Bryan Schwartz’s Reviews > Childhood’s End > Status Update

In Childhood’s End, Arthur C Clarke is far more interested in big ideas than character development, and it shows; the narrative often feels clunky by present day standards. Still, the philosophical scope of the novel more than compensates for these weaknesses. The ending, in particular, is classic Clarke: strange, cosmic, and reminiscent of the conceptual ambition he later achieved in 2001: A Space Odyssey.