Literally Geeky discussion

Thoughts, haikus or fingerpaintings - if it's about Arthur C Clarke's Childhood's End, this is the place to post 'em.

This was my pick, and since we were trailing so much on fantasy, I decided to go with a classic scifi for this month. With a very serious (under)theme to it.

I've only read his Rendezvous with Rama, but I absolutely enjoyed it. So, high expectation for this one.

I've just started reading this and I am already really impressed with the writing style. I think I will be finishing this one fast.

Just reading the introduction in the SF Gateway electronic version, and was put in mind of the discussion about kids at the end of the last hangout:
"That Wyndham, like Clarke himself, was childless raises intriguing questions. It is almost as if it takes a writer unencumbered by the day-to-day emotional entanglement involved in actually raising kids to articulate a clearer perspective on what childhood means – and to fictionalize what the end of that childhood entails."
Perhaps those of us who are parents, and those who are not, and discuss the book in that context (once we've finished reading it, of course)?

Agreed. I think this book couldn't have come at a more apt time.

Here's another thought of a (hopefully) non-spoilery bent: how are people visualising this book, by which I mean do you read it from a modern day perspective, and gloss over all the 1950s-isms (remembering the book was originally published in 1952 iirc), or do you have to do a little bit of mental processing to see the world as an alternate history - the technological development being as it would be if an alien race had taken over circa 1969? So, if you're reading from a modern day perspective, you can see the viewscreens and "electronic computers" in terms of their modern equivalents, and ignore the "radar ranges" etc, whilst if you're taking the alternative history view, you have to begin to engage in a bit of retro-futurism, as it were, where journalists would still have tape recorders and cameras requiring film in 2050. I'm personally doing the latter, but what are you doing (if I've made myself clear above)?

I had to keep reminding myself of the publication date, especially when the contraceptive pill was brought up: in terms of dress, architecture and technology I definitely went down the Buck Rodgers retro-future route.

That party... It became an Ice Storm style key-swap party, but with an alien.

Ok, now I've got an image in my mind of Wilma Deering playing the part of Janey, who of course goes home with the Overlord...

And with that, a mighty new romance sub-genre was born.

Older book should be easy to get at the library, right? Wrong! Over 30 people waiting to read the 1 copy in the system. Why such an interest in something published in 1953? Apparently there was a miniseries not that long ago on SyFy.

So you can blame SyFy for my not reading this month's pick before the hangout.

The short story I talked about in the hangout is:
Stories of Your Life and Others (actually this book is a collection of short stories, but the one I talked about is in there).

It's not exactly mind blowing literature, but it's quite interesting to see aliens that are truly alien. very different type of language, very different type of time percepertion.

Another great non-anthropormophic aliens is Solaris. Great book.