Just finished with Arthur C. Clarke’s Firstborn, thus wrapping up the Time Odyssey trilogy. I am left with that weird deep satisfaction slash sadness of having read something good that I’ll remember for a long time. Having to say goodbye to a world I so liked is always tough.
I didn’t expect the series to turn out this way. When I read the first and second books I thought it was a bit of an odd messy experience… the two first books barely relate to one another. Time’s Eye in particular is more of a What If scenario of an Earth chronologically sliced together to allow Alexander The Great and Ghengis Khan the opportunity to meet. It’s not bad, it’s just not the kind of science fiction I was expecting. Sunstorm was great though, it felt to me like a very Clarke-esque realistic take on humanity facing a huge problem. And, as it turns out, Firstborn ties the two books together rather wonderfully.
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It’s set in the near future, along the lines of the 2040-60ties, and it’s all about our first small steps into space. There are no Ultradrives or whatever, about as complicated as it gets are sentient and semi-sentient AI networks. This is a world all about the pioneering spirit and how difficult it is to survive anywhere outside our own little stable environment. It’s not just the harshness of space, it also touches on the hardships humans and prehumans have gone through before us. Crossing the Atlantic is no small feat in a world of superstitious Greeks and Mammoths.
So I liked it plenty. Sure it’s necessarily the second coming of Christ, but it was a damn good trilology nevertheless… I really started empathizing with all the struggles of overcoming the hostile environments. If only more books could be written, but in a way maybe it’s best to leave it where it ends.