Arthur C Clarke round 1: In The Beginning Was The Wire

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Since I find myself riding the shuttle for nearly three hours every weekday, and since I am often too ill to do any real work, I've decided to listen to every short story Arthur C Clarke ever published. At first I was determined to go in order, but since then I've been skipping around.

Each story gets my mind working.

Travel By Wire!, 1937

Years ago I read a short story by Stephen King that now seems like a revisiting of this idea, but I can't remember the name of the story. In Travel By Wire, the scientists run a guinea pig through the teleport machine and it immediately dies of shock. In Stephen's story, people are sent through the machine sedated and asleep, so that they don't consciously experience the shock of traveling. Then, of course, one character defies the warning and goes through fully awake. Chaos ensues, et cetera.

Ah yes. It was called "The Jaunt".

How We Went To Mars, 1937

Cute, in a proto-steampunk sort of way. The first people to visit Mars are a bunch of doddering old British chappies who like to smoke and play cards. Why not!

Retreat From Earth, 1938

No wikipedia entry about this one. I'm not surprised, it's not nearly as fun as the previous two.

Comments

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All episodes:

1. Jun 16, 2011: In The Beginning Was The Wire (3)
2. Jun 21, 2011: Wormholes, Plot Holes, And You (4)
3. Jul 22, 2011: Is sci-fi hi-fi, or lo-fi? (4)
4. Sep 6, 2011: Clarke On Parade (4)
5. Jan 31, 2012: When Clarkes Attack! (5)
6. Aug 29, 2012: The Clarkening! (4)
7. Sep 9, 2012: On A Clarke Day You Can Read Forever (4)
8. Oct 29, 2013: This Time, It’s Clarkesonal (6)
9. Dec 19, 2013: In France He Is Monsieur Clar-KAY (5)
10. Dec 23, 2013: Mo Clarke, Mo’ Physics Problems (5)
11. Jul 10, 2014: Eleven Clarkers Clarking (5)
12. Jul 21, 2014: Rendezvous With Drama Llama (4)
13. Aug 6, 2014: Humans Is The Crraaaziest Peoples (4)
14. Aug 24, 2014: Can't Get Enough O' Super Golden Clarke (5)
15. Jan 5, 2016: Once You Go Clarke, You Don't Give A Quark (5)
16. Feb 9, 2016: The Arthur Awakens (5)
17. Feb 22, 2016: Can't Teach An Old Clarke New Techs (5)
18. Aug 16, 2016: Arthur, Arthur, Arthur! (5)
19. Sep 19, 2016: Like A Regular Odyssey, But In Space (5)
20. Oct 27, 2016: Makin' Sci-Fi Great Again (If You Don't Mind The Sexism) (5)
21. Dec 1, 2016: The C stands for Celeritas. (Nothing can exceed the speed of Clarke.) (5)
22. Feb 17, 2017: At The End Was The Wire (5)