Re: Arthur C. Clarke question

"Chris Thompson" <cet1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:frc5ap$fok$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In article <Xns9A608BF29ECFCgenewardsmithsbcglob@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Gene Ward Smith  <gene@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>Sean O'Hara <seanohara@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in news:63thsgF292gujU1
>>@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>> "Against the Fall of Night" was the first novel Clarke wrote, and he
>>> was unhappy with how it turned out, so when he felt he'd learned
>>> enough of the craft, he went back to rewrite and expand it into "The
>>> City and the Stars".
>>>
>>
>>Of course, he forgot he was supposed to improve it.
>
> My, we are in a grumpy mood this year, aren't we?
>
> I don't think there is any clear concensus about which is the better
> version. Most people seem to prefer the one they read first. That's
> true for me, and it was tCatS. I didn't read AtFoN until many years
> later, and found the differences interesting, but I'm fairly sure
> that it wouldn't have made the impression[*] on me that tCatS did,
> if only because Diaspar's Central Computer was a big hit with me
> and is much less developed as an entity in the earlier work.
>
> [*] I've said before that tCatS was the turning point for me as
> regards reading SF. Of course, it was the Golden Age [OK, plus a
> couple of years - I must have been a late developer]. Little did
> I know that I would still be reading the stuff forty-mumble years
> later ...
>
> -- 
> Chris Thompson
> Email: cet1 [at] cam.ac.uk

Re Clarke's work, seems to me, he wrote *three* of
those stories that were alike:

The Lion of Comarre;

The City and the Stars;

Against the Fall of Night.

I read those long ago.  I don't know what their
publication order is; but seems to me I read
Against the Fall of Night first; and it has
always stood #1 of the three in my preference.

Titeotwawki -- mha    [rasff 2008 Mar 13]