The wind from the sun Book

THE WIND FROM THE SUN brings more sense of wonder from Arthur C. Clarke
OK, maybe I'm on a real Arthur C. Clarke kick right now. But after all, he is my favorite SF author, perhaps my favorite author, period.

THE WIND FROM THE SUN is a collection of short stories, some of them trivial, others full of the sense or wonder that Clarke seemingly evoked so easily.

I didn't re-read this entire volume, instead I concentrated on the more substantial stories. The title story, "The Wind from the Sun," is a suspenseful tale of a race using spacecraft that use only the pressure of sunlight as propulsion. It's also famous for being published only a month apart from a Poul Anderson story using similar themes but a very different storyline. The Anderson story was titled "Sunjammer," and in a further coincidence that was the title Clarke's story appeared under in its magazine appearance. The fact of the stories appearing only a month apart made it clear that one couldn't have stolen the idea or title from the other.

I can also recommend "Maelstrom II," which has one of the great opening lines: "He was not the first man, Cliff Leyland told himself bitterly, to know the exact second and the precise manner of his death." Leyland is, after all, in quite a pickle. He was hitching a ride aboard an otherwise unmanned cargo craft being shot from the Moon toward the Earth, but a malfunction sent the capsule heading back toward the Moon with no one to rescue him.

Another highlight is "Transit of Earth," in which an astronaut trapped on Mars fulfills his duty to record the sight of the Earth moving across the face of the sun.

But the best-known, and deservedly so, story here is "A Meeting with Medusa." A 1972 Nebula Award winner, it concerns an astronaut who pilots an airship down into Jupiter's atmosphere. I don't want to spoil the rest of the story because much of its enjoyment comes from the many delights of the physical world that Clarke evokes with scientific believability and smooth prose. But it's one of my favorites, and I've read it at least three or four times. It would make a great short film.

Some of the other, shorter tales here are pretty minor, many of them aiming at humor. The success rate is hit-and-miss. But the four stories detailed above are themselves worth the price of admission.