Thursday, November 15, 2007

Arthur C. Clarke's "Reverie": A short essay, rather than a story, with sf authors as audience

Well - I picked it up thinking it's a story!

His primary argument is: a huge number of great stories can be spun out of recycled plots. Don't worry if you cannot come up with an original plot. There are other things that can produce a good story - "characterisation and the ability to treat a commonplace theme in your own individual style."

But I am not an author. The only things I found interesting were two authors he considers innovative - (Stanley?) Weinbaum & (William Olaf?) Stapledon. And three stories he considers as breaking new ground:

  1. "The Smile of the Sphinx" (by William F Temple?)
  2. "The Human Termites" (by David H Keller?)
  3. Eric Frank Russell's "Sinister Barrior": I've read this & didn't like.
I will be probably checking out these authors & stories.

First published: "New Worlds", Autumn 1939.

Collected in.

  1. "Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"

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