Thom reviewed Report on Planet 3 by Arthur C. Clarke
Review of 'Report on Planet 3' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
First off, this is a decent enough collection of Arthur C. Clarke's essays. Many are pseudo-fictional, told from a future or martian point of view. Some are from the fifties, introduced by a paragraph from 1973 saying how close this came or how far. There was a lot more optimism about space when this was published, unfortunately.
Now a rant about my local library, which has this book as nonfiction. They have most of Arthur C. Clarke's other nonfiction works as well. What is missing is most of the fiction. The great works are there - Rama, 2001 - and the recent - I read the Last Theorem recently. But the majority of this great author's works are just plain gone. I realize budget cuts and lack of recent editions are part of the problem, but I hope they seek out ebook editions of the missing texts, so the next …
First off, this is a decent enough collection of Arthur C. Clarke's essays. Many are pseudo-fictional, told from a future or martian point of view. Some are from the fifties, introduced by a paragraph from 1973 saying how close this came or how far. There was a lot more optimism about space when this was published, unfortunately.
Now a rant about my local library, which has this book as nonfiction. They have most of Arthur C. Clarke's other nonfiction works as well. What is missing is most of the fiction. The great works are there - Rama, 2001 - and the recent - I read the Last Theorem recently. But the majority of this great author's works are just plain gone. I realize budget cuts and lack of recent editions are part of the problem, but I hope they seek out ebook editions of the missing texts, so the next generation can enjoy this bedrock of science fiction.