Horror Book Reviews

More Details... Price: $7.99

Title: Songs of Distant Earth Author: Arthur C. Clarke Rating: Not available Avg. Score: 5 Submit Comment Hits: 34

Review of Songs of Distant Earth

[ Back to Homepage | Back to Horror Movie Reviews Index ]

HellHorror.com not responsible for reviews/comments and they may be removed at any time.

Submit Comment

Comments for Songs of Distant Earth

• Posted on 2008-04-03
  Hugely disappointing
  
  I picked up this book thinking I was going to get to read Clarke's vision of the End of the Earth. I had previously read some of his other books and knew what to expect of his style. This, I thought, would be an intriguing look at the future of Earth when faced with impending destruction, as told by one of the great masters of the genre.
  
  WRONG. This book picks up on a colony of humans living on an ocean world a thousand years after the destruction of Earth. They are visited early on by some of the last humans to escape the solar system, who need to strike a deal with the colonists to continue on their own journey. What followed was a huge disappointment for me. In between the fantastic depiction of Earth's final years (complete with ideas on technological development, sociological processes, doomsday cults, projects on a gigantic scale, etc.) is a clunky personal story about a handful of the colonists and a handful of the interstellar travelers. There's some weird romantic troubles and some unnecessary deaths, and the book develops a secondary plot that doesn't seem to fit the rest of the story (but ends up being more interesting than the fates of the main characters...?)
  
  One thing I will give credit to: this book was printed 30 years ago, but the vision of future technology is still pretty good. Computer terms are getting dated (gigabytes and terabytes no longer inspire the kind of awe they once did), but Clarke has looked ahead in most all areas of life, and I appreciate that attention. I was most impressed that he remembered to think of political progress as well - most authors forget this and instead latch on to either socialism or American democracy as the only two viable governments of the future, so it's nice that Clarke had hoped we would some day have something even better.
  
  Besides that, about the only thing it did well was to analyze the effect that hundred-year journeys would have on the travelers. Flying about the solar system takes a lot of time, even near the speed of light, and so people would experience an odd grieving process when they awake from suspended animation and realize their loved ones have all died three centuries ago. It's not particularly well done in this book, but at least it is captured.
  
  I don't even feel like discussing the rest of the story - it's standard sci-fi fare about aliens and interplanetary colonists, tinged with all the free-love and semi-atheistic stuff I've already read a dozen times over. Maybe I'm being too harsh here, but I was very disappointed with where Clarke took his story. The book I was hoping to read is buried too far under bland storytelling to even be worth searching for.
  Score: 2
• Posted on 2008-03-21
  !!!
  
  Songs of Distant Earth is in my Top 5 sci-fi books of all time...Great concept, heart-wrenching at times..Mike Oldfield actually wrote music for this book (the cd has the same title). Need I say more?
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2008-02-17
  The great mission
  
  Well written story of the last ship (Magellan) to leave a doomed earth making a pit stop for some agua on the previously colonized ocean world of Thalassa, before heading on further to the barren world of Sagan 2. Great characters from the ship Magellan and inhabitants of Thalassa and believable science await the reader of this book.
  Score: 4
• Posted on 2008-02-17
  The great mission
  
  Well written story of the last ship (Magellan) to leave a doomed earth making a pit stop for some agua on the previously colonized ocean world of Thalassa, before heading on further to the barren world of Sagan 2. Great characters from the ship Magellan and inhabitants of Thalassa and believable science await the reader of this book.
  Score: 4
• Posted on 2007-09-27
  Earth's Swan song...
  
  Lately I have been going through an Arthur C. Clarke phase, I've always been terribly addicted to his books, and The Songs of Distant Earth is by far one of the best yet. It is a very somber tale which concerns the next phase of humanity, as we leave earth behind upon the destruction of the sun and the rest of the solar system, the future of mankind residing within the stars.
  
  The story resolves around one of the new colonies on Thalassa, having been establish for 700 years on an ocean planet, their secluded paradise is soon to change as Magellan, the last ship from earth, arrives in orbit bring with it a million survivors from the last days of earth. Although Magellan are only making a pit stop before continuing onward to their final destination, the 2 years it spends with the Lassans will chage the lives of both cultures forever and will echo down for generations to come...
  
  This is not an action, suspense or thriller, there is no twist or surprise ending, it is just beautiful in every sense. Clarke doesn't only show his prowess with scientific accuracy, he also show a profound understanding of humanity, and even though it is present in most of his works, this book captures a truer, more pure essense of us than ever before.
  
  A brilliant book, both a Swan Song for Earth and a beacon of hope for us as a species, a very moving text.
  Score: 5