Sir Arthur C. Clarke was one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time. He is still classified as one of the ‘big three’ of the genre, along with Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. His writing takes mankind and envisions how things would be different and life would change if certain elements of our daily existence were altered. This is precisely how Childhood’s End, often considered Clarke’s best novel, flows.

Written in 1953, during the opening years of the Cold War and less than a decade after nuclear bombs first became a reality, the book opens with aliens, known as Overlords, arriving while military scientists are about to test launch a set of rockets. The Overlords quickly showcase their abilities and while they begin to rule the planet, they do so in a benevolent fashion. They outlaw war and unify mankind. They share technology and help develop a unified utopian society. Hunger, crime, poverty, disease, discrimination, nationalism, and need all quickly fade away. Even religion (except for shades of Buddhism) disappears. Robots take on all the manual labor tasks, leaving people to explore their own personal interests. Clarke uses this setting to examine the nature of man. He quickly finds that “no utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time. As their material conditions improve, men raise their sights and become discontented with power and possessions that once would have seemed beyond their wildest dreams.” In short, even when we have everything we could possibly desire, we still find ways to want more and become unhappy.

The absolute best parts of the book are when Clarke looks forward from 1953 and envisions the technology of this utopia. For example, the book envisions a world with “too many distractions and entertainments…something like five hundred hours of radio and TV pour[ing] out over the various channels” daily. This leads to people becoming “passive sponges” with a distinct lack of original material – the world becomes “placid, featureless, and culturally dead” as “the average viewing time per person is now three hours a day.” I laughed out loud, as TV today produces far more programming than this and the ratings company Nielsen estimates the typical American spends 4 hours and 51 minutes per day in front of a TV; yet I don’t think we have quite totally become culturally dead just yet.

Another set of inventions Clarke foresaw was “completely reliable oral contraceptive” and the “infallible method—as certain as fingerprinting, and based on a very detailed analysis of the blood—of identifying the father of any child.” These two ideas, which now exist for the most part, have a devastating effect as they sweep “away the last remnants of the Puritan aberration” (ie. Clarke saw Puritan morals as abnormal – not all that surprising as, while he was not open about it, his own sexuality deviated from the norms of the 1950’s).  Today, we have seen that Puritan thoughts have not been completely swept away, but they are far less rigid than they were 63 years ago when this book was written.

While I truly enjoyed examining and considering the effects of that the Overlords’ presence had on society, the book also considered the question of human evolution. This was central to the second half of the book – and was not nearly as interesting or intriguing as first half. In the same way, the characters throughout were plain and rather bland (with the exception of the Overload leader Karellen); they solely existed to move the story along. However, even with these slower sections, they book was great. The 8 hours I spent listening while driving to Virginia Beach and back this weekend gave me a chance to examine how I would live my life differently if I didn’t need to care about needs or money. Would I pursue the same choices? Would l have the same friends and hobbies? I don’t know for sure, but I hope that I would still find a way to work hard and live life, rather than just watching 5 hours of TV a day.

Score: 7.5. Could have skipped the metamorphosis of man and just stuck with examining a new world.

Side note: Clarke’s utopian world had a strange similarity to the world of Star Trek, where people are also free from want (Star Trek debuted in 1966, 13 years after Childhood’s End). The difference is that Star Trek’s world takes a view that man will still work hard and find a way to contribute to art, culture, science, and improving the lives of others, while generally Clarke saw this things a little more bleakly. He does see education as the key to overcoming the perils of too much leisure, but still showcases a world of boring people who have nothing to motivate themselves them to improve their lives.