Out From the Sun

by Arthur C. Clarke

Short story. Variant Title: Out of the Sun

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories

Unknown Binding

First published February 1, 1958

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

[Mrig (মৃগ) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...I sometimes think of myself as a blind man exploring the space around him with a stick that may be a hundred million miles in length. For Man is truly blind to the things I study; these great clouds of ionized gas moving far out from the sun are completely invisible to the eye and even to the most sensitive of photographic plates. They are ghosts that briefly haunt the Solar System during the few hours of their existence; if they did not reflect our radar waves or disturb our magnetometers, we should never know that they were there."

"...The sun will put forth its strength and lick the faces of its children; and thereafter the planets will go their way once more as they were in the beginning—clean and bright . . . and sterile."

[Frans Kempe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Sun flare or...

[Mike Lisanke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not certain what the intention was here.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clarke once again turned his thoughts back to ethereal beings and solar flares. Personally, I thought the link between the sequence of events and the narrator's interpretation was too tenuous.