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Page 104
for the decade amounted to this: one novel expanded from a 1958 story, two sequels to 2001 (whose germ of course dates from "The Sentinel" of 1951), and Cradle, a collaboration with NASA scientist Gentry Lee which was originally conceived as a movie project, and indeed bears a striking resemblance to the Disney feature Cocoon (. . .)
It was the Lee collaboration, however, that most prompted foreboding, especially when trade papers announced in 1989 that Clarke agreed to write three more collaborations with Lee, the first of which would be that project Clarke had long resisted, a sequel to Rendezvous with Rama. (. . .)
Rama II (out in time for Christmas 1989) was the opening salvo of this publisher's dream. At 420 pages, it was by far the longest novel Clarke had ever writtensave for Cradle. Clarke had always been a spare writer, and his novels of the 1980s had not, like those of some of his peers, grown steadily longer to accommodate changing fashions. Readers may welcome Clarke's newfound prolificity, even with the proviso of collaboration with this very junior partner. They should be warned: there is good reason to hold the gravest doubts as to the extent of Clarke's contribution to this exploitative and amateurishly-written book. (. . .)
Stylistic clumsiness aside, the sensibility of the book is simply not that of Arthur C. Clarke, nor is it one to which he might plausibly have made a major contribution. The handling of religious matters is simply the most obvious area: Clarke is a famously secular atheist, while Rama II was evidently written by a Roman Catholic. (. . .)
I cannot imagine any lover of Clarke's fiction who would not feel cheated by this sub-contracting job (which Clarke presumably helped on the plotting and discussion stage). If I had paid for my copy, I would be in a rage.
Gregory Feeley, "Partners in Plunder; or, Rendezvous with Manna," Foundation No. 49 (Summer 1990): 5960
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Terence Holt
In Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End (1953), children provide a (. . .) screen for a desire that becomes explicitly apocalyptic. Hiding behind its attempts to evade responsibility for this desire is an equally powerful wish to be the agent of apocalypse. In Clarke's novel, the structure of evasion involves a race of aliens that intervenes in human history to prevent atomic war. But this intervention simply relocates the familiar mislocation: under the aliens' tutelage, it is childrenall of the children in the worldwho obliterate Earth. The narrative tries to view

 
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