Arthur C. Clarke - The Fountains of Paradise

Despite a lifetime spent reading classic science fiction, for some reason I had never read Arthur C Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise. This 1979 novels is considered one of his best and while I devoured many of his books, this one escaped me. In some ways I am glad I did not read this as a youngster. Then I tended to look for the hard science fiction in works by authors like Clarke. I was particularly fond, for instance, of the spaceship Rama and its secrets in Rendezvous with Rama, and its less successful sequels. True, The Fountains of Paradise, has its giant technological marvel, though in this case the story is much more focused on the people who create it.

The book takes the form of historical fiction, telling the deep story behind the creation of Earth's first space elevator. The book is set on a thinly veiled Sri Kanda which Clarke moves closer to the Earth's equator to make the science, and plot, work better. The elevator is conceived of by the engineer Vannevar Morgan whose earlier work includes the first bridge between Europe and Africa. Morgan's proposal to build an elevator is denied by the religious monks who live on the island's tallest peak. But in a framing story going back into the ancient past Clarke cleverly sets up a reason for the monk's to move, leaving Morgan free to build his tower.

There's no doubt that this is Clarke's greatest work. The three linked stories each need the others in order to work, but in many ways they all deal with the creation of marvels - the first is the building of a giant pleasure garden, the other with the bringing of Earth into a galactic empire. But it is the main story, which frames the building of the space elevator through the story of Morgan's life that is the most poignant. Here Clarke returns to the classic idea that technological development is inseparable from humanity's progress. Morgan exemplifies the urge for humans to push outward to the planets and stars. The reader hears little about the other challenges on Earth - poverty and hunger perhaps - these are neglected for a wider story of progress. But nonetheless Clarke makes Morgan's story a good metaphor for human technological development.

That said readers in the 21st century will be amused by the technology itself. Clarke was a renowned futurologist, who made many predictions and came up with some breakthrough scientific ideas. Here he imagines a space elevator and his character uses technology that mirrors the internet, even to the extent of google news alerts. But there's still only one terminal per house! 

I enjoyed The Fountains of Paradise a great deal. It is a classic of 1970s science fiction, and probably deserves a suitable film version. It is one of the few classic science fiction novels from this era were the characters are not blurred out by the big science object, and retain a real humanity.

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