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Arthur C. Clarke
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The Space Trilogy: @@Islands in the Sky@@@@ @@Earthlight@@@@ @@The Sands of Mars@@ Paperback – January 1, 2001

by Clarke Arthur C. (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 36 ratings
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Islands in the Sky, first published in 1954, sees Roy Malcolm winning a trip to the Inner Station, a space station rotating 500 miles from Earth. The Sands of Mars, set in the 21st century, has a group of pioneers struggling to change the face of this inhospitable planet. In Earthlight, two centuries hence, man has colonised the planets and the inhabitants of the Moon owe no allegiance to any nation on Earth - or to Earth itself . . . This omnibus edition of three of Arthur C. Clarke's early novels shows the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey exploring space and time in adventurous and thoughtful ways.
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  1. Language
    English
  2. Publisher
    Orion Pub Co
  3. Publication date
    January 1, 2001
  4. Dimensions
    6.34 x 1.38 x 7.83 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    1857987802
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1857987805
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Arthur C. Clarke was born in Minehead in 1917. During the Second World War he served as a radar instructor for the RAF, rising to the rank of flight-lieutenant. After the war, he entered King’s college, London taking, in 1948, his Bsc in physics and mathematics with first class honours.One of the most respected of all science-fiction writers, he has won Kalinga Prize, the Aviation Space-Writers’ Prize and the Westinghouse Science Writing Prize. He also shared an Oscar nomination with Stanley Kubrick for the screenplay of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was based on his story, ‘The Sentinel’. He has lived in Sri Lanka since 1956.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orion Pub Co (January 1, 2001)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1857987802
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1857987805
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.34 x 1.38 x 7.83 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 36 ratings

About the author

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Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke

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SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE (1917-2008) wrote the novel and co-authored the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey. He has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and he is the only science-fiction writer to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His fiction and nonfiction have sold more than one hundred million copies in print worldwide.

Photo by en:User:Mamyjomarash (Amy Marash) (en:Image:Clarke sm.jpg) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
36 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Bit Twiddler
5.0 out of 5 stars Three is better
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2017
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Great compilation of three of Clarke's early works. It has been years since we have read them but found the same enjoyment reading them now as the first time. He was a great storyteller.
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Andrew McCaffrey
4.0 out of 5 stars 1950s: A Space Trilogy
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2009
THE SPACE TRILOGY is a collection of three of Arthur C. Clarke's early novels. Long before  2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY  (1968) and  RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA  (1972), Clarke wrote THE SANDS OF MARS (1951), ISLANDS IN THE SKY (1952) and EARTHLIGHT (1955). Apart from the publishing history of these books, the theme of this collection is the fictionalization of Earth's future space exploration (which was, of course, also a theme of virtually Clarke's entire body of work).

 ISLANDS IN THE SKY

In the near future where Earth has several orbiting space stations, a teenager finagles a trip onto one of them by winning a TV quiz show and then demanding a very literal interpretation of the contest's rules. Once on board he experiences a variety of relatively minor adventures which serve to demonstrate Clarke's view of how space travel would work rather than existing to provide tension or drama.

In his introduction Arthur C. Clarke states that he wrote this book specifically for the juvenile market but hoped that only the age of the protagonist would betray that. Unfortunately, I would disagree with Clarke's assessment, although this isn't a bad work at all. It certainly feels like something aimed at preteens and by the end of the story, it's hard to ignore the fact that very little actually happened.

As something that was deliberately written as pro-space exploration propoganda, ISLANDS barely succeeds, but isn't particular interesting as a piece of fiction. It's only down to Clarke's writing skills that it comes across as something better than simply a dry, speculative lecture. The success of the space program in the decades since the original publication do rob the book of a lot of its impact.

3 of 5 stars

 THE SANDS OF MARS

In this story, Earth's Martian colonies are still in their infancy. To help maintain funding and support from an increasingly skeptical Earth, a science fiction author rockets to Mars and begins writing essays and reports for consumption at home. Naturally, during his stay on Mars he uncovers a conspiracy which has the potential to alter the balance of power in the solar system.

The plot and story of this book are incredibly slow-moving. However, this would appear to be deliberate as -- once again -- Clarke is more interested in world building and speculating about future colonies than spending time on detailed and intricate plot twists. Again, in the hands of a lesser writer, this could have been a painful experience. But Clarke manages to create an engaging book where the Martian colony is an interesting focal point (if not the actual characters who make it up).

3 of 5 stars

 EARTHLIGHT

The concept of a human Federation of Planets, is something that has appeared countless times in science fiction stories. However, unlike many other such stories, here the Federation exists as a union of human colonies who form a bond as a counterweight against the much more powerful Earth. Spies and counterspies are infiltrating both parties in an attempt to uncover each side's secret attempts to gain a technological upper hand.

While the first two stories were interesting curiosities which gave the reader insight into Clarke's early style, EARTHLIGHT was something that I genuinely enjoyed as a story in its own right. In this, the author was able to combine marry his speculation of future history and an intriguing, exciting plot. This was by far my favorite of the three.

4 of 5 stars

THE SPACE TRILOGY is an interesting collection. While it's almost certainly aimed at the die-hard Arthur C. Clarke fans who would love to obtain some of his more obscure novels, general science fiction fans will also get something out of it. It's an fascinating look at where science fiction was in the early to mid 1950s with the usual unabashedly pro-science viewpoint and scientist, professor and researcher characters we would later come to expect from Arthur C. Clarke.
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Jacqueline Phillips
1.0 out of 5 stars Islands in the Sky - really bad
Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2022
I don't often find a book to be so bad that I am compelled to write a review in the hope of saving others a waste of time and money. There is not a single way that this book could be worse. There is not a miniscule chance of something like this being published today. Let me save you from wasting your time and money - a boy wins a competition. he goes to the space station, then he comes back to earth. Now you too know the entire plot. Plot? What plot? The only way the pace is driven is by dropping lazy spoilers along the way that keep promising excitment, or at the very least interest, and all those promises are false. Maybe if I was six years old it may have had enough to hold my interest, but this must be the most boring, dull, flat, badly written book I have ever read. I loved Space Odessy and Rama, I find it impossible to believe that they were written by the same person.
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Top reviews from other countries

lussrippinger
5.0 out of 5 stars good service
Reviewed in Germany on November 30, 2018
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ok
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N
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 7, 2017
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Old, old Science Fiction. My late fathers collection fascinated me from a very early age .......glorious!
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H.S
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2015
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As advertised.
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Senna
5.0 out of 5 stars Dankeschön!
Reviewed in Germany on January 12, 2013
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I am very pleased with the delivery time, packaging and condition of the product.
I will definitely purchase again.
Thank you.
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robert
4.0 out of 5 stars "Earthlight" and "Sands of Mars" are great, avoid "Islands in the sky"
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2016
Verified Purchase
"Islands in the sky" is better ignored, the other two are excellent. Earthlight, here in the full novel version rather than the short story that clarke wrote some time earlier, is a great story. It's portrayal of the lunar environment is somewhat dated now, but when it was written they didn't know that dust pits were not real. The rest of the science is accurate and is used to produce some great plot twists. The novel chronicles the ket events of a short war between earth and some of it's planetary colonies, told from the perspective of a man sent up to the monn on a counter espionages mission, after that war is over the last chapter reveals the answer to the big mystery of who the spy was and how he was doing it.

"The sands of mars" is also good, primarily in it's part about the space flight from earth to mars, but it's quite good once it's on the surface too. It is clear that Clarke not only researched the science behind this story (although obviously it was written before probe exploration of mars began so the mars it describes is not excatly the mars we know) but also knew quite a few scientists, the description and portrayal of some of the characters towards the start of the novel is one of the most accurate I had ever seen, it felt like he was describing people I knew. If you just pretend that this novel is about some other world than mars then it is very enjoyable.

"Islands in the sky" is not very good. Although famous for containing some of clarkes very accurate predictions about things like communictions in geostationary orbit it's not a great novel at all. I believe that this story was originally serialised and it really shows here. The events jump from one thing to another, each little thing resolving itself in about a chapter before creating a cliffhanger for the next chapter. All the events are quite separate, they're a random list of situations that the key character gets caught up in on his tour of the space stations.
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