[SFRA-L] clarke's best book?

[EdwardFMcKeown at aol.com]

Rama was also one of the more interesting books on exploring an alien  
ship/world without the usual violence tropes
 
 
In a message dated 8/29/2011 8:57:44 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
ddavis at gdn.edu writes:

Rendezvous with Rama--for the lone reason that it is the first SF  book I 
read, it blew my mind when I was ten, and it got me hooked on the genre  for 
life.  That summer my parents took me and my brother on a long car  vacation 
touring civil war battlefields, among other things; I spent that  entire 
vacation in the back seat reading Clarke, Clarke, and more Clarke.  Don't 
think I set foot on a battlefield that summer, or any field for that  matter.  I 
did visit the moon, though, several times.

Doug Davis,  Ph.D.
Editor, SFRA Review
Associate Professor of English
Division of  Humanities
Gordon College
419 College Drive
Barnesville, GA  30204
ddavis at gdn.edu
(678) 359 5817 (office)
(678) 359 5140  (fax)

-----Original Message-----
From:  sfra-l-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
[mailto:sfra-l-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On  Behalf Of Gunn, James E
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2011 12:20 PM
To:  Elizabeth Hull; Robert Crossley; Easterbrook, Neil;  
sfra-l at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [SFRA-L] clarke's best book?

I  found teaching CHILDHOOD'S END particularly useful in considering genre 
and  its development.  It provided an opportunity to discuss the way a  
novelette evolved into a novel, how the ending of the novelette ("Guardian  
Angel") forced Arthur to confront Milton and PARADISE LOST, whether readers  
should feel pleased that humans were eligible to join the Overmind or dismayed  
at the end of humanity and Earth, whether the children are to be emulated 
or  disliked, whether Clarke sympathized more with the Overlords, whether 
readers  would prefer to be in the position of humans or the Overlords, why 
Clarke  called it the Overmind instead of the Oversoul, and what Clarke meant 
by his  statement on the copyright page "The opinions expressed here are not 
those of  the author"?  All good subjects for teaching a genre.  As for  
whether the novel is "best" is another discussion and probably without an  
answer.  Jim Gunn
________________________________________
From:  sfra-l-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [sfra-l-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] on 
behalf of  Elizabeth Hull [ehull at harpercollege.edu]
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2011  10:45 AM
To: Robert Crossley; Easterbrook, Neil;  sfra-l at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [SFRA-L] clarke's best book?

I  haven't taught for several years now, so maybe my sense of student 
responses  is passe, but when the updated edition of Childhood's End came out I 
would  share the original with my class, and their consensus was that the 
original  was far more poetic and moving than the cold war version.  They also  
claimed that they preferred to read the original because it gave a sense of 
 the early post-WWII social-political atmosphere that they had studied in 
their  history classes.  Several students have come back many years later and 
 claimed that CE was the one novel that they remember most vividly.  The  
late Takumi Shibano claimed, "If you do not like Childhood's End, you are not 
 a science fiction fan" (to distinguish casual readers from fans).  I  
always thought CE  was about teaching humanity that we weren't done  evolving 
yet, with lots of subtle anti-religious underpinnings, yet retaining  a sense 
of how much we have yet to discover about our potential and what we  can do 
together better t
han as individuals.  Taken with The City and  the Stars (my favorite 
Clarke), it seems to embody the philosophy Clarke held  for his entire life.  If 
your heart goes that way, it's an endearing book  still.  And I believe 
Clarke would still rank as a major thinker in the  discourse of SF if he'd never 
written any of the later books, including 2001:  A Space Odyssey.  Betty  
Hull

________________________________
From:  sfra-l-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu on behalf of Robert Crossley
Sent: Sun  8/28/2011 9:46 AM
To: Easterbrook, Neil; sfra-l at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject:  Re: [SFRA-L] clarke's best book?

I'm partial to Rendezvous with  Rama.  For some years early in my career I 
taught Childhood's End, but  students often found it clunky and contrived 
and I came to believe they were  right.

Bob Crossley

From: sfra-l-bounces at charlemagne.cddc.vt.edu  
[mailto:sfra-l-bounces at charlemagne.cddc.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Easterbrook,  Neil
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2011 10:27 AM
To:  sfra-l at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: [SFRA-L] clarke's best book?

A slow  Sunday, so:

Apropos of nothing at all, I wonder what you think is AC  Clarke's best 
book? In _Fifty Key Figures in SF_ (an excellent book, btw), our  own Andy 
Sawyer calls _Childhood's End_ a "masterpiece," and in a long essay  for Seed's 
Blackwell _Companion_ our own Edward James notes that ACC's  personal 
favorite was _Songs of Distant Earth_, which would get my vote even  if I didn't 
know it was ACC's choice.

Which book (not story) do you  think his best?

O, and another question: if you've taught ACC, what  teaches well? Other 
than a few short stories, I've only taught his novel _The  City and the 
Stars_, which while a book that still represents my best dreams  of being 14 I 
generally use for reasons not altogether generous to ACC's  important position 
in 20th century  sf.

--Neil
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