Childhood's End
by .Ballantine Books, $2.00.
In this gripping, crisply written fantasy, Mr. Clarke (author of The Exploration of Space) sends Science Fiction soaring beyond the gravitational pull of the pulps into the far-distant world of the novel of ideas. Clarke’s story poses the great riddle: What is the ultimate destiny of Homo sapiens? And while his treatment of this theme parallels a point or two in Brave New World, his provocative resolution of it is startlingly his own.
The plot, in brief, takes shape as follows. At the end of this century, the United States and Russia are ready to launch rival rockets to the Moon, when giant spaceships anchor above the world’s capitals, and their invisible inhabitants — The Overlords — proceed, bloodlessly, to impose their beneficent will on mankind. The One World ideal soon becomes a reality, and cruelty, fear, poverty, and disease are virtually abolished. But some dissident spirits, bored with Utopia’s soul-destroying lack of challenge, found an island community dedicated to artistic experiment and to daring research into the capacities of man. At this point, Mr. Clarke’s fantasy rockets off into remote, strange regions; and his answers to the questions — Why were we put here? Where are we headed? — are dramatized in an awesome finale. This is a highly stimulating novel, wildly fantastic but far from frivolous.