Songs of Distant Earth
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- For the music album by Mike Oldfield, see The Songs of Distant Earth (album)
Songs of Distant Earth is the common title of several science fiction works by Arthur C. Clarke, including a science fiction short story, a short movie synopsis, and a 1986 soft science fiction novel that all bear the same title. The rest of this article deals with the novel.
The story is centred on a rendezvous between human beings far in the future, after the destruction of the Earth, on the oceanic planet of Thalassa.
Unlike Clarke's other works, this piece focuses on characterisation and emotional development, instead of technological change. In some sense, it was written as a response to critics who attacked his writings as cold and impersonal.
In the story, humans respond to the prospect of unavoidable doom by launching a series of robot colony ships into space, to continue Earth life after the destruction of the homeworld (caused by the Sun becoming a nova). Thalassa is colonised by one such ship, but loses contact due to a natural disaster. Meanwhile, just as the predicted time of cataclysm is due to elapse, vacuum energy technology is invented to allow the construction of one near-light-speed vessel, the Magellan, which is launched to build the last colony of mankind. (Previous colony ships employed embryo space colonization, or various forms of DNA synthesis. In Magellan, a living crew is transported in cryogenic stasis.)
En route to their target, the planet Sagan 2, the Magellan makes a planned stop at planet Thalassa to replenish their worn down asteroid shield, which has been steadily chipped away by interstellar debris. A small crew is awakened to perform the repair work on the ship's ice shield. Because Thalassa has not maintained their interstellar communications antenna, they are unaware of the coming of the Magellan until its entry into the atmosphere. The novel continues by tackling the impact of this reunion, documenting the efforts of the Magellan crew to repair their ship, and most poignantly, the possibility of love amidst the barriers of distance and time.
[edit] Scientific aspects
Neither cryogenic stasis nor "induced hibernation" have yet been proven feasible for human beings. However, recent tests (2005) have shown the possibility of inducing a short term hibernation-like state on mice. [1]
Vacuum energy is a complex topic of modern physics, and the concept has repeatedly been hijacked by pseudoscientific theories. In the acknowledgements to the book, Clarke considered this a scientifically viable, if highly futuristic, propulsion technology.
The logistics of space travel at near-light speeds is also explored in the novel with some detail. The novel is also notable for featuring a Space elevator. In his introduction notes to the novel, Clarke states that he wished it to be a realistic interstellar voyage, without use of warp drives or other fantastic technologies.
[edit] Cross-media Influences
Multi-instrumentalist and composer Mike Oldfield was so moved by the novel, that he wrote an entire album based on it (see link above). Around this time, Oldfield was exploring computer game possibilities, and on UK editions of the CD album "The Songs Of Distant Earth", Oldfield included a CD-ROM multi-media interactive exploration "game" of some notable locations from the book, including the "Hibernaculum". Buried within the game is the promotional video for the album's single "Let There Be Light". The album's artwork features stills from the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM portion is only playable on Mac (not PC) computers.
The total forms "Songs" has taken as of 2005:
- the original short story, published in 1959
- a little-known 5-page movie outline, published in 1979 (Omni Magazine, vol III no 12)
- full-length novel (1986)
- original album by Mike Oldfield
- CD-ROM computer game (from the UK edition of the album)
- promotional music video: "Let There Be Light"
