The Scientist Fictionist

At his worst, Arthur Clarke inadvertently lets his nascences hang out, and one may clearly define the exact process of parturition of one or another of his stories. The author has been researching over a beer with an expert in some field—say cybernetics. The expert remarks offhandedly that a binary computer is really nothing more than a multiplicity of abacuses in series. Starting with this and working backwards, Mr. Clarke then arranges one of these Tales of Ten Worlds in which a space ship is lost, the computer has a flat, and there is no spare; but our hero happens to know how to play the abacus, teaches the crew, and so they create or become the computer which brings them home. When engaged in the investiture of narrative upon such bones, Clarke often creates a Thing story and not a People story. Good fiction is never—not ever—primarily about Things. And as if aware of this, Clarke will occasionally write a totally People story, and fall off the other end of the teeter-totter into a veritable sluice of sentimentality. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this a posteriori plotsmanship. What one quarrels with is the nature of the narrative seed. One of the most perspicacious saws this department has ever heard is, “You can tell the size of a man by the size of the things that make him angry.” A parallel can be applied to Clarke: freely granting that all his techniques are highly polished, his excellence is in direct proportion to the stature of his idea. Therefore he can be forgiven for writing good stories about unimportant Things or People; for when he gets hold of a big one, as in I Remember Babylon, he shocks you to the shoelaces; or, as in Dog Star, he produces, without schmalz, a wrenching pathos. To end, then, as we began: Clarke at his worst can be an irritant. But let us add that at his worst he is considerably better than much of the competition.

Tales of Ten Worlds, by Arthur C. Clarke. Harcourt, $3.95

TS

About the Author

Theodore Sturgeon

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At his worst, Arthur Clarke inadvertently lets his nascences hang out, and one may clearly define the exact process of parturition of one or another of his stories. The author has been researching over a beer with an expert in some field—say cybernetics. The expert remarks offhandedly that a binary computer is really nothing more than a multiplicity of abacuses in series. Starting with this and working backwards, Mr. Clarke then arranges one of these Tales of Ten Worlds in which a space ship is lost, the computer has a flat, and there is no spare; but our hero happens to know how to play the abacus, teaches the crew, and so they create or become the computer which brings them home. When engaged in the investiture of narrative upon such bones, Clarke often creates a Thing story and not a People story. Good fiction is never—not ever—primarily about Things. And as if aware of this, Clarke will occasionally write a totally People story, and fall off the other end of the teeter-totter into a veritable sluice of sentimentality. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this a posteriori plotsmanship. What one quarrels with is the nature of the narrative seed. One of the most perspicacious saws this department has ever heard is, “You can tell the size of a man by the size of the things that make him angry.” A parallel can be applied to Clarke: freely granting that all his techniques are highly polished, his excellence is in direct proportion to the stature of his idea. Therefore he can be forgiven for writing good stories about unimportant Things or People; for when he gets hold of a big one, as in I Remember Babylon, he shocks you to the shoelaces; or, as in Dog Star, he produces, without schmalz, a wrenching pathos. To end, then, as we began: Clarke at his worst can be an irritant. But let us add that at his worst he is considerably better than much of the competition.

Tales of Ten Worlds, by Arthur C. Clarke. Harcourt, $3.95