Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography

by Arthur C. Clarke

The author recounts how he became interested in science fiction, discusses the influence of Astounding Stories magazine, and looks back on his involvement in science and technology

Genres: Science Fiction

258 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1990

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

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a chatty reminiscence that goes off on odd tangents with frequent digressions than a true autobiography, this is Clarke's look back at the early days of the science fiction field, particularly on the Campbell circle. He comes off as annoyingly arrogant or egotistical at times, but does offer some humorous anecdotes and insightful observations of the Golden Age notables of the genre. It's probably of more interest to Clarke fans than to historians.

[Synful · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was indoctrinated into science fiction, I mean, speculative fiction practically from the cradle by an avid reader of them, my older brother. So many compilations of pulp short stories and I became a regular nerdy reader of "Analog," "Asimov's," and "Omni," to name a few! I've read many a classic authors' books and yet I still run across books I don't remember hearing about or even ones I remember picking up at some used books store sitting forever on my bookshelves, waiting for me to get to them. This is one of those books!

I may have thought it was a collection of stories, but realized when I picked it up a couple of weeks ago that it was a memoir of sorts. I see from previous reviews that some people didn't care for how Clarke went about putting this book together, but I really liked it! He wrote about a time of his life as it connected to a few "Analog" (back then "Astounding") editors of the Golden Age of spec/sci-fi. He started reading the pulps as a child before WWII and eventually became a contributor and friend of many of the men who became the giants of the genre who appeared in its pages.

There were so many things that I found new and interesting that it ended up taking me longer to get through this book than I'd thought because I kept having to stop and look up terms or things on the internet to understand more fully what he was talking about. This was a person born over 100 years ago writing about technology and events and culture from 70+ years ago, so I'd have an idea or vaguely remember something but I'd have to make sure I was remembering right to get the context of what I was reading. Maybe others would find this exasperating, but I really enjoyed (re-)learning about so many things. This included the many mentions of stand-out short stories from the early years of "Astounding" that now makes me want to find out if somewhere out there are compilations of them so I can read them. They also almost make me want to order subscriptions to many of those magazines again. After all, at least "Analog" and "Asimov's" are still around! In print! Amazing, after their namesakes are long gone. I wonder what they'd think of that!

I don't know if it's still true today, but I often don't get the feeling that it's like it used to be where all these writers were not just people who wrote stories, but people who actually studied and worked in science and used that as a realistic stepping off point to their imagination a step or two beyond that. They were so good at doing that in those days of the 1930s and 1940s that men in dark suits from the government would come see them and the editor to find out what they knew. They were so close to the mark on a lot of developing technology like radar, extractions from thorium (wrong element but close!), and, eventually, nuclear weapons that the Spooks thought there was a leak! It didn't help that sometimes people in Clarke's circle knew the people doing that work or at least knew of them. On a more fantastical note, which speculative fiction writers really detested at the time, there was the time it went the other way (because ignorance) and Reagan infamously and expensively named some garbage tech "Star Wars" trying to tie a term thought futuristic and scientific (ha!) to something so backward.

There were the typical names in "Astounding" you expect if you're up on your classics, but it was the smaller names who maybe even just ever appeared there a handful of times never heard from again but wrote some great stories. Or maybe a name you wouldn't expect in a scifi mag because he became known for his fantasy, such as a little author named HP Lovecraft. Amusingly, or less so depending on your view, though, Clarke notes there were even sometimes authors of the *gasp!* female kind! Bless ACC's heart and the offhanded way he mentions that women mostly wrote fantasy if anything, not scifi. Notably, of course, was Ursula K Le Guin, but he also mentioned an author new to me who wrote under the name CL Moore. According to her, though, she didn't use initials as so many women did (and some still do!) to hide her gender, but just to hide herself in general from her employer. (Although I would still call that sexist because what's it to them what she does on her own time?)

Fans of classic speculative fiction can't talk about this era or "Astounding"/"Analog" without talking about the giant of an editor John W. Campbell. For an astounding 34 years he editing the scifi mag and selected so many of the greats after which several scifi awards are now named. These were the stories that made it to adaptations on the small and big screen and even remade a couple of times or more. He was no slouch as a writer himself contributing his own stories such as "Who Goes There?" (under pseudonym Don A. Stuart), a scifi horror movie fans might know as "The Thing from Another World" (1951) or simply John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982). I could list a whole lot of people and stories, but this review is already long enough.

As I said from the top, I really enjoyed getting through this book and many of Clarke's stories and tangents reminded me of my own childhood and love of scifi mags. If you want a refresher of the early days of those type of mags or want to learn for the first time about that Golden Age, there's a lot here to take notes on to read more deeply. Or at least fall into a few Wikipedia rabbit holes. Recommended!

Random things I noted:
-"...it is necessary to draw a distinction between those who need guns (soldiers, policemen...) and those who want them. To the latter I dedicate a phrase I concocted many years ago: 'Guns are the crutches of the impotent.'

-People who were on opposite sides of WWII became friends afterwards, e.g. Wenher von Braun and RAF Col. George Jones joking that Jones once nearly killed von Braun and von Braun showing Clarke the photos of the wreckage he escaped to which he said that Jones did a good job. Or that also there was Hermann Oberth who managed to save a bunch of files from the fires important to V2 rockets.

-People today may not appreciate the loss of innocence? after the use of the nuclear bombs. Clarke thinks many writers of the time felt a change, some guilt of their dreamed ideas becoming realities and the responsibility that can bring. I grew up during the back end of the Cold War, so I can't imagine not always having that as a distinct possibility.

-Authors/series Clarke lists as those serialized during Campbell's run still known today: Heinlein's "Double Star," Asimov's "The Naked Sun," Herbert's "Dune," and lots of short stories from authors like Jack Williamson, Theodore Sturgeon, CM Kornbluth, and Tom Godwin.

-Speaking of short stories, I enjoyed the two of his he included at the very end you might want to find: "The Steam-Powered Word Processor: A Forgotten Epic of Victorian Engineering" and "Father of Frankenstein" which are more legends? the latter from his own neighborhood a potential inspiration for Frankenstein.

[Lee Pfahler · Rating 4 out of 5]

An astounding romp through the early decades of Astounding Science Fiction and ACC's interaction with it and how the two intersected with the early development of the space age. There was some very interesting inside information about the early space race that I doubt the common person was privy too just by reading the newspapers. And Clarke had the connections to witness these. But these are a bonus to the early history of science fiction in the pages of what is still the longest published science fiction magazine now known as Analog.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating memoir by one of science fiction's greatest (and earliest) Grand Masters!
For those only familiar with the late Sir Arthur's award-winning, best-selling science fiction, this is an eye-opener to the fact that he could just as skillfully write engaging, humor-laced non-fiction essays filled with information, inside dope on his many famous contemporaries/friends (including John W. Campbell Jr., Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley among others), and fond reminiscences from childhood on. This book is actually one-half of Clarke's two-pronged memoirs; the other half is the chronicle of his scientific/engineering career, Glide Path. This one details how he helped organize Britain's first SF fan group that was also keen to advance real-life scientific progress, to the point of helping develop instrumentation for what they hoped would be the first rocket to the moon.

Sir Arthur was tragically taken from us in 2008 (before he even got to see what really happened in 2010), but reading this one feels as if he is not only still alive, but sitting in a comfy chair right next to you, chatting freely and occasionally grinning and winking at you. Readers will delight in his droll sense of humor and becoming humility even after achieving Grand Master status, and his lifelong love of learning and exploration. Both of these, as well as his endless enthusiasm for the genre he helped legitimize, shine through in this memoir. A must-have for Clarke fans and for anyone interested in the early days of modern SF and its fandom.

[The Bauchler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixture of personal reminiscences, sci-fi Golden Age history, and pondering what the future will be.

I, as a 'Clarkey', loved it.

It was written forty years ago when much of the 'new' technology discussed has been superseded/became a blind alley. I found this fascinating too.

I was surprised at how many authors/stories from the 30's/40's I had read as a teen/20-something and the book helped put a lot of those into context.

[Alvaro Zinos-Amaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Outside of the constant ego-burps, this is a lovely, nostalgia-tinged--but at times overly digressive (Locus called it "chatty")--evocation of the early days of Astounding. Through this book I learned a fair amount about pre-1939 SF (and of course how it influenced Clarke). So why 3 stars? The section covering Harry Bates was easily worth four stars, and generally that same level held when discussing Tremaine's reign. But as time passes for the magazine, Clarke discusses fewer and fewer of the stories, instead filling up chapters with tangents and tangents-upon-tangents. One of his favorite devices is "As it happens, I have just found a document which..." or equivalent--nothing wrong with that, but it's only cute the first fifty or so times. There is also too much self-quoting for me in the last third of the book, and random assembly of "connections", that mostly involve dropping names and pointing out inaccuracies in others' predictions. Perhaps it's inevitable that as Clarke read less and less SF in general and Astounding/Analog in particular, his autobiographical insights into their histories should become more limited, but I didn't enjoy what he offered in their stead quite as much. If you're going to mention some of the legendary Campbell-era stories, please actually *say* something about them!

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 2 out of 5]

The constant horn-tooting grew tiresome after a while; also too much quibbling over science points. Would've been better if it had stayed back in the era of his youth. Oddly seems too personal--or not personal enough; merely telling of the chaps he's met and knows throughout his life and not enough (though there is some early on) of the wonder of the stuff that drew him to it early on. Comes across as a real Asimov type--a science geek who never quite grew up all the way (never really had to, I suppose). A life member of the A/V squad. Maybe it's just being a geezer that has taken a lot of the juice out of him. But all that arguing back and forth about rocketry was strictly for trolls: took me back to the days of the high school chess club.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

An anecdotal look at some of the writers who appeared in Astounding Stories during the 1930s and 1940s. It's a loose account, with plenty of tangents, but Clarke makes for an expert and personable guide. Another distant place Clarke takes us to.

[Scott Golden · Rating 4 out of 5]

One big caveat to the 4-star rating: You need to be either a fan of Mr. Clarke or interested in Golden-Age magazine science fiction in order to enjoy this nerdy memoir/analysis. If, however, you fit into one of those categories, then this book should prove to be great fun, and educational too.