THE ARTHUR C CLARKE FORUM

This is the background to `The Songs Of Distant Earth` and tells of the ideas that inspired Arthur C Clarke to write what to many people would be one of his greatest novels. This article also mentions the news that Mike Oldfield wished to compose a suite inspired from the book.

`The Songs Of Distant Earth` is Arthur`s favourite book, and had a curious-indeed-unique genesis. Early in 1957, the year the Space Age opened, the phrase `These Are The Songs Of Distant Earth` popped into Arthur`s mind from nowhere. It kept circling inside his head, as Sputnik was to go around the Earth six months later, and the only way of exorcising it was to sit down and hammer out a 12,000 word novella, which was printed next year in an American science fiction magazine.

There the matter rested until 1983, when he decided to expand the original story into a full length book. Arthur set himself a deliberate challenge : was it possible to write a dramatic but totally realistic novel about interstellar travel, in which the speed limit set by the velocity of light was accepted, and journeys between stars took decades, or even centuries?

The writing proceeded with corresponding slowness, and not until two years later was the novel sent off to the publishers. By then, he had departed almost completely from the original story, and only the location and basic idea remained. It would, if I may say so, make a wonderful movie, and indeed was once optioned by Michael Phillips (Close Encounters Of The Third Kind etc).

In the introduction to the novel, Arthur referred to `Star Trek` and predicted that "no Warp 6 will ever get you from one episode to another in time for next week`s instalment. The Great Producer in the sky has not arranged his programme planning that way". Well, a major occupational hazard of science-fiction writers is going out on a limb, which sooner or later may be sawn off. Witness this item in the May 1994 issue of a periodical you are unlikely to find at your local newsagents, `Classical and Quantum Gravity` :

"Long a cliche of science-fiction writing, the warp drive has transported countless fictional characters through light-years of interstellar space in the time it takes for you or me to travel to the market. Unfortunately for real-world space travellers, the warp drive has always been thought to be inconsistent with the laws of physics. But all this has changed......Miguel Alcubierre, a physicist at the university of Wales in Cardiff describes a space-travel scenario that bears an uncanny resemblance to the warp drive of science fiction. With Alcubierre`s warp drive, we could reach any place in the Universe in as short a time as we please!
The warp drive envisioned by Alcubierre is made possible by the subtleties of Einstein`s general theory of relativity."

Well, I hope Mr Alcubierre is right, but I am a little sceptical. If Warp 6 really is possible - where are all the tourists? Another technological forecast Arthur made in `The Songs Of Distant Earth`, the Space Elevator, has fared rather better. Building this would require a material strong enough to stretch all the way from stationary orbit down to the equator, without being snapped by Earth`s gravity. Such a material was discovered in 1993 by chemists at Rice University, Texas. It`s the tubular form of C60, better known as Buckminsterfullerene. By an extraordinary coincidence, "Bucky" Fuller himself wrote the sleeve notes of Arhur`s recording of `The Fountains Of Paradise`, the novel based on this idea. What a pity he did not live to see the discovery of the material which now bears his name, and which may make this dream come true!

Since the finale of the novel is a musical concert, I was delighted when Mike Oldfield told Arthur that he wished to compose a suite inspired by it. I was particularly impressed by the music he wrote for `The Killing Fields`, and now, having played the CD-ROM of `The Songs Of Distant Earth`, I feel he has lived up to my expectations. Welcome back into space, Mike : there`s still plenty of room out here!

Most Arthur C Clarke fans will be aware that 1997 marked Arthur`s 80th birthday. Douglas wishes that you will all join him in hoping he had a wonderful birthday and that we wish him all the best for the future!