Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke Collection)

258 pages

Published Nov. 30, 2012 by RosettaBooks.

ISBN:
978-0-7953-2498-7
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4 stars (3 reviews)

Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows the peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival ends all war, helps form a world government, and turns the planet into a near-utopia. Many questions are asked about the origins and mission of the aliens, but they avoid answering, preferring to remain in their ships, governing through indirect rule. Decades later, the Overlords eventually show themselves, and their impact on human culture leads to a Golden Age. However, the last generation of children on Earth begin to display powerful psychic abilities, heralding their evolution into a group mind, a transcendent form of life.

35 editions

TV and Radio are outdated, but this book is not

5 stars

Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke, is a book about the fate of humanity after they make contact with a benevolent alien race, that helps them reach a Golden Age of progress and peace. So, what if aliens invaded the planet, but they actually helped us build a utopia? And why?

Compared to the previous two books I read, that also deal with Humanity making contact with alien life. Childhood’s End takes place in Earth itself, in a time where humans are barely getting started in the space race, and right when they’re about to take their first steps, they realize they already lost—they are not alone.

These aliens, known as the Overlords, do not come to cause havoc, but they seem to want to help us. They end war, they end animal cruelty, they end racism, divisions and countries. They intend to help humanity achieve a united planet, a …

1953

3 stars

Written in 1953 and covering Clarke's ideas of modernity and social philosophy, it was interesting to compare reality with the fictional predictions of how to create utopia. Two moments stood out: the invention of birth control and paternity testing leading to the end of "Puritan aberration"; and while he claims, " Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded," he doesn't seem to apply this to systems-thinking. So, there's a lot of racism and patriarchy in a book that is trying to write those things out of fictional existence. I imagine Escher's flawed hand drawing the flawed human. He also had a character outraged at the THREE whole hours of radio/TV consuming people's minds, and how this was a blight on humanity's creativity and thinking. That one he seems to have nailed pretty spot-on. His solution for it was odd, and left …