Arthur C. Clarke always hits the spot for me, and The Sentinel continues that trend. Many of the stories in the collection were seeds for his later work, and it’s fun to dive into the early aughts of Clarke’s sci-fi ideas.
Things start off obtuse with Rescue Party, which follows a crew of extraterrestrials as they explore Earth just before it is consumed by the sun in the hopes of rescuing any lingering Earthlings. It felt like an amuse-bouche before the more substantial ideas that would follow.
Among the stories that seeded Clarke’s later masterpieces are Guardian Angel (became Childhood’s End), The Sentinel (inspired 2001), and A Meeting With Medusa (the ideas later appeared in 2010: Odyssey Two). I’ve read all those works, and experiencing their origins was a blast. Some of them summoned feelings of deja vu, particularly Guardian Angel, which changed little on its journey to become Childhood’s End (though the final work expanded past the end of the story). If you haven’t read Clarke’s longer works inspired by these stories, these versions are an interesting place to start and plenty welcoming to new readers.
Two new-to-me highlights were Jupiter V and The Wind From The Sun. In the former, an exploratory party encounters a planet-sized arkship of a long-dead alien civilization orbiting Jupiter. A competing team catches up and steals valuable works from the ship, and a standoff ensues. In The Wind From The Sun, a solar-sailing race takes place in orbit around Earth, complete with sabotage and disasters for all involved. Both stories have the classic Clarke-ian flair, delicately balancing scientific concepts with imaginative visions of the future.
My favorite, though, was Breaking Strain. The story follows a ship with holes in its hull. It’s hemorrhaging oxygen, and two crew members soon realize there’s enough air to get one of them safely home. Paranoia and murderous thoughts start to creep into the ship, and one or both of the crew members won’t make it home. Clarke’s sci-fi shines when it plants real scientific concepts between two characters and lets loose. Breaking Strain does exactly that. The tension builds in a horrific and suspenseful crescendo as each crew member’s internal monologue cycles through all possible outcomes and escalates to the final conclusions. It’s a perfect short story with sharp focus, clear themes, and enough restraint to keep things surprisingly grounded for a narrative about space travel.
Fans of early sci-fi will appreciate the goodies within this collection. You might emerge with a different favorite than mine, and that’s the glory of it all. Space holds untold mysteries, and I encourage you to discover Clarke’s unknowns as they unravel in The Sentinel.
Rating: The Sentinel The Story That Inspired 2001: A Space Odyssey And Other Masterworks Of Science Fiction – 8.5/10
-Cole
