2276, Earth is celebrating the quincentennial of the United States.

Representatives from each of the inhabited outposts of humanity through the solar system have been invited.

Titan, moon of Saturn, is thus far mans furthest outpost, but one essential to the human economy. From Titans atmosphere vast quantities of hydrogen are taken and used as the fuel for all of mans current propulsion systems for space travel. Hence a colony has evolved there.

The colony is headed up by a dynasty of men all cloned from one original entrepreneur. The youngest of this triumvirate, Duncan Makensie is to go to Earth as Titans representative.

Whilst there, he will discover that all is not as it had seemed on his own world of Titan, and a childhood friend, Karl Helmer, an outstanding genius of his generation, has plans for Titan which Duncan and his family must discover, if they are to save Titan from disaster, and if Duncan is to save a cherished friendship. A web of intrigue and mystery ensues!

Can Duncan discover why Karl has secret contacts all over Earth? What is Karl doing with the vast amounts of money he is making from importing off world gemstones, on a small moon of Saturn? Can a man from Titan with virtually no gravity, even walk on Earth at all without turning into a pile of jello? These and other questions make the up the action in Imperial Earth

So much for the plot…..

This book is divided into three distinct parts. The first describes life on Titan, the second describes the journey Duncan makes to Earth, and the final part is the adventures of Duncan on the old home world, mystery and intrigue and too much gravity and everything…

At the beginning of this book, Clarke lays out for us the unlikely dynastic hierarchy of the little world. In one of the rare failures in his literature, Clarke recounts that the reason the Makensie men must clone themselves is because a radiation accident sterilized the first Makensie during his life, and this fault was passed on to his clone son!

Hmmmm….not in the cell biology classes I attended it wouldn’t be……but anyway, actually, I found it refreshing to see that a celebrated author Like Clarke feels strong enough that he has never edited this out of the story in favor of a more plausible solution.

This first part is Clarke at his best. He paints us a portrait of the future, based on entirely believable , and scientifically valid (mostly) arguments. We are give the Clarke-guided tour of mans most distant outpost in the twenty third century. Clarke vividly describes Titans extraordinary meteorological consequences of a methane-ammonia based atmosphere. We witness huge monsoons of methane gases, slowly flowing wax-lava forms made of aliphatic compounds, and mans adaptation to all of the above. Here mankind huddles underground in tunnel complexes. Clarke resists the temptation, all too frequently occurring in science fiction, to bore us with a round of people chasing each other down corridors, and instead takes time to philosophize on the culture this life would produce.

Visitors from Earth are described, and the long voyage that (in the old days at this point) was required to get to Titan. It is again to Clarkes credit that here some 25 years ago he accurately predicts some of the problems of close-quarters living of many people in the cramped conditions of space. Something anyone familiar with the apparent trials of life on the recently-defunct Mir will recognize today.

Hardly surprising, amazing creatures that we are, that we should master the physical problems of life in space, only to find that tedium and aggravation are much more difficult obstacles to overcome.

Part two, describing transit to Earth, is likewise standard Clarke…high quality speculation and excellent description, this time of life on board a spaceship in transit.

The ship in question is a new variety, much faster than anything that has gone before, powered apparently by a small singularity (this being the infinitely small and timeless blip of matter at the center of a black hole). How one achieves a small singularity, as opposed to a large one , a concept similar to a small infinite number, even Clarke leaves hanging for the readers boggled imagination, but arranges for us a tour of the inside of its working just the same, floating in zero-gee.

The passage is a fascinating piece of reading…troubled equally by his need to acclimatize to Earth Gravity, and his bunkmates sonorous snoring, Duncan takes us on a tour of the ship, we watch Saturn in all the majesty of the heavens, or try to enjoy it, as Duncan is buffeted around in what seems a frighteningly similar experience to smaller pleasure cruises I have had the misfortune to be pressed onto….endless queues for dinner sittings, and not enough bathrooms. If this is the future of space exploration, I recommend taking your own toilet paper.

Uncharacteristic of Clarke, he even dwells on the possibilities (in the best possible taste) of zero-gravity sex. His contemplations remind me of the long- touted difference between trekkers and trekkies…trekkers wonder what its like to have sex in zero gravity, whilst trekkies wonder what its like to have sex.

The final part of this book, which alas is also the longest, was much weaker. Back to Earth, Duncan shortly overcomes his gravitational disadvantages (perhaps too shortly, but again, Clarke is writing before anything much was known of this) and engages in a grand tour of the North American continent, goes, somewhat incongruously on an adventure vacation, and gradually becomes embroiled in hunting down his own childhood friend, to see why he’s importing jewels.

I have to say, this storyline is weak. What’s more, unfortunately, I found that I didn’t give a fig why he was importing jewels, and when a book loses you in that regard, it is in trouble. As it happens, Karl Helmer is actually doing something really cool on his little Saturn moon, and in case you read the book, I wont ruin it, the “thing” itself, for which all this money is being raised is spectacular. It is only sad that Clarke could find no more interesting way of having us reach that point in the story than this.

There are no details of note, so I wont spell it out in any more detail than that. There is some speculation, but here it takes a back seat, third row back, behind a thin and uninspired mystery, and a ragged tale of a man, his genetic code, and the unrequited love he has for his friends ex-woman. Clarke doesn’t do this well. He should have left it to Sidney Sheldon.

If you enjoy Arthur C Clarke, or science fiction in general, you will massively enjoy the first two parts of this book, and you’ll sort of glide downhill to the end of the book from there.

If my description of the first two parts doesn’t make you think you want to read this book, don’t read this book. I think I’m getting my point over here!

Oh well, nobody is perfect, not even the mighty Arthur Charles Clarke!!!!

One last note....Clarke himself reflects in an endnote on the slip-up with the genetic transmission of acquired characteristics…..having attempted to explain himself, he says he is now forced to ...and I quote...

“....use what has become known in the trade as the Bradbury Defense……

One dreadful boy ran up to me and said:
“That book of yours, the Martian chronicles”
“Yeah”
“ON page 92 where you have the moons of Mars rising in the East?”
“Yeah” I said.
“Nah” he said.
....so I hit him. "

Enjoy your reading.

Some of my other science fiction book reviews:

Rama Revealed
Prelude to Space
Stand on Zanzibar
The Demolished Man
The Stars my Destination
Cat's Cradle
The Gods Themselves
Watchmen
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Hammer of God
The Left Hand of Darkness
Flowers for Algernon
Lord of Light
Rendevous with Rama
The Tombs of Atuan
The Dispossessed
I am Legend
The Einstein Intersection
Earth Abides
Peace on Earth
The Farthest Shore
Methuselah's Children
A Call to Arms
To your Scattered Bodies Go
The Lion of Comarre / Against the Fall of Night
To Say Nothing of the Dog
The Doomsday Book
Frankenstein Unbound
Batman - The Dark Knight Returns
Imperial Earth
A Case of Conscience
Solaris
The Sands of Mars
The Land of Laughs
Eden
His Masters Voice
Citizen of the Galaxy
King David's Spaceship
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Double Star
The Fabulous Riverboat
Songs of Distant Earth
Way Station
The Fountains of Paradise
The Long Tomorrow
Lincolns Dreams
Alas Babylon
More Than Human
1984
The Forever War
All the Myriad Ways
I Sing the Body Electric
Gateway
Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said
This Immortal
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress


Recommended: Yes