Arthur C Clarke - Venus Prime - Paul Preuss - Volume I

335 Pages·2016·22.77 MB·English

by  Clarke Arthur C

A R T H U R C . C L A R K E ’ S
VENUS PRIME
Arthur C. Clarke is the world-renowned author of such science
fiction classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey, for which he shared
an Oscar nomination with director Stanley Kubrick, and its pop-
ular sequels, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, and
3001: Final Odyssey; the highly acclaimed The Songs of Distant
Earth; the bestselling collection of original short stories, The
Sentinel; and over two dozen other books of fiction and non-
fiction. He received the Marconi International Fellowship in
1982. He resides in Sri Lanka, where he continues to write and
consult on issues of science, technology, and the future.
PAUL PREUSS
Paul Preuss began his successful writing career after years of
producing documentary and television films and writing screen-
plays. He is the author of thirteen novels, including Secret
Passages and the near-future thrillers Coreand Starfire. His non-
fiction has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles
Times, New York Newsday, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Besides writing, he has been a science consultant for several
film companies. He lives near San Francisco, California.
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ARTHUR C. CLARKE’S
VENUS
PRIME
1
V O L U M E
P A U L P R E U S S
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Kristina Anderson, San Francisco artist and
bookbinder, for an introduction to the bookmaker’s craft.
Carol Dawson, writer, and Lenore Coral, librarian at Cornell,
refreshed my memories of London in general and Sotheby’s
in particular. My daughter, Mona Helen Preuss, slogged
through old auction catalogues at the library of the University
of California and Berkeley. The staff of the rare-book room
of the San Francisco Public Library were customarily, anony-
mously, efficient and helpful. Thanks to them all, and let them
be reassured that my mistakes are my own.
—Paul Preuss

Introduction
by ARTHUR C. CLARKE
U
nlike some authors, I have not generally been
given to collaborative work in the science fiction
area, especially in regard to my novels which, for
the most part, have been written alone. There have been,
however, some notable exceptions. In the 1960s, I worked
with director Stanley Kubrick onthe mostrealisticSFfilm
done to that time, an ambitious little project called 2001:
A Space Odyssey. Over a decade and a half later, I had
another close encounter with a Hollywood directornamed
Peter Hyams, who produced and directed the visually im-
pressive adaptation of my sequel, 2010.
Both films were rewarding experiences, and I found
myselfbothsurprisedanddelightedbysomeoftheresults.
Now I find myself once again involved in an intriguing
collaborative venture that has evolved from my original
story, Breaking Strain.
The novella (horrid word!) Breaking Strainwaswritten
in the summer of 1948, while I was taking my belated
degree at King’s College, London. My agent, Scott Mere-
dith, then in his early twenties, promptly sold it to Thrill-
ing Wonder Stories; it can be more conveniently located
inmyfirstcollectionofstories,ExpeditiontoEarth(1954).
Soon after Breaking Strain appeared, some perceptive
critic remarked that I apparently aspired to be the Kipling
of the Spaceways. Even if I was not conscious of it, that
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VENUS PRIME
was certainly a noble ambition—especially as I never
imagined that the dawn of the Space Age was only nine
years ahead.
And if I may be allowed to continue the immodest
comparison, Kipling made two excellentattemptstobeing
the Clarke of the Air Age; see ‘‘With the Night Mail’’ and
‘‘As Easy As ABC.’’ The ABC, incidentally, stands for Aer-
ial Board of Control.
Oh,yes,BreakingStrain.Theoriginalstoryisofcourse
now slightly dated, thoughnotasmuchasIhadexpected.
In any case, that doesn’t matter; the kind of situation it
describesisonewhichmusthaveoccurredcountlesstimes
in the past and will be with us—inevermoresophisticated
forms—as long as the human race endures.
Indeed, the near-catastrophe of the 1970 Apollo 13
mission presents some very close parallels. I still have
hanging up on my wall the first page of the mission sum-
mary, on which NASA Administrator Tom Paine haswrit-
ten: ‘‘Just as you always said it would be, Arthur.’’
But the planet Venus, alas, has gone; my friend Brian
Aldiss neatly summed up our sense of loss in the title of
his anthology Farewell, Fantastic Venus...
Where are the great rivers and seas, home of gigantic
monsters that could provide a worthy challenge to heroes
intheEdgarRiceBurroughsmold?(Yes,ERBmadeseveral
visits there, when Mars got boring.) Gone with the
thousand-degree-Farenheit wind of sulphuric acid va-
por...
Yet all is not lost. Though no human beings may ever
walk the surface of Venus as it is today, in a few centu-
ries—or millennia—we may refashion the planet nearer to
the heart’s desire. The beautiful Evening Star may become
the twin of Earth that we once thought it to be, and the
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VENUS PRIME
remote successors of Star Queen will ply the spaceways
between the worlds.
Paul Preuss, who knows about all these things, has
cleverly updated my old tale and introduced some ele-
ments of which I never dreamed (though I’m amazed to
see that The Seven Pillars of Wisdom was in the original;
when I read the new text, I thought that was Paul’s in-
vention). Although I deplore the fact that crime stories
have such a universal attraction, I suppose that somebody
will still be trying to make a dishonest buck selling life
insurance the day before the Universe collapses into the
final Black Hole.
It is also an interesting challenge combining the two
genres of crime and science fiction, especially as some
experts have claimed that it’s impossible. (My sole contri-
bution here is ‘‘Trouble with Time’’; and though I hate to
say so, Isaac What’s-His-Name managed it superbly in his
Caves of Steel series.)
Now it’s Paul’s turn. I think he’s done a pretty good
job.
—ArthurC. Clarke
Columbo,Sri Lanka
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