of "the greats," and I consider his Childhood's End to be a must-read science fiction novel.  During his lifetime he was often grouped alongside Asimov and Heinlein as one of the three masters of the genre.

This said, Tales from the White Hart is definitely one of his lesser efforts.  In the introduction the author describes this collection as an assortment of "scientific tall tales," a type of story which was never going to find a wide audience.  Science fiction is, after all, a genre that leans on scientific concepts for a sense of verisimilitude, while most of these stories invert that very premise, introducing narratives predicated on an incomplete or faulty understanding of the scientific concepts they are predicated upon.

One of the stories in this collection might have been the inspiration for Little Shop of Horrors, though there was an earlier story by another author that might instead be the inspiration for that film.  Sentient, carnivorous plants weren't unknown to science fiction writers in the 50s, though the initial publication of Clarke's story was much closer to the time in which Charles B. Griffith wrote the screenplay to Roger Corman's movie.

This anthology was, I thought, simply OK overall, with the story What Goes Up being the standout.  This story, featuring a nuclear power plant that goes "anti-gravitational," should be required reading for anyone writing comic books.  It's unique in that it only follows its particular line of reasoning so far, and after that point it throws up its hands, leaving the reader to sort plausibility from unfounded speculation.

Which leads me to wonder how much of a future the "scientific tall tales" genre ever had.  It is, in Clarke's hands at least, a fun exercise, but given the rate at which science fiction ages I'm not sure how much of need there is for it.  If you don't believe me go back and read some science fiction from the 1950s.  Tall tales?  Almost all of the science fiction written during that time could have fit that definition, given how little the general public knew about astrophysics, quantum mechanics and related topics.  I would agree that given the tenor of the Space Race more people at the time were better acquainted with the general scientific concepts available to them, but we've learned a lot since that time, and our reservoir of knowledge is only growing.

For that matter there's Jules Verne to consider.  Tall tales?  From Earth to the Moon says hello.

All told (heh heh), Tales from the White Hart is a short, rather amusing book and I can't fault it overmuch.  It's worth a read if you're already acquainted with Clarke's more famous books, but if you aren't I'd give it a miss.

Related Entries:

"Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear (1999)

"Traitor to the Living" by Philip Jose Farmer (1973)

"Time War" by Lin Carter (1974)

"2034" by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis (2021)

"The Songs of Distant Earth" by Arthur C. Clarke (1985)

"And one day our descendants will know seas like yours, though not as wide or as deep.  Water from our two worlds will mingle together, bringing life to our new home.  And we will remember you with love and gratitude."

The Songs of Distant Earth was published about halfway through Clarke's career, though it was a story he'd been presenting in various forms since 1958.  While substantially different from books like Childhood's End and 2001, it uses themes that will be familiar from other novels and short stories by the same author.

After our solar system perishes, the "seed ships" sent by the last (terrestrial) humans colonize several worlds in other galaxies.  These seed ships carry only embryos in cold storage, and the human populations which they seed on their respective worlds develop with only a limited knowledge of their home world's history and culture.  

On one of these other worlds, a watery world by the name of Thalassa, a group of humans from Earth's "last days" arrives to harvest ice for an onward journey to an unsettled planet.  What results is a clash of cultures - the Thalassans, with their minimal knowledge of mankind's heritage, versus the Earthlings, a smaller group equipped with both advanced technology and a fuller knowledge of Earth's vanished culture.

It is, in other words, Mutiny on the Bounty in space.  There's even a mutinous character named Fletcher, and the captain of the Earth ship's name is Bey (if not Bligh).  And in case you missed the metaphor, Clarke hammers it home with all the subtlety of a jackhammer breaking up pavement.  By the time you reach the book's conclusion, you'll wonder why he didn't just call it "Mutiny on the Bounty in Space" and be done with it.

In terms of style I can't fault the author.  We're talking about Arthur C. Clarke, after all - a guy who at his best put most other science fiction authors to shame.  But in terms of characterization this book struggles.  Everyone in this book is so damn reasonable that it's hard to care about what happens to them, or why.  One of the best parts of the book (death by space elevator!) is also wasted because the author hasn't spent enough time building up that particular character.

Clarke also uses the novel to talk about both homosexuality and the (non)existence of God.  On the first count he succeeds admirably, and I felt glad that he could, at a later stage of life, open up about this topic.  But the debates on godhood feel forced, and have no direct bearing on the plot.

In my opinion, the 1980s wasn't a good decade for science fiction, and The Songs of Distant Earth goes some distance toward refuting that opinion.  Even so, it isn't nearly as good as other things written by Clarke, and the professional skill with which he wrote it doesn't make up for the fact that it's a predictable book full of uninteresting characters.