The Collected Stories: Volume 3
Written by Arthur C. Clarke
Narrated by Various Narrators
4/5
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About this audiobook
Arthur C. Clarke is without question the world's best-known and most celebrated science fiction writer. His career, spanning more than sixty years, is one of unequalled success.
Clarke has always been celebrated for his clear prophetic vision, which is fully on display in this audio-book, but there are also many stories which show his imagination in full flight, to the distant future and to far-flung star systems.
The third volume in a collection of five.
A W. F. Howes audio production.
Arthur C. Clarke
Born in Somerset in 1917, Arthur C. Clarke has written over sixty books, among which are the science fiction classics ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’, ‘Childhood’s End’, ‘The City and the Stars’ and ‘Rendezvous With Rama’. He has won all the most prestigious science fiction trophies, and shared an Oscar nomination with Stanley Kubrick for the screenplay of the film of 2001. He was knighted in 1998. He passed away in March 2008.
More audiobooks from Arthur C. Clarke
2001: A Space Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Light of Other Days Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for The Collected Stories
176 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5There are many early 20th century writers whose SF and fantasy continue to be read today.The very successful literary writer James Branch Cabell would find half his novels categorized as fantasy today, including his most famous, Jürgen. Though he predates the period, the equally talented Robert Chambers was an excellent literary fantasist; his book the King in Yellow had vast influence over the 20th century "weird" fiction sub-genre including the lesser writer H. P. Lovecraft whose works are still enormously influential. Lord Dunsany's eldritch tales are still widely read. H. G. Wells has not faded away. Then of course there's Tolkien, whose early works appear in this period, not to mention C. S. Lewis who also published "Out of the Silent Planet" in 1938. Thorne Smith with his Topper books and other light, humorous fantasy is also still quite readable today.And even amongst the pulps, Robert E. Howard still has enormous influence today, with Conan remakes apparently never going to come to an end. Similarly it's not as if anyone will forget Tarzan and other creations of Edgar Rice Burroughs. It's true that many of stories from this era are socially retrogressive or otherwise "problematic", while the science in some of the science fiction is no longer accurate, but they cover the same range of literary quality as do current works."Against the Fall of Night" and "The Lion of Comarre", once collected together in one paperback, were a different class from the 'scientist with a pipe' and spunky glamorous assistant that prevailed in much genre SF."The Lion of Comarre" is my favourite of Clarke's shorter works, because it postulates an almost perfect society, those who do not fit in, search for a place of dreams: Comarre. This turns out to be real, it contains two wonders, hidden away because either could so disturb society, as to break it.One is the only truly conscious AI, a benevolent intelligence, looking after the second hidden invention, those who find Comarre looking for dreams or peace, find both. They live in dream worlds of virtual reality so perfect, none wish to wake to mundane reality. This is Comarre's most dangerous secret, in effect the ultimate in addictive drugs, you can live out your whole life in perfect bliss. Going back to the real world however, would be almost impossible, would it not?Society might adapt to AI`s, but could it do so to people being able to escape into perfect virtual reality computer simulations, of anything you desire? Your body aging in coffin like boxes that feed & clean you as the decades pass. Your body wasting away to times melody, as you drift in your own personal nirvana.I remember this story so well, because I rather think this may come true. Humans after all, can always resist anything but temptation & what greater one could there be than that? Sadly books don't sit there if they are not borrowed. They are simply sold off or recycled. Libraries today tend to favour the magical-fantasy kind of 'Sci-Fi' or series based on franchises like Star Trek/Star Wars ... They often have a token book by the golden age writers, but the current trend seems to be less and less science, and more fantasy.NB: Maybe one day I'll write a proper review of this trove of Clarke's goodies...
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5These are the collected shorter works of Arthur C. Clarke, and that almost ought to be enough to say about it. It spans his entire career, and includes his best-known classics, lesser-known works, and has the Tales From the White Hart stories sprinkled throughout. The stories here are funny and grim, optimistic and pessimistic, and feature the best and the worst of the human race. I found Clarke's view of women's and girls' roles to be interesting. He seems to have never thought women were less intelligent or less capable, but at the same time he started out taking women's roles for granted. Only later in his career do we start to see women who are not only intelligent and capable, but also having independent lives and careers.
Unlike some male writers of his generation, though, he doesn't seem to have resisted the realization that social roles were changing.
He was a good, solid, entertaining writer who took his science seriously. The ones we have now with that same seriousness about the science are mostly edgier, and you wouldn't want them not to be. It's a different time and a different culture. Clarke's perspective on the universe is still his own, though, and well worth a read or a listen. Ray Porter, Jonnathan Davis, and Ralph Lister do excellent work in reading these stories.
Note that at 51 hours, this is quite a few listens!
I received a free copy of this audiobook from Audible in exchange for an honest review. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I consider myself a fan of Clarke, and I liked many of these stories. But I only loved a couple of them. I read this book concurrently with the Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard (an even more massive tome). Despite the nominal genre sharing, it's hard to imagine two more profoundly different authors. Clarke wrote stories about ideas (often clever ones), and the consequences of these ideas. Ballard wrote stories about people, individually and collectively, and how they might be psychologically and emotionally affected by a changing world around them. For me, the comparison did not work in Clarke's favor.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As advertised, this is an omnibus of Clarke's short stories. The convenience of having a single book like this is nice. It beats scrounging through his many overlapping anthologies, always wondering how many of the stories you've already read in each.I love Clarke's short work. He handles lighthearted humour and gravitas with equal aplomb. The best hard SF writer of his generation, his science is impeccable, though he is willing to stretch scientific truth a little in his "tall tales."Character development is often weak, but any fan of A. C. Clarke knows that going in. His stories are more about the ideas than the people. Devising and revealing these big ideas is where Clarke really shines.There were an astonishing number of typos in the edition I read. Another reviewer mentioned that this has been corrected in later editions.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fun collection of short stories by a master. This was a Santa gift from my LibraryThing secret santa, and I've enjoyed picking it up & reading a few stories at a time - it is luxuriously long, lots of food for the brain!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Clarke is by far my favorite science fiction author (being thoughtful, credible, and, importantly, able to put words together better than the average sixth grader), and one of my favorite authors in general, for that matter. Where Clarke really shines are his short stories. Some are notable for being ridiculously realistic (Clarke's works are exemplars of "hard science fiction", that is, realistic science fiction; the opposite of "space opera") some for being deeply philosophical, and some just for being witty. I have found very few stories by Clarke that I did not find particularly interesting. It helps also that short stories happen to be my favorite literary format, I'll admit. But still I think Clarke manages to get more out of the format than most. This is one of those desert island books; if I could have only one book of science fiction, this is what I would pick. (It's rather convenient, incidentally, that you can now get all of Clarke's short stories in one place for a reasonable price, though I also have lots of small anthologies floating around my bookshelves as well.)