Saturday, May 5, 2007

"Expedition to Earth" (collection): Annotated table of contents

This is generally a good collection - many really good stories here.

Here is the complete list of all the 11 stories in this collection by Arthur C Clarke:

  1. "Second Down": The making of a symbiotic culture of cattle & hominids on an alien world, with cattle as masters.
  2. "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth": All humans are dead after a nuclear war, & earth's surface is radio active. Only survivors are a small group of pioneers that were on moon at the time of the event. They must preserve the legend of earth.
  3. "Breaking Strain": Only one of the two men can live. Who should? Who will? This story has also been published under the title "Thirty Seconds Thirty Days".
  4. "Expedition to Earth": This is not a new story. Depending on publication, it is either "History Lesson" or "Encounter at Down". To make things even more confusing, "Encounter at Down" is also sometimes published as "Encounter in the Down".
  5. "Superiority": Humor. How not to deploy new technology.
  6. "Exile of the Eons" (also called "Nemesis"): Socrates meets Hitler in a far off time!
  7. "Hide and Seek": A sole man is on the run on Phoboes, a Martian moon. He is being hunted by a well armed military unit. Will he be able to outwit his pursuers?
  8. "Encounter at Down" (also known as "Encounter in the Down"): Aliens land on earths with intention to advance early humans technologically. But have to leave in a hurry, without helping.
  9. "Loophole": Humor. Aliens bar earthlings from developing rockets, & get the surprised!
  10. "Inheritance": Two accidents during lift off - involving manned rocket launches.
  11. "The Sentinel" (also called "Sentinel of Eternity"): Aliens watching the development of intelligent life on earth have left a beacon on moon.
PS: I haven't personally seen this book; list of stories above was picked up from the net. I include this collection here because it contains many stories I have reviewed from other collections; so I can point to this collection also from specific stories.

No comments: