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

335 Pages·2016·22.77 MB·English
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Preview Arthur C Clarke - Venus Prime - Paul Preuss - Volume I

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. ibooks SCIENCE FICTION AVAILABLE NOW The Deceivers by Alfred Bester Isaac Asimov’s Robot City: Volume 1 by Michael P. Kube-McDowell and Mike McQuay Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2: The Novelization by Kevin Eastman and Stan Timmons COMING SOON Arthur C. Clarke’s Venus Prime: Volume 2 by Paul Preuss The Computer Connection by Alfred Bester Isaac Asimov’s Robot City: Volume 2 by William F. Wu and Arthur Byron Cover Share your thoughts about these and other ibooks titles in the new ibooks virtual reading group at www.ibooksinc.com ARTHUR C. CLARKE’S VENUS PRIME 1 V O L U M E P A U L P R E U S S ibooks new york www.ibooksinc.com DISTRIBUTED BY SIMON & SCHUSTER, INC. An Original Publication of Pocket Books Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Text and artwork copyright © 1999 by Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc. Arthur C. Clarke’s Venus Primeis a trademark of Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc. Published by arrangement with Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc. An ibooks, inc. Book All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Distributed by Simon and Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 ibooks, inc. 24 West 25thStreet New York, NY 10010 The ibooks World Wide Web Site Address is: http://www.ibooksinc.com ISBN 0-671-03888-5 First Pocket Books printing September 1999 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Cover art by Jim Burns Cover design by Claude Goodwin and Dean Motter Interior design by Michael Mendelsohn and MM Design 2000, Inc. Printed in the U.S.A. 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 1 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 2 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 3

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