
Expedition To Earth - Arthur C Clarke
Arthur C Clarke
1953, 165 pages
This is a collection of short stories originally published in the science fiction pulps magazines that were so popular in the 50s and 60s. Some of my favorite classic science fiction comes originally from these magazines, and most of it takes the form of short stories. I think the length requirements forced a sparseness that fueled the imagination of the readers that is often lacking in today’s epic tomes full of adjectives, run-on sentences and sparkly vampires.
There are eleven short stories in here, and I think my favorite one is called Breaking Strain. It is set on a supply ship destined for Venus. The two crewmen are thirty days away from their rendezvous point, when an asteroid punches a hole in their reserve oxygen supplies. They only have enough oxygen to keep the two of them alive for twenty days. The story turns into a tale of paranoia, as each crew member spends the remainder of the story trying to figure out when the other is going to kill them, ensuring there is enough oxygen to get one of them home. It’s like 2001, but instead of a murderous computer, it’s the crew members you have to worry about smothering you in your sleep.
Arthur C. Clarke is a great writer. Despite how unendingly boring the film is, 2001 is a great book, as is Childhood’s End and a number of his other novels. This book is about 80% great. A couple of these stories just didn’t make an impression on me. One of the things that did make an impression, though was that there was actual science in these science fiction stories. Random technologies were explained. The amount of gravity on moons of Mars was determined and made accurate to the story. Ships were all following parabolic trajectories and had limited fuel supplies. Everyone was terrified that the destruction of the earth would be soon, and it would be caused by atomic war. An interesting contrast to yesterday’s book, Oryx & Crake, in which the world ended due to genetic engineering.
The end of the world in Day of the Triffids was brought on by comets hitting chemical weapons stored on satellites, causing the mass blindness. Then the genetically engineered triffids got loose and started running amok. That’s right, Day of the Triffids is a double threat! Twice the apocalypse, in one amazing bundle. So you should read it instead of Expedition to Earth, because none of the stories feature the apocalypse.

The Trouble With Lichen – John Wyndham
The Kraken Wakes – John Wyndham
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
Player Piano – Kurt Vonnegut
The Sirens Of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut

