3.5
Against the Fall of Night
ByPublisher Description
Living in the ten-billion-year-old city of Diaspar, Alvin is the last child born of humanity, and he is intensely curious about the outside world. But according to the oldest histories kept by the city fathers, there is no outside world—it was destroyed by the Invaders millions of years ago.
One day, Alvin finds a rock with an inscription seemingly meant for him: "There is a better way. Give my greetings to the Keeper of the Records. Alaine of Lyndar." This cryptic message takes Alvin on a quest to discover humanity's true past—and its future.
Originally published in the November 1948 issue of
,
is a rich and intensely poetic vision of a distant future that's sure to delight fans of Clarke and science fiction as a genre.
"[Clarke is] one of the truly prophetic figures of the space age." —
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesAgainst the Fall of Night Reviews
3.5
“"For a long time Rorden stared at the desolate panorama he had never seen before. He felt a sudden contemptuous anger for the men of the past who had let Earth's beauty die through their own neglect".
"Alvin looked down at the great deserts, but his eyes saw instead the waters that would be sweeping over them a thousand years from now. Man had rediscovered his world, and he would make it beautiful while he remained upon it".
Written amidst brewing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, Arthur C. Clarke's "Against the Fall of Night"- an early iteration of his more famous novel "The City and the Stars"- contrasts the two main civilizations at odds with one another, The hyper-individualistic and decadent society of Diaspar, and the collectivist and psychic society of Lys. Clarke having not shied away from his anti-capitalist views, imagines what it would be like if two superpowers had foregone their multi-polar power struggles for world hegemony, and worked alongside one another to advance humanity.
Pretty great read. I enjoyed it. I will check out "The City and the Stars" to complete Alvin's journey into the cosmos.”
About Arthur C. Clarke
One of the most influential science fiction writers of the twentieth and twenty-first century, Arthur C. Clarke is the author of over one hundred novels, novellas, and short story collections that laid the groundwork for the science fiction genre. Combining scientific knowledge and visionary literary aptitude, Clarke's work explored the implications of major scientific discoveries in astonishingly inventive and mystical settings. Clarke's short stories and novels have won numerous Hugo and Nebula Awards, have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Several of his books, including
and
, have been adapted into films that still stand as classic examples of the genre. Without a doubt, Arthur C. Clarke's is one of the most important voices in contemporary science fiction literature.
Other books by Arthur C. Clarke
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