Book review: Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke (1955)

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Earthlight was the third book in a collection of Arthur C. Clarke’s early novels called The Space Trilogy. The other two stories, Islands In The Sky (1952) and The Sands of Mars (1951) were good, but most of their appeal is in seeing the type of stories that Clarke was writing at the beginning of his career. They are more curiosities for his hardcore fans than really breathtaking stories in their own right.

Having made my way through those two stories, when I got to Earthlight I was truly impressed. Despite the 1955 publishing date, Earthlight feels like Clarke in his prime: able to take the technological progress of the day, extrapolate it out to a story about mankind’s fledging space exploration, while still able to focus on (and make interesting) the mundane details that would make space colonization a reality.

One of the most ticklish aspects of the story is that the background involves a space faring human society that is a couple of centuries in our future, but the story’s Federation does not include Earth. Instead, the human colonized worlds of Mars, Venus and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are banding together in an attempt to force Earth to be less stingy about her natural resources. Earth is considering pulling back its support of the Federation…