Showing posts with label Arthur C. Clarke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arthur C. Clarke. Show all posts

Monday, November 21, 2022

28 Days Haunted & Other Spooky TV Shows



Don't get me wrong. I hugely enjoyed The Conjuring (2013) - and its 2016 sequel, based on the famous Enfield poltergeist case in London in the late 1970s.

The sympathetic portrayal of self-described demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren in both movies was, admittedly, a little troubling, but then the same could be said of many Hollywood films. If they weren't, in real life, quite the sweethearts portrayed by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, then surely some dramatic licence must be conceded.



Recently, however, Bronwyn and I have been watching the Netflix Reality TV Series 28 Days Haunted, which accords the Warrens almost folk-hero status as occult visionaries. The show purports to be a rigorous test of their theory that there's a period of 28 days (based on lunar cycles, perhaps?) which is necessary to 'break through' in any investigation of a haunting.


Sydney Morning Herald: Ed & Lorraine Warren


Needless to say, the theory passes the test with flying colours, and succeeds, too, in providing viewers such as ourselves with riveting footage of husky Americans with video cameras running around corridors screaming their heads off.

Is this serious paranormal research? Well, of course not. Is it particularly entertaining? Shamefully, the answer would have to be yes.


Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)


It was the late lamented Shirley Jackson who first propounded the thesis that the most fascinating thing about haunted house investigations is the people who undertake them. The interaction between the various eccentric personalities on display far outweighs in interest any alleged 'findings' they may obtain.

The result, as you no doubt already know, was her classic novel The Haunting of Hill House (appallingly, shamefully, misadapted by clunkster extraordinaire Mike Flanagan in his travesty of a TV series of the same name).


Mike Flanagan: The Haunting of Hill House (2018)





1 - Most Haunted (2002- )


Such is my fascination with the genre, that I've inveigled poor Bronwyn into suffering through a whole slew of True Ghost Stories on TV. Let's see, there was the long-running British show Most Haunted, hosted by Yvette Fielding - we watched a huge amount of that.

Derek Acorah, the resident psychic, was worth the price of entry on his own. I still remember him channelling 'Cloggie', the spirit haunting a ghost train ride in, I think, Brighton.

Convincing? Not very, but there was also much entertainment to be had from watching the host, Yvette, getting steadily more and more terrified as it got darker and darker. Seldom did she last in any 'haunted' room for more than a minute or two ...


2 - Knock Knock Ghost (2014- )


Canadian TV show Knock Knock Ghost is more of pisstake of such hand-held camera reality shows than a serious investigation of hauntings. It can be very amusing - if a trifle one-note - particularly the struggle of host Richard Ryder's assistant Brie Doyle to achieve some on-camera recognition for their endless travails.


3 - Ghost Hunt (2005-6)


Continuing our international coverage, Kiwi TV programme Ghost Hunt was a surprisingly successful attempt to showcase various local pyschic hotspots, including Larnach Castle in Dunedin, the Waitomo Caves Hotel, and the Kinder House in Parnell.

The show's basic methodology was to have two investigators, Carolyn Taylor and Michael Hallows, wandering around in the dark with head-mounted cameras, with a subsequent analysis (i.e. digital tweaking) of their footage by computer whiz Brad Hills. I loved it. I wish they'd made a lot more episodes.



For convenience's sake, it seems best to sample some of the many American contributions to the genre in chronological order.

We'll start with Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories, which I used to watch on idle afternoons back in the 1990s. Hosted first by Leonard Nimoy, then Stacey Keach, and directed by Tobe Hooper, the stories were first restaged with actors. Interviews were then conducted with the actual victims.

A certain lack of verisimilitude was therefore inevitable. Some of the accounts were very interesting, though.


5 - Ghost Hunters (2004- )


Despite its longevity, and its status as a pioneer in the field, I'm afraid I've never been able to warm to Ghost Hunters. It's hard to see how the investigators can maintain their enthusiasm for each uneventful night in yet another banal setting. Their pop psychology explanations of the 'phenomena' they discover are similarly unexciting. It seems more like an ongoing pension plan for the participants than a legitimate, edge-of-your-seat reality series.



I feel a bit ashamed at having watched so many of these Celebrity Ghost Stories. As I recall, the best one of all was provided by David Carradine, about his partner's ex's ghost, and his participation in their lives. Given that Carradine died shortly after filming it, it had a certain punch to it that the others tend to lack.

A few of the participants - C. Thomas Howell, I mean you - seem just to be taking the piss with obviously made-up tales designed to bolster up their flagging careers, but for the most part they're surprisingly convincing. I'd go so far as to say that one or two of them were genuinely disturbing.


7 - Paranormal Witness (2011- )


The sheer number of stories presented on Paranormal Witness over the years - albeit with 'reconstructions' of the principal events doubling with the victims' retellings of their experiences - have combined to give it a certain air of authenticity.

How could so many people bother to conspire to create such elaborate and circumstantial lies? It's far easier to believe in the basic sincerity of at least the vast majority of them.

Mind you, the easily deduced off-camera psychological effects of repressive parents, abusive spouses, and stressful living situations - as Stephen King once sagely observed, one thing people are really serious about is real estate: especially losing their equity in a hard-bought property - certainly offer possible alternative explanations for many of the events described.

But then that's another reason why this series' essential honesty makes it of genuine value to the aficionado.


8 - Haunted (2018- )


I never felt that the format the producers chose for Haunted worked very well. Friends and relatives of the people telling the story would sit in a circle around them, reacting to the events as they were recounted (and simultaneously reconstructed on screen for the benefit of viewers).

Unfortunately, this had a strangely stilted effect, and while it certainly sounds all right in theory, in practice the simiplicity of a talking head being interviewed directly about their experiences (as in Paranormal Witness, above) is far more effective.

We gave up on it after awhile, as the stories grew increasingly far-fetched. There was a Latin American spin-off which was rather more spirited, but still struggled to surmount this formatting issue.



Paranormal Caught on Camera can be, at times, mind-numbingly tedious - in particular all the shots of blurry lights moving around in the sky. But it's worth sitting through all that for the truly bizarre things it occasionally presents.


Susan Slaughter (Paranormal Caught on Camera)


My own favourite among the various half-psychic investigator, half standup comic commentators they feature to contextualise each piece of grainy film would have to be the redoubtable Susan Slaughter. It doesn't matter what they show - strange scissor-people without bodies, shadow figures, were-creatures of various varieties - she's seen them all already: had lunch with them in some cases.

I see from her IMDb profile that as well as being a "paranormal expert, she openly identifies as a Witch ... Susan is well known for her duality in both acting and the paranormal." All power to her, imho.


10 - Unsolved Mysteries (2020- )


Unsolved Mysteries mostly specialises in missing-person cases and gruesome, unsolved murders. Every now and then they include an episode on more supernatural matters, however, including a truly wonderful piece, "Paranormal Rangers", on the Navaho Reservation policemen whose job it is to investigate any and all unexplained sightings in the immense stretch of territory under their jurisdiction.



So, in conclusion, turning back to the UK, we come to the great-grandaddy of them all, Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World (13 episodes, 1980), and its sequels Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers (13 episodes, 1985), and Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World (26 episodes, 1994).

What can I say about this? It's clearly a masterpiece of the genre, though it could be argued that the longer it went on the less it stayed in tune with the sceptical reductionism of Clarke himself and more it was dominated by the wide-eyed credulity of the TV producers. But (as I explained in my previous blogpost on Clarke) that's of small concern to me.

It gave rise to a series of illustrated coffee-table books, as well as various sets of videos and DVDs (most of which I own):
    Books:

  1. John Fairley & Simon Welfare. Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World (London: Collins, 1980)
  2. John Fairley & Simon Welfare. Arthur C. Clarke’s World of Strange Powers (London: Collins, 1984)
  3. John Fairley & Simon Welfare. Arthur C. Clarke’s Chronicles of the Strange & Mysterious (London: Guild Publishing, 1987)
  4. John Fairley & Simon Welfare. Arthur C. Clarke’s A-Z of Mysteries: From Atlantis to Zombies. Foreword by Arthur C. Clarke (London: Book Club Associates, 1993)
  5. Simon Welfare & John Fairley. Arthur C. Clarke's Mysteries (London: Collins, 1998)

  6. DVDs:

  7. Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World, narrated by Gordon Honeycombe, prod. John Fanshawe & John Fairley, dir. Peter Jones, Michael Weigall & Charles Flynn (UK, 1980). 2-DVD set.
  8. Arthur C. Clarke’s World of Strange Powers, narrated by Anna Ford, prod. John Fairley, dir. Peter Jones, Michael Weigall & Charles Flynn (UK, 1985). 2-DVD set.
  9. Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious Universe, narrated by Carol Vorderman, prod. John Fairley, dir. Peter Jones, Michael Weigall & Charles Flynn (UK, 1994). 4-DVD set.
Not many of the episodes were specifically about ghosts, but those that were were models of the investigative genre: well-researched, well-constructed, and profoundly atmospheric. It's definitely worth watching again, if you ever have the good fortune to come across it.


Simon Welfare & John Fairley: Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World (1980)





28 Days Haunted: The Control Room, with hosts Aaron Sagers & Tony Spera (2022)


So what are the principal hallmarks of the genre? Let's see:
  • a complete lack of verifiable information or results
  • deliberately poor picture and sound quality
  • endless credulity in the face of flimsy conjectures
  • constant reliance on weird and pointless - mostly electronic - gadgets
  • frequent bombastic assertions of close knowledge of the Other Side and its ways

And yet, and yet, every now and then one gets the slightest glimmer that there might actually be something going on in some of the places these investigators get themselves into. It's that, I suppose, that keeps me watching.

To adopt a more (Shirley) Jacksonian perspective, however, even the most sceptical viewer would have to admit that some of the personalities on display in 28 Days Haunted really are quite priceless:


28 Days Haunted: Madison Dry Goods (Madison, North Carolina)
l-to-r: Brandy Miller & Jereme Leonard


Jereme [sic.] and Brandy, shut inside a Dry Goods store in Madison, North Carolina, were particularly good - he a loud, useless, fraidy-cat, who, despite his claims to be a 'Cajun Demonologist,' actually managed to get himself possessed by one of the entities; she a dedicated nag who could go on and on about the same topics for hours in an endless, terrifying loop (as the onscreen time-count recorded dispassionately).

The most frightening thing about their stay, however, was not so much the building they were trapped in as the weirdly deserted town surrounding it. Cars would occasionally pass, but not a single person could be seen on the streets or in the surrounding shops and offices. It might as well have been Innsmouth, Massachusetts, rather than Madison, North Carolina.


28 Days Haunted: Captain Grant’s Inn (Preston, Connecticut)
l-to-r: Nick Simons & Sean Austin


Then there were those three tomfools, Sean, Nick and Aaron, staying in Captain Grant’s Inn in Preston, Connecticut. Sean, the self-professed psychic was locked in a constant battle with sceptical technician Nick. The latter presumed to doubt the validity of a message written on a steamed-up mirror in the bathroom. The more Sean denied having written it himself, the guiltier he looked.



Hapless would-be peacemaker Aaron felt increasingly overlooked and undervalued by the other two as the investigation progressed. In W. H. Auden's phrase, he sank into "a more terrible calm" as their seemingly interminable ordeal continued.


28 Days Haunted: Lumber Baron Inn (Denver, Colorado)
l-to-r: Ray Causey, Amy Parks, & Shane Pittman


Somewhat surprisingly, Shane, Ray and Amy, at the Lumber Baron Inn in Denver, Colorado, may qualify as the least harmonious group of all. The brutal way in which the two men conspired to bully psychic sensitive Amy into dangerous and uncomfortable situations had to be seen to be believed. She made it clear that she would not channel spirits through 'mirror-portals' (whatever those are). Her counter-offer of using candles to establish contact was accepted reluctantly by the thuggish pair.

That is, until Shane managed, fortuitously, to resuscitate his own psychic abilities as a result of immersing himself in a tin bath under a tent out in the grounds. Ray, by contrast, seemed to do little except complain, foment mutiny, and (we're reliably informed) do most of the cooking.

Riveting though 28 Days Haunted was at times, it was hard to persuade ourselves that there was much more to it than some kind of unholy cross between Survivor and The Amazing Race with a few bits of hokey psychic folklore thrown in.


Joel Anderson, dir. & writ.: Lake Mungo (2008)


All in all, none of these programmes can really compare with the sheer sense of strangeness and haunting loss achieved by Australian filmmaker Joel Anderson in his classic faux-documentary Lake Mungo. If only some real film footage could be found to rival the brilliantly executed camera trickery he beguiles us with so impeccably!



Saturday, January 02, 2021

SF Luminaries: Arthur C. Clarke



I wonder if this preamble is as familiar to you as it is to me?



... Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001 and inventor of the communications satellite. Now in retreat in Sri Lanka, he ponders the mysteries of this and other worlds.


There are a number of interesting leads in there. What better way to usher in this long-awaited new year, 2021, than by unpacking a few of them?





The Utah Monolith (2016-20)


"author of 2001"

The Utah monolith is a metal pillar that stood in a red sandstone slot canyon in northern San Juan County, Utah. ... It was unlawfully placed on public land between July and October 2016, and stood unnoticed for over 4 years until its discovery and removal in late 2020. The identity of its makers, and their objectives, are unknown.

In the weeks after the discovery of the Utah pillar, dozens of similar metal columns were erected in other places throughout the world, including elsewhere in North America and various countries in Europe and South America. Many were built by local artists as deliberate imitations of the Utah monolith.


The culmination of all these efforts was undoubtedly the Gingerbread monolith which appeared in a San Francisco park on Christmas Day, 2020.

When asked if he would be removing it, Phil Ginsburg, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department general manager, said that he had no such plans, "as it seemed to bring some joy and amusement to the community":
“Looks like a great spot to get baked. We will leave it up until the cookie crumbles ... We all deserve a little bit of magic right now.”


Joe Fitzgerald: "the cookie has crumbled" (27/12/20)


It's pretty good going if a reference to the central image of a film first released in 1968 makes immediate sense to people fifty years later. The famous black monolith from Kubrick & Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey was, of course, rectangular rather than triangular in form, but it's nice to know that it can still evoke such awe and perplexity after all this time.



It's harder to guess if the other, more subtle reference embedded in Phil Ginsburg's remark is intentional or not: "We all deserve a little bit of magic right now." It seems like a reference to Clarke's third law (discussed in more detail in my earlier post on his friend and rival Isaac Asimov) but perhaps I'm overreading it.

But then again, given the fact that the aptly named Ginsburg (albeit with a 'u' rather than an 'e') is an official of America's hippest city, San Francisco, maybe not.







Peter Menzel: Arthur C. Clarke scuba-diving (2000)


"in retreat in Sri Lanka"

For many years the official reason given for Clarke's 1956 shift from the UK to Sri Lanka's tropical shores was his passion for scuba-diving, which was indeed the subject of a great many of his later books (cf. the selected bibliography at the end of this post).



Arthur C. Clarke: The Treasure of the Great Reef (1964)


It seems, in retrospect, very sad that his homosexuality had to remain a secret for so long - though it's hardly suprising, given Britain's archaic laws on the subject. Male homosexuality wasn't actually decriminalised until the Sexual Offences Act of 1967. Nor was that the end of the matter. In his 2017 Guardian article on the subject, Peter Tatchell explains:
The 1967 legislation repealed the maximum penalty of life imprisonment for anal sex. But it still discriminated. The age of consent was set at 21 for sex between men, compared with 16 for sex between men and women; a decision that pandered to the homophobic notion that young men are seduced and corrupted by older men. The punishment for a man over 21 having non-anal sex with a man aged 16-21 was increased from two to five years.
Small wonder that so many British writers and artists sought refuge elsewhere in the world. Clarke never did 'come out' precisely - but he made increasingly little secret of his sexuality in his later years.

Until the scandal of his aborted knighthood, that is.
In 1998, the Sunday Mirror reported that he paid Sri Lankan boys for sex, leading to the cancellation of plans for Prince Charles to knight him on a visit to the country. The accusation was subsequently found to be baseless by the Sri Lankan police and was retracted by the newspaper. Journalists who enquired of Clarke whether he was gay were told, "No, merely mildly cheerful."
Clarke was knighted for services to literature two years later, in 2000.



Arthur C. Clarke died in 2008. He is buried in Sri Lanka beside Leslie Ekanayake, whom he called his "only perfect friend of a lifetime" in the dedication to his only novel to be set on the island, The Fountains of Paradise (1979).



In one of his three "posthumous poems," printed for the first time in his Collected Poems (1977), W. H. Auden remarked:
When one is lonely (and You
My Dearest, know why,
as I know why it must be),
steps can be taken, even
a call-boy can help.
- W. H. Auden, 'Minnelied' (c.1967)


Clarke's partner, Leslie Ekanayake, died young, in 1977, at the age of thirty (he was killed in a motorcyle accident); Auden's, Chester Kallman, outlived the poet by two years, but had a tumultuous private life which definitely precluded monogamy.



Auden's own escape from the homophobia of his native England went back as far as the 1920s, though, when he and his friend Christopher Isherwood chose to move to the more tolerant atmosphere of pre-Nazi Berlin.

So why did Clarke continue to keep his sexuality a secret? No doubt he knew that he would probably not have had access to so many circles of scientific and political influence if the fact had been revealed publicly. On the other hand, as Michael Moorcock recalled:
Everyone knew he was gay. In the 1950s, I'd go out drinking with his boyfriend. We met his protégés, western and eastern, and their families, people who had only the most generous praise for his kindness. Self-absorbed he might be and a teetotaller, but an impeccable gent through and through.
"Everyone knew" - but they didn't have to know it officially. Auden and Isherwood were (latterly, at least) far more upfront about their sexuality, but I don't really think it's a subject anyone else not under the same pressure can offer a meaningful opinion on - given the obvious consequences of such an admission at the time.



Rohan de Silva: Clarke on Hikkaduwa beach (2009)






Steven Spielberg, dir. Close Encounters of the Three Kinds (1977)


"the mysteries of this and other worlds"

In his TV series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, Clarke defines the following three types of mystery:
  1. Mysteries of the First Kind: Something that was once utterly baffling but is now completely understood, e.g. a rainbow.
  2. Mysteries of the Second Kind: Something that is currently not fully understood and can be in the future.
  3. Mysteries of the Third Kind: Something of which we have no understanding.
I guess the most memorable thing about the series - and its two successors, Arthur C. Clarke’s World of Strange Powers (1985) and Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious Universe (1994) - is the scoffing incredulity with which the hard-headed Clarke, with his clipped, Somerset accent, shot down each new 'mystery' in its tracks.



The Goodies: Big Foot (1982)


Perhaps, in fact, the only real reason to remember those goofy British comedians the Goodies is because of their brilliant parody of Clarke in the "Big Foot" episode of their eponymous TV show. A yeti can be clearly seen on coming in and out of shot as Clarke is seen pontificating in the foreground, declaring the complete lack of any evidence for its existence. "Vewy, vewy wisible", as another group of contemporary comedians were wont to say.



The series as a whole exercised a strange fascination over me and my contemporaries. The main reason I felt compelled to visit the 5,000-year-old Newgrange tomb in Ireland in the late 1980s was as a result of having seen those haunting pictures of the light breaking into its dusty interior at Winter solstice dawn in Episode 8: "The Riddle of the Stones". It did not disappoint.



There were strange stories of poltergeists, lake monsters, missing apemen, and - perhaps best of all - Episode 7: "The Great Siberian Explosion", about the then-not-so-well-known Tunguska event of 1908. A great deal of original footage from the the 1930 Kulik expedition to the site was assembled very usefully here, which makes it, still, one of the best accounts of this particularly weird occurrence to date.



In retrospect, it must have been the sheer wet blanket effect of his relentless scepticism which made the series so memorable. If it can get past him, we were more-or-less subtly conditioned to think, there really must be something in it. The fact that one or two of the mysteries stumped even Clarke seemed a powerful argument for their possible validity.







Arthur C. Clarke: "Extraterrestrial relays" (Wireless World, 1945)


"inventor of the communications satellite"

Really? If you ask the question online, you'll soon discover that some doubt has been thrown on this assertion in recent years:
He wasn't the original source for the idea/actual inventor of the concept but starting with the article [above] ... he was a big proponent of the uses you could put geostationary satellites to. ...

The idea for geostationary satellites originally was published by Herman Potočnik in 1928 in his book Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums - der Raketen-Motor (The Problem of Space Travel - The Rocket Motor):
A partial translation to English, containing most of the essential chapters, was made as early as 1929 for the American magazine Science Wonder Stories and was issued in three parts (July, August and September 1929) and credited to "Captain Hermann Noordung, A.D., M.E., Berlin." The article was also published in Science Wonder Stories' sister publication Air Wonder Stories at the same time.
However, Wikipedia's article on Potočnik states the idea was "first put forward by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky."


Despite these quibbles, the Wikipedia "Communications satellite" article continues to accord Clarke the distinction:
The concept of the geostationary communications satellite was first proposed by Arthur C. Clarke, along with Vahid K. Sanadi building on work by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. In October 1945, Clarke published an article titled "Extraterrestrial Relays" in the British magazine Wireless World. The article described the fundamentals behind the deployment of artificial satellites in geostationary orbits for the purpose of relaying radio signals. Thus, Arthur C. Clarke is often quoted as being the inventor of the communications satellite and the term 'Clarke Belt' employed as a description of the orbit.
I guess the reason for belabouring the point is that there certainly was a fair measure of bigheadedness about Clarke. His later books, in particular, are full of skiting about various distinctions he's earned, asteroids he's had named after him, important people he's met ... It's hard to know, in a contest for greatest Sci-fi / Pop Science Gasbag, whether he or Asimov would gain the prize: let's call it a tie.

Unfortunately this fact can lead one to dismiss his actual importance and influence on many fields. Inventor of the Communications Satellite may be a bit of a stretch, but not by much. The problem, really, was that, like his predecessor H. G. Wells, he outlived his vogue - and the works of his maturity - by a number of decades.



Arthur C. Clarke: Selected titles


It's his early work that will endure - those brilliantly exciting, yet still scientifically plausible thrillers such as A Fall of Moondust or Rendezvous with Rama; those breathtakingly imaginative fantasies such as The City and the Stars or Childhood's End. His short stories, too, taken as a whole, combine the best slambang features of the pulp era with the more urbane prose of contemporaries such as John Wyndham or C. S. Lewis.



Arthur C. Clarke: The View from Serendip (1977)


Of the 'Big Three', it may actually be Clarke's works which will last best. The "View from Serendip" - the name of one of his many collections of reflective essays - seems to have served him well. British by birth, his intimate involvement with his place of residence, Sri Lanka, made his viewpoint not quite that of a Westerner - and the difference shows.

Perhaps I'm just sentimental, but the many happy hours I've spent reading and rereading his books makes me want to send him good thoughts wherever he may be now.



Tod Mesirow: Arthur C. Clarke (1995)






Arthur C. Clarke: Astounding Days (1989)

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke
(1917-2008)

    Series:

    A Space Odyssey:
  1. 2001: A Space Odyssey: A Novel. Based on the Screenplay by Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick. 1968 (London: Arrow Books Ltd., 1974)
  2. 2010: Odyssey Two. 1982 (London: Granada Publishing Ltd., 1983)
  3. 2061: Odyssey Three. 1987. Voyager (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997)
  4. 3001: The Final Odyssey. 1997. Voyager (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997)

  5. Rama:
  6. Rendezvous with Rama. 1972 (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1973)
  7. [with Gentry Lee] Rama: The Omnibus. The Complete Rama Story. Rendezvous with Rama; Rama II; The Garden of Rama; Rama Revealed. 1972, 1989, 1991, 1993. Gollancz (London: Orion Publishing Group, 1973)

  8. A Time Odyssey:
  9. [with Stephen Baxter] Time's Eye (2003)
  10. [with Stephen Baxter] Sunstorm (2005)
  11. [with Stephen Baxter] Firstborn (2007)

  12. Other Novels:

  13. The Lion of Comarre & Against the Fall of Night. 1948, 1953, 1968. Corgi SF Collector’s Library (London: Transworld Publishers Ltd., 1975)
  14. Prelude to Space [aka Master of Space & The Space Dreamers]. 1951 (London: Pan Books, 1954)
  15. The Sands of Mars. 1951. Sphere Science Fiction Classics (London: Sphere Books Limited, 1972)
  16. Islands in the Sky. 1952. Introduction by Patrick Moore. Puffin Books (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973)
  17. Childhood's End. 1953. Pan Science Fiction (London: Pan Books, 1973)
  18. Earthlight. 1955. Pan Science Fiction (London: Pan Books, 1973)
  19. The City and the Stars. 1956. Corgi SF Collector’s Library (London: Transworld Publishers Ltd., 1975)
  20. The Deep Range. 1957. Pan Science Fiction (London: Pan Books, 1973)
  21. A Fall of Moondust. 1961. Pan Books (London: Pan Books, 1971)
  22. Dolphin Island: A Story of the People of the Sea. 1963. Illustrated by Robin Andersen. Piccolo Science Fiction (London: Pan Books, 1976)
  23. Glide Path. 1963 (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1980)
  24. Imperial Earth: A Fantasy of Love and Discord. 1975 (London: Pan Books, 1977)
  25. The Fountains of Paradise. 1979 (London: Pan Books, 1980)
  26. The Songs of Distant Earth. 1986. Grafton Books (London: Collins, 1987)
  27. [with Gentry Lee] Cradle (1988)
  28. [with Gregory Benford] Beyond the Fall of Night (1990)
  29. The Ghost from the Grand Banks. 1990. An Orbit Book (London: Macdonald & Co. Publishers Ltd., 1991)
  30. The Hammer of God (1993)
  31. [with Mike McQuay] Richter 10 (1996)
  32. [with Michael P. Kube-McDowell] The Trigger (1999)
  33. [with Stephen Baxter] The Light of Other Days (2000)
  34. [with Frederik Pohl] The Last Theorem (2008)

  35. Stories:

  36. Expedition to Earth. 1953 (London: Sphere Books, 1968)
  37. Reach for Tomorrow (New York: Ballantine Books, 1956)
  38. Venture to the Moon (1956)
  39. Tales from the White Hart. 1957 (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1973)
  40. The Other Side of the Sky. 1958. Corgi SF Collector’s Library (London: Transworld Publishers Ltd., 1974)
  41. Tales of Ten Worlds. 1962. Corgi Books (London: Transworld Publishers Ltd., 1971)
  42. The Nine Billion Names of God (1967)
  43. Of Time and Stars (1972)
  44. The Wind from the Sun: Stories of the Space Age. 1972. A Signet Book. New American Library, 1973)
  45. The Lost Worlds of 2001 (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1972)
  46. The Best of Arthur C. Clarke 1937-1971 (London: Sphere Books Limited, 1973)
  47. The Best of Arthur C. Clarke 1937-1955 (1976)
  48. The Best of Arthur C. Clarke 1956-1972 (1977)
  49. The Sentinel (1983)
  50. Tales From Planet Earth (1990)
  51. More Than One Universe (1991)
  52. The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. 2000. Gollancz (London: Orion Publishing Group, 2001)

  53. Non-fiction:

  54. Interplanetary Flight: An Introduction to Astronautics (1950)
  55. The Exploration of Space. 1951. Rev ed. 1959. A Premier Book (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1960)
  56. The Exploration of the Moon. Illustrated by R.A. Smith (1954)
  57. The Young Traveller in Space [aka Going Into Space & The Scottie Book of Space Travel]. 1954 (1957)
  58. The Coast of Coral. Photos by Mike Wilson. Text by Arthur C. Clarke. Blue Planet Trilogy 1 (1956)
  59. The Reefs of Taprobane: Underwater Adventures around Ceylon. Photos by Mike Wilson. Text by Arthur C. Clarke. Blue Planet Trilogy 2 (1957)
  60. The Making of a Moon: The Story of the Earth Satellite Program (1957)
  61. Boy Beneath the Sea. Photos by Mike Wilson. Text by Arthur C. Clarke (1958)
  62. Voice Across the Sea (1958)
  63. The Challenge of the Space Ship: Previews of Tomorrow’s World. 1959. New York: Ballantine Books, 1961.
  64. The Challenge of the Sea (1960)
  65. The First Five Fathoms. Photos by Mike Wilson. Text by Arthur C. Clarke (1960)
  66. Indian Ocean Adventure. Photos by Mike Wilson. Text by Arthur C. Clarke (1961)
  67. Profiles of the Future: an Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible. 1962. Rev. ed. 1973 (London: Pan Books, 1976)
  68. [with the editors of Life] Man and Space (1964)
  69. Indian Ocean Treasure. Photos by Mike Wilson. Text by Arthur C. Clarke (1964)
  70. The Treasure of the Great Reef. Photos by Mike Wilson. Text by Arthur C. Clarke. Blue Planet Trilogy 3 (1964)
  71. Voices from the Sky: Previews of the Coming Space Age. 1966. London: Mayflower Books Ltd., 1969.
  72. The Promise of Space (1968)
  73. [with Robert Silverberg] Into Space: a Young Person’s Guide to Space (1971)
  74. Beyond Jupiter: The Worlds of Tomorrow. Paintings by Chesley Bonestell. Text by Arthur C. Clarke (1972)
  75. Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations. 1972. Corgi SF Collector’s Library (London: Transworld Publishers Ltd., 1973)
  76. The View from Serendip. 1977 (London: Pan Books, 1979)
  77. [with Peter Hyams] The Odyssey File. 1984. Panther Books (London: Granada Publishing Ltd., 1985)
  78. 1984, Spring: A Choice of Futures (1984)
  79. Ascent to Orbit, A Scientific Autobiography: The Technical Writings of Arthur C. Clarke (1984)
  80. 20 July 2019: Life in the 21st Century (1986)
  81. Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography (London: Victor Gollancz, 1989)
  82. How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village [aka How the World Was One: Towards the Tele-Family of Man] (1992)
  83. By Space Possessed (1993)
  84. The Snows of Olympus - A Garden on Mars (1994)
  85. Childhood Ends: The Earliest Writings of Arthur C. Clarke (1996)
  86. Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!: Collected Works 1934–1988 (1999)

  87. Edited & Introduced:

  88. [Ed.] Time Probe: The Sciences in Science Fiction (1966)
  89. [Ed.] The Coming of the Space Age: Famous Accounts of Man's Probing of the Universe (1967)
  90. [Foreword] John Fairley & Simon Welfare. Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World. 1980 (London: Collins, 1986)
  91. [Ed., with George Proctor] The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Three: The Nebula Winners 1965–1969 (1982)
  92. [Foreword] John Fairley & Simon Welfare. Arthur C. Clarke’s World of Strange Powers. 1984 (London: Collins, 1990)
  93. [Foreword] John Fairley & Simon Welfare. Arthur C. Clarke’s Chronicles of the Strange & Mysterious (London: Guild Publishing, 1987)
  94. [Afterword] Paul Preuss. Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime, Vol. 1: Breaking Strain (1987)
  95. [Afterword] Paul Preuss. Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime, Vol. 2: Maelstrom (1988)
  96. [Afterword] Paul Preuss. Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime, Vol. 3: Hide and Seek (1989)
  97. [Afterword] Paul Preuss. Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime, Vol. 4: The Medusa Encounter (1990)
  98. [Afterword] Paul Preuss. Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime, Vol. 5: The Diamond Moon (1990)
  99. [Ed.] Project Solar Sail (1990)
  100. [Afterword] Paul Preuss. Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime, Vol. 6: The Shining Ones (1991)
  101. [Foreword] John Fairley & Simon Welfare. Arthur C. Clarke’s A-Z of Mysteries: From Atlantis to Zombies. Foreword by Arthur C. Clarke (London: Book Club Associates, 1993)
  102. [Introduction] Gentry Lee. Bright Messengers (1995)
  103. [Introduction] James Randi. An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural [aka The Supernatural A-Z: The Truth and the Lies] (1995)
  104. [Tribute] Isaac Asimov. The Roving Mind: New Edition (1997)
  105. Keith Allen Daniels, ed. Arthur C. Clarke & Lord Dunsany: A Correspondence (1998)
  106. [Foreword] David G. Stork. Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer As Dream and Reality (1998)
  107. [Foreword] Simon Welfare and John Fairley. Arthur C. Clarke's Mysteries (1998)
  108. [Foreword] Victoria Brooks, ed. Literary Trips 2: Following in the Footsteps of Fame (2001)
  109. [Foreword] Dan Richter. Moonwatcher's Memoir: A Diary of 2001: A Space Odyssey (2002)
  110. Ryder W. Miller, ed. From Narnia to A Space Odyssey: The War of Ideas Between Arthur C. Clarke and C. S. Lewis (2003)
  111. [Preface] Anthony Frewin, ed. Are We Alone?: The Stanley Kubrick Extraterrestrial Intelligence Interviews (2005)
  112. [Foreword] Dr. Gary Westfahl, ed. Science Fiction Quotations: From the Inner Mind to the Outer Limits (2005)

  113. Cinema & TV:

  114. 2001: A Space Odyssey, dir. Stanley Kubrick, writ. Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick (based on 'The Sentinel' by Arthur C. Clarke) - with Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood - (UK/USA, 1968)
  115. 2010: The Year We Make Contact, dir. & writ. Peter Hyams (based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke) - with Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, Helen Mirren, Bob Balaban, Keir Dullea - (USA, 1984)
  116. Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World, narrated by Gordon Honeycombe, prod. John Fanshawe & John Fairley, dir. Peter Jones, Michael Weigall & Charles Flynn (UK, 1980). 2-DVD set.
  117. Arthur C. Clarke’s World of Strange Powers, narrated by Anna Ford, prod. John Fairley, dir. Peter Jones, Michael Weigall & Charles Flynn (UK, 1985). 2-DVD set.
  118. Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious Universe, narrated by Carol Vorderman, prod. John Fairley, dir. Peter Jones, Michael Weigall & Charles Flynn (UK, 1994). 4-DVD set.






Arthur C. Clarke: The Collected Stories (2001)