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Childhood’s End

Sunday, April 13th, 2008 Will Leave a comment Go to comments

The Sword and Laser is a book club for fantasy and science fiction books. I think I first heat about it on CNET’s Buzz Out Loud podcast. The Sword and Laser was started by one former host and one current host of Buzz Out Loud.

When I first started listening to the Sword and Laser podcast, they were just starting on Neuromancer by William Gibson. I had no desire to tackle that book, so I passed on it. With the recent passing of Arthur C. Clarke, they decided to make the next book one of his. The book that readers chose was Childhood’s End.

It’s about a race of aliens that suddenly show up in ships over the majors cities on Earth. People call them the Overlords. The Overlords rule over Earth and end wars, disease, etc. Most of the things that people need to live are free. Although there was some resistance, the Overlords were able to handle that using psychological methods instead of force. The tradeoff is that man’s creativeness and innovation comes to stop, which many are unhappy with. And what are the true motives for the Overlord appearance on Earth?

If it hadn’t been for The Sword and Laser, I don’t know that I would have ever read this book. I’m so glad that I did. I’ll probably try to read more books by Arthur C. Clarke in the future.