Childhood's End

A fascinatingly speculative view of first contact from the perspective of the 1950's. It would be very easy to poke holes in the narrative, but that is not really fair given when it was written. As ever with works of this era, the things they fail to predict are often more interesting than the things they do predict (in the 21st century computers are still huge and “thousands of meters of film” are still required for recording). Having said that, also as ever, Clarke is startlingly spot on with other predictions (particularly related to entertainment media and its consumption).

As a feat of imagination it is impressive, although the denoument may raise a few eyebrows. In fact, what saved the book for me in the end was, in my edition at least, a fascinating addendum from the author explaining his thinking and how it had changed in the intervening years.

I am tempted to give this 5 stars, however I am not sure I would want to read this a second time (my usual criteria for 5 stars). A very good 4 star novel.