- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Orion; New edition edition (1 Sep 1988)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0575043164
- ISBN-13: 978-0575043169
- Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 10.8 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 655,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Imperial Earth
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Product Description
Product Description
The year is 2276. On the world of Titan, an outer planet of Saturn, Duncan Mackenzie and many other colonists are about to leave their homeland for bicentennial celebrations on Earth. But for Duncan, the journey is also a delicate mission for himself, his family and the future of Titan.
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First Sentence
Duncan Makenzie was ten years old when he found the magic number. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Duncan Makenzie was ten years old when he found the magic number. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Upon reading Imperial Earth, I could not help but think of how 2001 the book and the movie were so different - and that this book, written shortly after the movie premiere was in many ways a second try for Clarke to bring life to Saturn.
Though that doesn't deter the quality of the book at all.
Clarke introduces time-old experiences of life in a colony against a vast, yet remote empire - paralleled mildly to the three hundred year ago colonization of the Americas by the Britsh empire. In Imperial Earth, these ideas of colonization are reminded over and over again - from the comminque and travel time difference from Titan to Earth, to the sheer isolation that Titan has as a community within our solar system.
The part I enjoyed was Duncan's time while on Earth. I especially like the company Enigma - makes me wish we had a company like them now!
On whole, Imperial Earth is an enjoyable read, enough to spend an afternoon with, but not deep enough that you will live with it long after you read the final decisions that Duncan has to make.
Format:Paperback
This is a very solid sci-fi novel, a scenario of the future that is complex and unpredictable. It is not about swashbuckling adventure, but paints a vivid picture of a future world with absolutely wonderful details, from the hand-held computing device that records every moment of your entire life - if you can find where you filed it, such as a strange howling on the moon's surface that the narritor hears- to the neural stimulator that functions as a kind of drug, permanently altering the brain in unforeseen ways. It also brings in cloning as an issue as well as the economics of supporting a colony far far away from Earth, all with systematic musings that completely surpass normal sci-fi standards. WHile these aspects may sound fantastical, they are woven in to a rather mundane story that drags a bit in the middle, but winds down to a surprise at the end.
Recommended. Clarke was one of the absolute best. He will be missed.
Recommended. Clarke was one of the absolute best. He will be missed.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
20 reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Entertaining but Meandering
18 July 2003
Format:Mass Market Paperback
If you want to start reading the works of Arthur C. Clarke, one of the 20th century's great visionairies, you can do worse than this one, but you could also do better. This work is basically the Earth of 2276 as seen through the eyes of an outsider. A lot of what he sees is remarkable and quite plausible, and the cast of characters is generally likeable. Like many Clarke novels, there is little in the way of conflict here - Clarke is not one for hero vs. villain - but unlike Childhood's End or 2001 or Rendevous with Rama, there is no sense of grandeur either. There are just a lot of incidents that just barely add up to something more.
Still, Clarke's unusual approach to writing - he is the only novelist who writes in stle of an essayist - and his appealing vision of a mature secular utopian Earth still works after seeing it often. Fans of dystopias are best advised to stay home. Fans of a happy tomorrow, where everyone is well-fed and sexually liberated and needs nothing more than a nice vacation, are invited in.
If you care for this, I recommend you move onto to his somewhat more action-oriented Rama and then to his masterowrk, Childhood's End.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Lackluster collection of notes about popular science seasoned with rudimentary human interest
16 Feb 2009
Format:Paperback
What happened to Arthur C. Clarke in 1975? The masterful author of short stories from the 1940s and 50s created a confused mess titled "Imperial Earth" in 1975. In this novel, Clarke displays his poorly-concealed desire to appear as something other than a science-fiction writer: namely, a mover-and-shaker of science and technology. This unfortunate tendency appears throughout Clarke's later work. Who cares that Clarke once spoke to Neil Armstrong (note to chapter 21)? I can't put my finger on when, exactly, Arthur Clarke digressed from the creation of superbly crafted fiction into the monotonous exposition of dull popular science, but "Imperial Earth" appears, to me, to be the epitome of this digression.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Disappointing. Poor effort. Why was this book written?
17 Jan 2006
Format:Hardcover
Imperial Earth seems like a book written to fulfill a contractual obligation. As I read this book I kept getting the feeling that Clarke had collected various notes he had written for ideas and tried to make a book out of them without much further effort. This is a very shallow book. Characters were poorly developed, and the story meandered with no purpose. At the end of the book I wondered why Clarke had introduced many (most?) of the characters and settings.
Imperial Earth includes descriptions of Titan, where people live mostly underground but can go on the surface with oxygen and a thin thermosuit. The trip to Earth wasn't especially interesting. Descriptions of future Earth were given little historical background. Cultural changes were simply stated rather than explained.
Way too many blanks were left for the reader to fill in. You might as well write your own book instead.
Imperial Earth includes descriptions of Titan, where people live mostly underground but can go on the surface with oxygen and a thin thermosuit. The trip to Earth wasn't especially interesting. Descriptions of future Earth were given little historical background. Cultural changes were simply stated rather than explained.
Way too many blanks were left for the reader to fill in. You might as well write your own book instead.
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