The Shining Ones & Other Stories

The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke #5

by Arthur C. Clarke, Theodore Bikel (Narrator), Ben Bova (Narrator)

This final volume in the audio version features, in addition to the 1962 title story, "The Cruel Sky," "The Steam-powered Word Processor," the classics "The Hammer of God" and "A Meeting With Medusa," and Clarke's latest story, "Improving the Neighborhood," published in Nature in 1999.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Audiobook, Fiction

10 pages, Audiobook

First published April 7, 2004

About the author

Stories, works of noted British writer, scientist, and underwater explorer Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, include 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

This most important and influential figure in 20th century fiction spent the first half of his life in England and served in World War II as a radar operator before migrating to Ceylon in 1956. He co-created his best known novel and movie with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.

Clarke, a graduate of King's College, London, obtained first class honours in physics and mathematics. He served as past chairman of the interplanetary society and as a member of the academy of astronautics, the royal astronomical society, and many other organizations.

He authored more than fifty books and won his numerous awards: the Kalinga prize of 1961, the American association for the advancement Westinghouse prize, the Bradford Washburn award, and the John W. Campbell award for his novel Rendezvous with Rama. Clarke also won the nebula award of the fiction of America in 1972, 1974 and 1979, the Hugo award of the world fiction convention in 1974 and 1980. In 1986, he stood as grand master of the fiction of America. The queen knighted him as the commander of the British Empire in 1989.

Reviews

[Todd Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Shining Ones & Other Stories is an audiobook of short stories by Arthur C. Clarke (many of which were previously collected into the 1972 book The Wind from the Sun). As with any collection, there is bound to be variation in quality. However these stories were largely written in the 1960’s when Clarke was at the height of his writing ability, and as a result there are more hits than misses.

The quality of the audio recording, however, is a clear miss. It sounded like is was recorded on a vintage 1970’s home answering machine with the various readers (quite literally) phoning it in.

[Olof · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very few good stories. I am sad! Such a great author as ACC (and I've met him!!!) I did very much like that he has a story about The Singularity, published long before Ray Kurzweil intruduced it to The Masses! Go Arthur!

[Rita P Smits · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Audiobook] Some of these stories are really interesting, others lackluster. The narrator's quality is equally dissimilar, so the overall experience of this audiobook was not the best, and it was hard to keep being concentrated on its content. Still, C. Clarke is of course a heavy-weight of sci-fi, so it's never a total loss to read/listen to him.

A funny detail for me was the fact that many of these short stories were first publish in Playboy. Who would have thought.

For anyone interested, here is the full list of all the short-stories included in this Volume V, and respective narrators:

1. Dog Star, read by Mike Grady
2. Maelstrom II, read by Nick Boulton
3. An Ape About the House, read by Buffy Davis
4. The Shining Ones, read by Roger May
5. The Secret read, by Mike Grady
6. Dial F for Frankenstein, read by Nick Boulton
7. The Wind From the Sun, read by Sean Barrett
8. The Food of the Gods, read by Roger May
9. The Last Command, read by Mike Grady Track
10. The Light of Darkness, read by Nick Boulton
11. The Longest Science-Fiction Story Ever Told, read by Sean Barrett
12. Playback, read by Roger May
13. The Cruel Sky, read by Mike Grady
14. Herbert George Morley Roberts Wells, Esq, read by Nick Boulton
15. Crusade, read by Sean Barrett
16. Neutron Tide, read by Roger May
17. Reunion, read by Mike Grady
18. Transit of Earth, read by Nick Boulton
19. A Meeting With Medusa, read by Sean Barrett
20. Quarantine, read by Roger May
21. SiseneG, read by Mike Grady
22. The Steam-Powered Word Processor, read by Nick Boulton
23. On Golden Seas, read by Sean Barrett
24. The Hammer of Gods, read by Roger May
25. The Wire Continuum, read by Mike Grady
26. Improving the Neighbourhood, read by Nick Boulton

[Outmind · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5

A Hodge-podge of so-so to great.