A Meeting with Medusa

by Arthur C. Clarke

In leading an expedition through the many-layered Jovian atmosphere in the hydrogen balloon craft Kon-Tiki, Captain Howard Falcon discovers a world where bioluminescent air plankton produce brilliant atmospheric sea-fire, predatory manta-ray creatures dominate the skies, and enormous jellyfish-like beings grow to be over a mile across.

The title story of this fourth collection from one of the genre's most celebrated authors ends with a twist-that leaves the reader questioning what it means to be human.

Table of

Introduction

1. Before Eden
2. Hate
3. Love That Universe
4. Dog Star
5. Maelstrom II
6. An Ape About the House
7. The Shining Ones
8. The Secret
9. Dial F For Frankenstein
10. The Wind From the Sun
11. The Food of the Gods
12. The Last Command
13. Light of Darkness
14. The Longest Science-fiction Story Ever Told
15. Playback
16. The Cruel Sky
17. Herbert George Morley Roberts Wells, Esq.
18. Crusade
19. Neutron Tide
20. Reunion
21. Transit of Earth
22. A Meeting With Medusa
23. Quarantine
24. 'siseneG'
25. The Steam-powered Word Processor
26. On Golden Seas
27. The Hammer of God
28. The Wire Continuum (with Stephen Baxter)
29. Improving the Neighbourhood

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Audiobook, Fiction, Space, Science Fiction Fantasy, Novella

266 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 30, 2012

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

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Remember that old saying of Tsiolkovsky’s: Earth is the cradle of humankind, but you cannot live in the cradle forever.”

The reason for which I started this book was to read one of its stories, “A Meeting with Medusa”, in order to prepare the ground for the brand new Al Reynolds & Stephen Baxter’s novel, “The Medusa Chronicles”, which takes up further the original story.

But I ended up reading them all and I’m so glad that I did, because there are some really good ones in this collection. There are 29 stories, published between 1961 and 1999. Surprisingly, those I loved most are the ones written in the 60s – they have a particular spark about them; the later ones are somewhat more contemplative…

Most of them share two main themes: exploration of space and mortality. Too many to say even few words on them, but I can enumerate some of my favorites: Before Eden, Dog Star, Dial F for Frankenstein (which was an inspiration for the inventor of www), A Meeting with Medusa, The Hammer of God and a few more. Thinking about it now, I can’t say it was one I did not like. Yes, some are brilliant, some good, some not quite but I enjoyed them all.

[Paul (Life In The Slow Lane) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jupiter's jellyfish are NOT happy!

Clarke's brilliant foresight isn't so brilliant after all. Almost none of the predicted scenarios he dreamed up, have come true or even look like coming true. His sexist views just don't seem realistic any more either. So here we have some cybernetic human (male of course) poncing about in Jupiter's rings in a fancy gasbag (airship) upsetting the local wildlife. I just felt it was a silly story with no real plot, like many of Clarke's stories, and a dumb ending. Alas, Clarke is no longer the hero he was in my teen years.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of Clarke's stories from Wind from the Sun, Tales from Ten Worlds and other sources. I thought the first three stories (Before Eden, Hate, and Dog Star) were the best in the book, but the others were good too. Exploration, identity and isolation are a few of the themes that can be found in this volume along with two species meeting as equals. I quite liked this book and am looking forward to reading the rest in the series.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the first time in the history of space flight, the rules that had been established through more than a century of argument might have to be applied. Man had--it was hoped--profited from his mistakes on Earth. Not only moral considerations, but also his own self-interest demanded that he should not repeat them among the planets. It could be disastrous to treat a superior intelligence as the American settlers had treated the Indians, or as almost everyone had treated the Africans...


Arthur C. Clarke's Nebula-winning novella A Meeting with Medusa examines the difficulties and possibilities in exploring the outer atmosphere of Jupiter. As he also described in his 2001 series, Clarke posits free-floating life forms could exist in a thick, carbohydrate rich atmosphere. In addition to forays in xenobiology, Clarke also examines humanity's limitations in exploring areas teeming with deadly radiation and space capsule-crushing gravity. As usual, Clarke's potential solution is simultaneously rooted in hard science as well as enviable imagination.

This short work is certainly worth a read. Clarke merges scientific speculation and a riveting story.

"Hello, Mission Control," he said, very formally. "This is Howard Falcon aboard Kon-Tiki. Ephemeris Time nineteen hours twenty-one minutes fifteen seconds. Latitude zero degrees five minutes North. Longitude one hundred five degrees forty-two minutes, System One.

Tell Dr. Brenner that there is life on Jupiter. And it's big..."

[Vitek Novy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nepříliš dlouhé sci-fi od Arthura C. Clarka o setkání s životem na Jupiteru - představte si medůzu, která je stotisíckrát větší než ta největší velryba...
Taky se tu řeší základní směrnice (prime directive) ohledně prvního setkání s mimozemským životem, velmi nápadité!

[Kynan · Rating 4 out of 5]

TL;DR: Classic hard sci-fi! The only problem is that it's so short (only 2 hours)!

TL: I actually read this when I discovered that Alastair Reynolds and Stephen Baxter wrote a sequel to the story: The Medusa Chronicles. I absolutely love Reynolds and I was at a bit of a loose end with regard to what to read next, so this seemed like a good choice. And it was!

Despite its brevity, there's a lot packed into A Meeting with Medusa! It's got the olde-worlde sci-fi feel, with flashbacks to views over India from hot-air balloon but it then leaps all the way forward to a human aboard a powered-vessel visiting Jupiter for the first time. As I stated above, this story is packed full of hard science (regarding Jupiter mostly). I do very much love to read hard sci-fi as it is often tangentially educational (I'm under no illusion that reading sci-fi is a stand-in for a good education, but piqued interest is frequently a fantastic jumping off point to learning something new!

Tiny spoilers ahead, there's a plot precis, and a little wonderment at one of the things that occurs. You should probably not keep reading if you haven't read the book yet.

A brief precis: The protagonist is Howard Falcon, currently captain of the largest airship in human/Earth history. After an unfortunate and almost fatal accident he is put back together, somewhat super-human, and then ships out to Jupiter (the "lord of the solar system" and supreme challenge for a spacefaring-soul). The bulk of the story is what happens when Falcon and his ship, the Kon-Tiki, reach and breach Jupiters outer layers. There was a lot that interested and surprised me here: an appearance by The Prime Directive (I wonder if this was inspired by Star Trek, which first deployed the directive 5 years earlier?), a whiff of upload (on which I'm very excited to see Reynold's take) and what appeared to be the justification of a Jupiterean atmospheric anomaly by reference to archaic Terran records which declared the phenomena to be "Wheels of Poseidon". This, in particular, made me wonder what it was referring to so I looked it up once I finished the story, expecting to get a little education. What I discovered was scant evidence for the existence of the "Wheels of Poseidon" and upon searching for the reference to the "Patna" I discovered that the quote was lifted from The Book of the Damned by one Charles Fort, "an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena"! That surprised me greatly! But in the end, it appears that Mr Fort was the impetus for a large number of skeptics to begin their quest and that, although initially interested in Fort's ideas, Clarke ultimately decided that Forteanism was a prank, there's a fascinating summary of the Clarke/Fort story here: https://www.joshuablubuhs.com/blog/ar.... What was most interesting though, was that it appears that one of Clarke's interactions with the "Wheels of Poseidon" was documented in a column by Willy Ley called "for your information" in the August 1962 issue of Galaxy magazine (page 101). It's a fascinating read, documenting the historical record of the phenomenon (substantially aided by Clarke apparently: "I received an airmail letter from Arthur C. Clarke telling me that, according to a British scientific journal, a German publication contained a whole collection of such cases.") and concluding with a supposition of the potential cause and suggestions for how to verify the supposition. And all of this is why I love hard-sci-fi 🙂

[Paul (Life In The Slow Lane) · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know - a short story doesn't really give you latitude for "character development" or a complex intertwined, multithreaded plot, but Clarke does a bloody good job of writing them (short stories)despite those limitations. In fact, Clarke, IMHO, is better at shorts than longs. Probably because of his vast experience at writing magazine submissions.

There's no doubting his insight: Take "Dial F for Frankestein" where, in 1964, he predicts a system of communication satellites joining the world's computers together (the Internet?). Genius!

While you might think his writing a little dry and scientific, he surprises from time to time with prose like this: Everything that grew or moved upon the face of any planet was a portent, a promise that Man was not alone in this universe of blazing suns and swirling nebulae.

I took one star off because sometimes, his writing IS dry and scientific...in a boring way.

Clarke is always worth a read.

[Stifynsemons · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.2 stars, I liked it, might read again

Realistically, humans exploring Jupiter is pretty far-fetched, but Clarke manages to a good try. The story is a journey of scientific wonder, akin to twenty-thousand leagues under the sea, but much more interesting, with much better pacing. It's short, but the author crams in dilemmas of artificial intelligence and extra-terrestrial life as well. Overall, a good read.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting Clarke SF story -- has some interesting technology (hydrogen-atmosphere ramjet, lifting structures) combined with psychological and sociological commentary. Main character's interaction with uplifted animals, other types of creatures, and the rest of humanity shows a lot of contrasts, which is probably the central point of the story.

[Tudor Ciocarlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good collection.

[Earwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

too many stories in the first half with the twist of "what if soviets were, like, regular people man". The others were alright but nothing too remarkable. The titular story is the best one.

[begemot · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is well written, but ultimately doesn’t really say anything important. I don’t know if it was groundbreaking in some way when it was written, but today it felt very lackluster both in terms of the actual plot and the ideas in it. I didn’t get the sense of awe and wonder that the author might have been aiming for - mostly because I don’t really believe in the possibility of life - especially of the type described in the story - on Jupiter. And the fact that everyone involved in the mission, including a biologist, were very non-chalant about discovering life on another planet (they were only impressed by the scale of it) was plain ridiculous. But again, maybe that’s just an artifact of an era when people believed in Martian canals, Venusian cities, and what not.

The story seemed to include a lot of technical (at least to my ear) details of air navigation. This was probably informed by Clarke’s experience in the war (he was in the Air Force). While I can only commend him for trying to make it more realistic and accurate, I can’t say I enjoyed it. There was too much of it, it wasn’t making things clearer to me, and just made me zone out, because I found it boring. But maybe people who are into piloting/air flight would actually enjoy it.

Like all the stories of the old, this one was heavy on the usage of “man/men” when referring to humans in general. In its defense, it did have a female mission controller appear at one point - which of course was undermined by calling her “woman controller”…

I was also surprised at the mention of mistreatment of the Native Americans and Africans by the “settlers”/colonizers. Just the acknowledgement of any wrongdoing might have been a very liberal stance for the times. Of course, again, it was somewhat undermined by the fact that it was mentioned in the context of the “primary directive” about establishing first contact with potentially intelligent species - one might almost think that Native Americans and Africans are being equated to members of a different, non-human species, whose human level of intelligence isn’t obvious. Using Pygmy tribes being “awed” out of their minds by witnessing the technological wonders of another society for the first time as a simile for humans potentially encountering an alien civilization that’s advanced beyond our comprehension was also a questionable choice.

On top of that, the author didn’t seem to have any problem with the idea of using “uplifted” (made artificially intelligent) chimps as essentially a slave-race to the humans. These creatures were also looking to humans (literally referred to as “boss”) for guidance in a distressing situation, like children. Or “devolving” into their wild ancestral state when panicked. All of that was quite disgustingly reminiscent of how white American slave-owners used to portray their black slaves. The problem was not so much with the presence of this concept in this futuristic society, but with the fact that, at no point, any sort of negative judgement is passed on it. The only purpose it seemed to serve was to create a parallel for a “transitionary” step of humans evolving/turning into/being replaced by machines.

[Patrick S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clarke does seem to have a thing for Jupiter, eh? This 1971 short novella puts us into a first planet exploration, the previously mentioned gas giant, and a first contact scenario with giant creatures unknown to humanity at the time. But before we get there, we are introduced to our main character Captain Howard Falcon (but not the F-Zero racer).

The prelude to the mission is a strange encounter where a dirigible crashes along the Grand Canyon and monkey crew members go flying. It is a weird introduction and it sets up the ending which I believe was meant to be a twist-like ending but it seems like an obvious state we find Captain Falcon in. Maybe in 1971, this was a more surprising revelation than today.

Captain Falcon doesn't seem to have much setback from his crash minus a long physical recovery. He's tasked to lead the expedition to Jupiter and makes it easily enough. The encounters with marine-like life in Jupiter's atmosphere is the big focus and it's nice to see a first contact with actual alien life that aren't just bipedal humanoids with advanced tech. That is mostly the story with a quick revelation on Captain Falcon and his musings of what further exploration by humanity among the planets would be like, with the new life discovery being a catalyst for excitement to go and seek out new life.

Writing at the end of the Apollo moon mission apathy taking hold of America, and the rest of the world, this type of inspirational story makes sense. Other than that, it's just a nice, little space story. Nothing too positive or negative about the characters or plot. The big aliens being the ground breaking item that would be built upon by others (and continued by current day sci-fi writers of this exact story). A nice, sci-fi read. Final Grade - B-

[Jacq Ewan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was genuine science fiction, in that it left you thinking.

Falcon is a pilot on earth, until an accident crashes the Queen Elizabeth X. Then, surgeons reconstruct him, and he is able to live outside earth's atmosphere. So, he is sent on an exploratory mission to Jupiter, where he finds that the atmosphere hides so much from us. He is able to see, and share the experience with ground control (?), life and phenomenon on Jupiter that we couldn't fathom. One of those things is this Medusa, a jellyfish-like presumed organism. Like everything about Jupiter, Medusa is very large.

Medusa is over him, and reaches down a tentacle. Ground control tells him to relax, remember not to scare it, but he reacts and jettisons himself out of there.

The last scene is Falcon back on earth safely, talking with a / the commander about what missions he should take on next. It is apparent that he no longer thinks of himself as a man.

To me, there were two striking things about this story to think about. The first was something that bothered me when we read The Martian by Andy Weir: does an astronaut have the right to change or abort the mission to protect himself? or did they give up that right when they accepted the mission (knowing that it could kill them).

The second thing was that he didn't think of himself as a man anymore after being "reconstructed". He felt freed of the limitations, physically and mentally, associated with our biology and physiology.

I definitely enjoyed reading the story, and will probably read more stories from the collection.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two years after it appeared in Playboy, Clarke would echo the title of A Meeting with Medusa in Rendezvous with Rama and would return to it in 2010: Odyssey 2 (1982). Other writers, notably Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, and Ben Bova, have paid homage to it. It is certainly the best heavy world adventure since Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity (1953).

Airship pilot Howard Falcon—a corny name, Arthur—is badly injured in a crash, but his cyborg body is just right for piloting an airship into the atmosphere of Jupiter. There, he encounters several lifeforms, including a leviathan a thousand times larger than a blue whale.

At one point, he chats with his mothership about a prime directive not to antagonize the ET. I wonder if that is where the Star Trek folks picked it up. 4.5

[Lydia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short story about the first manned probe to Jupitar, with a Clarke-ian twist.

Much of this story feels like a thought experiment asking "What is Jupitar?" What would it be like to be traveling through its atmosphere and how could it even be achieved? What could possible life look like in the suspected conditions of Jupitar? And what would a person have to be like to survive these conditions? As this is a short story, there aren't endless science answers and details, but if this were a movie, there's enough sense and "feels right" that unless you were a specialist, it wouldn't "push" you out of the story.

No content issues (which surprised me, since this was originally published in Playboy).

[دانیال بهزادی · Rating 4 out of 5]

‫کتاب شامل داستان‌های کوتاهیه که بیش‌ترشون بعدها به تنهایی یا با ترکیب در هم در قالب داستان‌های بلندتر و شناخته شدهٔ کلارک منتشر شده‌ان.
‫خود داستان ملاقات با مدوسا جالب بود و کشش زیادی داشت. بقیه رو چون داستان‌های کامل شده و بهتر شده‌شون رو پیش‌تر خونده بودم،‌ برای یادش به خیر گفتن خوب بودن.
‫ترجمه هم اصلاً خوب نبود و جاهایی به قدری اذیت می‌کرد که ترجیح می‌دادی بری انگلیسیش رو بخونی و خودت رو راحت کنی.

[Dragoș · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Clarke, A meeting with Medusa has all the signs of a golden age novella - the hard sci fi topic, the handwaved bits of worldbuilding that would make for great stories in themselves ("super chimps" - > "Simps", the "chairman Mao" antique air cruiser from a US stockyard etc.), an awe inspiring story core and a well hinted at surprise reveal at the end. Classic.

[Alexander Theofanidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Μια αποστολή εξερευνά την ατμόσφαιρα του Δία με το πλοίο Kon-Tiki* , ένα σκάφος που υποστηρίζεται από αερόστατο θερμού υδρογόνου που κατεβαίνει στην ανώτερη ατμόσφαιρα του Δία όπου ανακαλύπτει ότι η ατμόσφαιρα υποστηρίζει τουλάχιστον δύο μεγάλες μορφές ζωής, καθώς και μικροσκοπικό και με βιοφωταύγεια πλαγκτόν αέρα...

[Esben Kobberstad · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was nice to revisit the short story that inspired Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds to write The Medusa Chronicles, one of my favorite Sci-fi books. The three stars are simply due to the fact that the short story simply begs to be fleshed out into a complete novel.

[Mike Lisanke · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Clarke isn't a misanthrope then at minimum he's a transhumanist. In this longest short story he tells his readers of a cyborg's wild ride on a raft built for Jovian winds. And, just happens to meet a non-human intelligence in those winds and electric fields of the gas giants atmosphere.

[AttackGirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

where is my review?

Medusa lured me in...

[Frans Kempe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title story is about a trip to Jupiter and a first encounter. A well done story

[Christian J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining

[Angelika Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun look at a flight to Jupiter and medical advancements.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

great story

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating is just for "A Meeting with Medusa."

[Stephanie G. Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted a refresher on a classic SciFi author.
The genre has come a long long way. These stories belong in their time.

[Giacomo Palombi · Rating 4 out of 5]

è un crescendo

[Harold Hoss]

I just read the novella - fun, exploratory stuff.