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.
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