A total disaster.

It’s the 22nd Century and a number of bodies in the solar system have been colonised. Now war is brewing between Earth and the federated planets. The hero is a chartered accountant called Sadler. He wanted to retrain as a lion tamer but the powers that be turned him instead into a counter-espionage agent. He’s sent to the moon to sniff out a spy. His cover is that he is a chartered accountant come to do the colony’s books.

The level of day-to-day technology is less advanced than ours today. It’s also less advanced than might reasonably have been imagined in 1955. Clarke may have done this to make the climax more impressive, but if so it’s a massive tactical error. They have radio. They have computers that have ‘ left far behind such elementary operations as integration’. And then we have this:

‘Jamieson was still wiping developer from his hands when he arrived. After more than 300 years, certain aspects of photography were quite unchanged. Wheeler, who thought that everything could be done by electronics, regarded many of his older friend’s activities as survivals from the age of alchemy.’

By the time this novel was written the first digital video had already been made. Two years later the first digital photograph would be taken. But let’s set aside the ridiculousness of needlessly exporting development chemicals to the moon because this is the moment the novel begins to fall apart. If they have electronic storage and the means to transmit, why are they writing their accounts down on bits of paper and keeping them in filing cabinets? Surely they would put them in the computer and transmit them to earth. The entire reasoning behind Sadler’s cover story is now in a state of collapse.

This is the least of Sadler’s problems as it quickly becomes apparent that Clarke has literally no idea how to write a spy thriller. We are treated instead to scenes of him having something to eat and going for a swin.

But Sadler needn’t worry because as it turns out this plot – ie the main plot – has literally no connection to the events of the novel. I’m not kidding. I don’t understand how things could go this wrong.

There is a story in here. The main character is a spy. He has critical information that must get to the Federation’s fleet. We would know what that information is and his motives for sending it. Sadler is his antagonist.

The second plotline is Brennan and the fleet. Probably he has his kid with him and he has to get them back to his ex-wife to prove he’s not a dead-beat dad.

The third plotline is Steffanson and his mad dash to Project Thor in the nick of time. You can also keep Jamieson and Wheeler in the crevice.

Now you have POVs for the battle at the base, with the fleet, in Project Thor, and a third person POV from the Mare.

Copyright Lukerik 2023. There’s been some interest from Roland Emmerich. ( )

Iako roman pati od zastarelosti, krasi ga realistican scenario u kome se planeta Zemlja sukobljava sa svojim kolonijama oko resursa. Kao i obicno, Klark je veoma detaljan oko naucno-tehnickih aspekata price i daje realistican prikaz fizike svemira. Moderan citalac i dalje moze da nauci dosta toga iz ovog romana stoga mu sa lakocom dodeljujem 4 zvezdice. ( )

Clarke, Arthur C. Earthlight. 1955. Introduction by Stephen Baxter. Orbit, 2019.
Earthlight is a book that stands up well after almost seventy years from its first magazine publication. Later writers are still reworking its story of scientists living on the moon being coopted into an interplanetary conflict that mirrors terrestrial geopolitical conflict. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Moon (2018) and Michael Weir’s Artemis (2017) come immediately to mind. The theme of colonial revolt in a near-future solar system also powered much of James S. A. Corey’s Expanse series. One can still appreciate the cleverness of some of Clarke’s scientific speculations, though some are outdated. Venus, for example, is not likely to be the site of much near-future colonization. It is too bad the place does not really have a tropical environment. Clarke is not usually a writer whose stories can be said to be character-driven, but the three main characters in Earthlight are believable. There is Sadler, a nerdish accountant, a newbie on the Moon, who is also an intelligence agent. His struggles to do both his jobs while trying to acclimate to low gravity are fun to observe. Jamieson and Wheeler are two working stiff astronomers who chat entertainingly as they speed their lunar rover over the dangerous regolith. Finally, Earthlight is a wonderfully evocative title. No wonder the Apollo 15 astronauts named a crater in its honor. 4 stars. ( )

Some brilliant imagery of the moon in Clarke's inimitable style. Great battle sequence to finish one of his early works. ( )

While tensions simmer between Earth and its colonies on Mars, Venus, and some of Saturn's moons (collectively known as the Federation), Earth intelligence agent Bertram Sadler travels to the moon observatory in search of a spy leaking information to the Federation.

Working undercover as a cost accountant performing a financial audit of the observatory, Sadler gains access to all departments and staff members—who at first greet him with suspicion. Over time, Sadler builds a list of top suspects while both the Earth and the Federation create weapons of mass destruction in a prelude to war.

The first half of Earthlight is slow and plodding as Sadler meets various members of the observatory's staff and is schooled on various as aspects of their operations and of astronomy. The only two interesting plot points are the unannounced landing of government ships in an area of the moon normally off-limits, and the two astronomers who decide to venture out in a vehicle to investigate.

The tension in the story begins to build in the second half when the observatory receives a communication warning the staff to dismantle critical equipment and take shelter underground. A war is coming, one that will decide who has control of the moon's abundant supply of heavy metals deep within its core. ( )