Charlotte Nicdao Rachel as Rachel …. Cecilia Dewar Extra as Extra. Lachlan Roland-Kenn Tommy as Tommy. Michael-Anthony Taylor Janitor as Janitor. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Written by Arthur C.
Clarke and hailed as a revolutionary work of science fiction since its publishing in , Childhood's End follows the peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious "Overlords," whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia, at the cost of human identity and culture.
The true implications of the Overlords' arrival may be far more dangerous, however. Did you know Edit. User reviews Review. Top review. Science fiction meets religion meets the universe in an unlikely tale Science fiction meets religion meets the universe in an unlikely tale that is Childhoods End. Based on the work of science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke this mini series melds notions of science and religion in a clever apocalyptic tale of human evolution.
Quick Quizzes Test your knowledge of Childhood's End with quizzes about every section, major characters, themes, symbols, and more. Mini Essays Suggested Essay Topics. Further Study Go further in your study of Childhood's End with background information, movie adaptations, and links to the best resources around the web.
Suggestions for Further Reading Arthur C. Clarke and Childhood's End Background. He stowed away on an Overlord supply ship earlier in the story in a successful attempt to travel to the Overlord home planet, which he correctly guessed orbits a star of the Carina constellation.
As a physicist, Rodricks knows of the relativistic twin paradox effect: the Overlords' ships travel at a significant fraction of the speed of light, and as a result, the trip to the Overlord planet and back to Earth will only take four months in his subjective, personal time-frame, but the amount of elapsed 'objective' time will be, at minimum, 80 years, or the length of time light would take to make the similar journey, although the actual trip takes much longer.
When Rodricks returns from the Overlord home world, he expects no one on Earth will remember him, nevertheless, he is unprepared for the return: mankind, as he knew it, died. About three hundred million naked young beings, physically human but otherwise with nothing common to Man, remain on the quarantined continent. They are the final, physical form of human evolution before merging with the Overmind. Life on their continent — not only human life, but all other forms also — was exterminated by them, and the vast cities that Jan remembers are all dark.
Some Overlords remain on Earth, studying the evolved children. It also is revealed here that the Overlords have met and conditioned other races for the Overmind, and that humanity is the fifth race whose apotheosis they have witnessed.
When the evolved children have grown strong enough to mentally alter the Earth's rotation and affect other planetary adjustments, it becomes too dangerous to remain and the Overlords prepare to leave. They offer Rodricks the opportunity of leaving with them, but he chooses to remain as witness to Earth's dissolution; mankind's offspring evolved to a higher existence, requiring neither a body nor a place, so ends mankind's childhood.
The story's last scene details Karellen's final backward look at the Solar System , which becomes no more noticeable among the stars as it recedes than the loss of one small planet in the system. He is emotionally depressed, having seen yet another race evolve to the beyond, while he and his race must remain behind, limited to their current form.
Despite that, he renders a final salute to mankind, considering whether or not conditioning them for the Overmind helped his goal of deciphering the evolutionary secret for his race to merge with the Overmind. He then turns away from the view, the reader presumes, to await the Overmind's next order.
The idea of humanity reaching an end point through transformation to a higher form of existence is the main idea behind the concept of the Omega Point and of the technological singularity. The idea of self-transcendence appealed to devotees of psychedelic mind expansion , too, and Tom Wolfe would offer a quote from the novel at the conclusion of his LSD -soaked memoir The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
It is also reminiscent of the belief held by some Christians in the " Rapture ", and has been used in a number of science fiction works written since Childhood's End , the most famous being Clarke's A Space Odyssey. David Brin refers to it as stepping off in his Uplift Universe novels. Sometimes we need one more push.
It does seem that we are incapable of possessing true happiness for very long. We are designed for strife, for pain, for joy, and ambitious achievement. When any of those elements are removed from the equation, we start to falter. Joy can only be fully appreciated if we experience pain. Ambition can only be relished if strife was overcome to achieve it. As The Overlords fix all the problems, there is a huge cost, too big of a cost, in that we lose what makes us unique.
It is disappointing to think that harmony and lack of fear will turn us into beings unworthy of admiration. When defense is no longer a primary objective, it is disheartening to believe that the energy previously expended on security can not be transferred to higher levels of achievement in the arts, philosophy, music, and literature. To be the best that we can be, we still need the growl of the Sabretooth tiger coming from just beyond the edge of the firelight.
View all 80 comments. May 29, Lyn rated it it was amazing. Kurt Vonnegut said of Arthur C. Vonnegut went on to say that he, Vonnegut, had written all the others.
As humorous as that is, at least the first clause of that declaration I feel to be true. Written simply but with conviction and persuasion, with an almost fable-like narrative quality, Clarke has given to us that rarest of literary achievements: a science fiction masterpiece. I especially liked the racial memory or racial premonition ideas and the ideas of collective consciousness.
View all 24 comments. Jun 02, Matt rated it it was amazing Shelves: literature , science-fiction. I've done a lot of odd jobs over the years. At one point, back before I got my degree and I was still working to put my wife through school, I worked as a delivery driver for a company that sold construction supplies - 50 lb boxes of powdered Kool-Aid, portable generators, hammers, safety harnesses, 2x4's, circular saws.
It was one of those barely above minimum wage jobs generally populated by people who for whatever reason find themselves unable to get anything else and competing against a larg I've done a lot of odd jobs over the years. It was one of those barely above minimum wage jobs generally populated by people who for whatever reason find themselves unable to get anything else and competing against a large number of similar people where the decisive advantage is often no more than you show up everyday.
One of my colleagues was an aging chain smoking gray haired country boy missing half of his teeth and so learning disabled as to need my help with basic addition. He probably knew more about literature than many of the professors I've had, or at the least he was more interesting to talk to and his opinions were less rote. I found this out after he came in one day aglow after seeing 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'. He absolutely needed someone to talk about the experience with, and by that time I was unable to hide the fact that I was an "egghead" so I was probably the only person he knew that was qualified.
Turns out, he'd lived a rather interesting life. He was fluent in Spanish and had spent his youth working construction on hotels up and down the Central and South American coasts. And, he'd read everything. As I came to realize that this redneck knew something about books, despite as best as I could tell never completing high school, I started inquiring into his tastes. What I found remarkable was not so much that he'd read everything I'd ever read and then some, but that on those things we'd both read he shared much of the same opinion.
At some point in one of the conversations Arthur C. Clarke came up, and he said, "Well, I liked , but I really think that 'Childhood's End' is his real masterwork.
His works - even the better ones - always suffer from seeming to be short stories turned into novels. He also displays a strange combination of fascination with but complete incuriosity towards religion and spirituality that can probably be infuriating at times to the religious and non-religious alike. But this work rises above its defects and is well worth your time.
View all 33 comments. Mar 07, Mario the lone bookwolf rated it it was amazing Shelves: clarke-arthur-c. Overlord and Overmind come to open up many questions about the meaning of life and stuff. The main underlying theme is how much of the presents given during a first contact event should be used or not and this trope grew to a redwood tree size and may evolve to a planet tree in the future with all the subfields, new interpretations, use in a mainly Social Sci-Fi setting, etc.
How Sci-Fi was written those days would be close to unsellable today because each agent would just step back as wide as pos Overlord and Overmind come to open up many questions about the meaning of life and stuff. How Sci-Fi was written those days would be close to unsellable today because each agent would just step back as wide as possible while his panicked eyes that are screaming: "Not enough bucks to make due to far too high complexity.
Not feeling sorry for telling the truth. The science part, on the other hand, has exploded to ultra hardiness in many new works and can often easily be skimmed and scanned without losing much of the inner plot logic and red line.
Feels too much like work rereading many passages to get it. Be warned, because it hits hard to find out that one has invested time in something that is called fiction or formula literature and suddenly one opens the book again and finds out that one is completely off track and undertands nothing anymore.
Maybe, or very probably, sorry for that. Clarke and Lem are definitively the worst in this case of overachieving in sophisticated mind game complexity, it blows little minds like mine on a general level.
Lem is the only one, I know so far at least, who comes close to Clarke and has a much darker, sarcastic, and pessimistic underlying tone. The cynical, disillusionized uncle who makes one laugh while Clarke is sitting in the other corner of the sci-fi family meeting and is still wanting one to believe in a quick realization of a positive outlook on humankind and life in general.
Not absolutely, but still optimistic in contrast to the grumpy, black comedy alternative. But being left with many philosophical thoughts about life, death, immortality, the future of humankind on earth and in space, alien invasions, visits, visitation, medical examination yes, that thing , etc.
View all 6 comments. View all 56 comments. This is a strange and beautiful novel. The plot is based on a few episodes scattered in time. It starts with a situation that has since become commonplace in SF literature and film: alien UFOs descend from space and park themselves over the major cities on Earth — a vision inspired by the barrage balloons Clarke had seen hovering above London during the Blitz in However, there is neither destructive attacks cf.
In this instance, the aliens bestow utopia upon humanity. He manages nonetheless to make his story perfectly lively and suspenseful. But the real masterstroke of this novel is the ending. This is, in essence, a true masterpiece within its genre. View all 19 comments. Sep 12, BlackOxford rated it it was amazing Shelves: philosophy-theology , american , sci-fi. Theological Politics For an avowed atheist, Arthur Clarke had a great deal to say about God, and not all of it negative.
If I read Clarke correctly, his Theological Politics For an avowed atheist, Arthur Clarke had a great deal to say about God, and not all of it negative. If I read Clarke correctly, his view is that God is not the product of frightening illusion but of loving emotion. God is the idea we use to describe the wholly irrational but irresistibly compelling force of human affection. Fear is merely a derivative emotion brought about by the threat of loss of affection, not something positive, therefore, but an absence of love.
The force of love is invisible, immaterial, unmeasurable, enacted everywhere and at all times; but it is, without any doubt, real. Love in all its forms - sexual, familial, communal, special, and inter-special - is only minimally an instinct, that is a motivation or drive. Rather it is a learned ability, a capacity which increases with experience and practice. The capacity to love evolves over a century such that personal jealousy has disappeared, crime is almost unknown, involuntary or oppressive human toil has been eliminated, economic abundance and equality have been substantially achieved.
In other words: paradise has arrived. That is, it cannot be demonstrated to be beneficial, or even to be at all, except through a commitment to it. It is self-validating just as its antithesis, fear, is self-validating. Love and the world is loving; fear and the world is fearsome.
The alien Overlords bring the whole of humanity to the metaphysical revelation of love through their tutelage and discipline. Only when love has been created as a reality can it be perceived and appreciated as a reality.
This is a metaphysical paradox which is known to the Overlords, but must be demonstrated by human beings to themselves. Human beings are not sufficiently competent in the skills of love to include anything outside their rather insignificant world. They may never be.
They are therefore denied by the Overlords - in the name of love - the knowledge which would allow them to travel to distant worlds.
This constraint is annoying and incomprehensible to many, mainly scientific types - not unlike the prohibition of eating from the Tree in the Garden. And the Supervisor could foresee the consequences, just as the book of Genesis had described - a loss of the Golden Age of innocence.
The trouble starts among creative types - artists, actors, film producers, writers, musicians. They feel cheated because they have nothing to struggle against. Led by a Moses-like figure, the artistic inhabitants, appreciate the peace and ease of their world but still feel it is inadequate.
Love and its effects are easily taken for granted. We are a thankless species in our search for more, better, adventure or just something different. The skills of love can be lost within a generation. We have no right to it and it dissipates when it is presumed upon. More important, it can be taken away by whoever or wherever it came from. It can disappear instantly as both an emotion and a practice. Love is a mystery about which Homo Sapiens has no clues.
Therefore, when love is lost, we are wont to deify and pray to it as well as for it. It matters not at all. Oblivion is inevitable. Recognition of this truth is the real end of childhood and marks an entry into grown-up thinking. Jewish Kabbalists like Akiva, Luria, and Abulafia held similar views.
Interestingly, it is the Mormons who hold this view most explicitly in their doctrine of the progressive divinization of humankind. Clarke is clearly tapping in to a long-held cultural tradition in this story. View all 21 comments. As a sci-fi fan, I've been trying to go back and read some of the classics and it's been The book manages to have some very captivating concepts while being quite tedious to read.
The book felt dated when mentioning POC and women which, while not surprising, did still take me out of the story at times. Overall I'm glad I read it, at least I can consider that an achievement as I look at all the "top sci-fi books to read in your lifetime" type of lists but, contrary to popular opi As a sci-fi fan, I've been trying to go back and read some of the classics and it's been Overall I'm glad I read it, at least I can consider that an achievement as I look at all the "top sci-fi books to read in your lifetime" type of lists but, contrary to popular opinion, I don't think it's something you must read.
If you're curious go for it. If you're not feeling it, it's fine to skip it. View all 9 comments. Aug 17, Petra is looking forward to getting off the rock rated it it was amazing Shelves: reviews , books-read-a-long-time-ago , fiction , reviewed. I read this long ago, just when I was becoming a teenager and my tastes were changing, you might say I read it at childhood's end. But we cannot do this without the help of our parents and teachers view spoiler [and politicians.
Well some of them. A few. One or two, you know hide spoiler ]. And so it is the Aliens come. The story is ess I read this long ago, just when I was becoming a teenager and my tastes were changing, you might say I read it at childhood's end. The story is essentially the one of zen buddhism told as scifi-fantasy.
Its climax is nirvana. Nirvana for all, for the Earth. Nirvana is the liberation from the repeating cycle of birth, life and death. It is the extinguishing of desire, affection, aversion, delusion and ego. All that makes us individuals evaporates in the uniting with divine power of the universe in perpetual bliss. And on that note, the book ends. View all 16 comments. Jan 26, Samadrita rated it it was ok Shelves: sort-of-good , dystopian-fiction , sci-fi-speculative , yawn-inducing , the-cosmos-beckons , hugo-nebula-locus-awards , and-more , omg-aliens.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. If science fiction usually treads the fine line between mere speculation and actual scientific feasibilities, then Arthur C. Clarke can be accused of taking a cosmic leap of faith into the realm of highly unrealistic speculation, in this book. Earth transforms into a kind of utopia in a hundred years during which disease, poverty, hunger, crimes, social inequality, threat of nuclear wars are permanently eliminated thanks to the diplomacy and benevolence of the Overlords.
Don't bother trying to make sense of that last part. It didn't make much sense to me either and I generally keep an open mind while reading science fiction. And what happens at the end sounds way more ridiculous that what I wrote for the sake of this review. In his effort to explore a subject like existential crisis why are 'we' here? Not even willing suspension of disbelief helped endear me to your theories Mr Clarke.
While their progenitors eventually die out, thereby, wiping out the last of the human species as we know it. And to further intensify my lack of interest in the book, none of the characters made an impression. And I was clearly not among the target audience of this book. But this does not in any way diminish my love for Clarke. My science-fiction adoring soul, will come back to this man time and again, in search of a story as fascinating as A Space Odyssey.
I just hope I find something better next time. View all 32 comments. Jul 22, picoas picoas rated it really liked it Shelves: If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review. View all 11 comments. It is here that Virgil spends eternity. Here there are none of the gruesome punishments to be found in the lower circles of hell. But it is a dreary afterlife. This place exists because the virtuous pagans do not deserve the punishments that are inflicted upon the vicious, yet they lived before Christ redeemed mankind, so they cannot enter heaven.
It may seem unjust that they are condemned to hell at all. But the fact remains: They were not redeemed and the unredeemed cannot enter heaven. To be banished from heaven due to bad timing? Man was not. Nevertheless the race of Man must die utterly. There will be no immortality, no paradise, no nirvana for Homo sapiens. Clarke meant when he wrote this brilliant novel. I think Clarke found his vision of the future inspirational.
I do not. And the Overmind: Is this the universe knowing itself? Is this the universe evolving? Consciousness and cosmos becoming one and the same thing? Imagine there is a purpose in the universe and the human race is merely a means to that end: Homo sapiens meaning no more in the grand scheme of things than Homo neanderthalensis.
All of our culture amounting to nothing.
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