The Songs of Distant Earth, by Arthur C. Clarke

I found out about this one through a beautiful CD by Mike Oldfield with this same title. Some say that this music is new age, I don't really care to comment on the accuracy of this classification, but it's great electronic music. After listening to this CD several times and reading the insert, I realized that if someone was so inspired by the book to create all that good music, it was at least worth a read.

And the truth is: it was worth a read, but not on a par with other works by Clarke. In the preface, the author explains that he's been very entertained by space-operas like Star Trek and Star Wars and how this book is his attempt at the genre. It's definitely high quality space-opera because, according to Clarke, all the science in it is plausible and not pulled out of thin air.

"The Songs of Distant Earth" tells the story of how mankind discovers the end of the world is near and launches a brave attempt at perpetuating the species across the galaxy. After setting up the hard science facts and creating the background for the story, Clarke takes the reader on a trip to planet Thalassa. In this world resembling pre-historic Earth, mankind starts afresh and develops into a harmonious society until one day important visitors arrive from outer space. And here I stop this teaser for fear it would become a spoiler.

Although this was surely an enjoyable read, it won't be one of those books I'll remember forever. Clarke has been said not give a lot of attention to character development; I'm not sure I would agree with that observation in a general sense, but at least in this book I found it to be true. The story is great: interesting, intriguing, even gripping, but the characters a tad too shallow and you're guaranteed not to develop much feelings for any of them. While I read this book I felt like a mere spectator, very much willing to turn page after page, but not really involved in the story. If you've never read anything by this master of science fiction, I would choose another title to start with, something like the Rama series, Childhood's End or the Space Odissey series. Leave this one for later, when you've become a die hard fan like me.