Sir Arthur C Clarke

Arthur C Clarke

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Arthur C Clarke's
Non Fiction

This is a list of Arthur C Clarke’s non-fiction works that have appeared in book form. It includes collaborations (with co-author names given). These books cover all his areas of interest and expertise: space travel, telecommunications, undersea exploration, probing the mysterious and paranormal, and extrapolating on humanity’s future.

The list does not include hundreds of essays, book reviews and other stand-alone pieces of writing he has contributed to dozens of publications. A useful, albeit incomplete listing of such work is found in Arthur C. Clarke: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography by David N. Samuelson (G K Hall, 1984).

Many of these titles are still in print, some having run into multiple editions and reprints. Please check online or with book sellers for availability.

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1984: Spring

Following his enormous international bestseller 2010: Odyssey Two, in which Arthur C. Clarke continued the story of Man’s cosmic evolution, Clarke turns his attention to the more personal - to the here and now. 1984, the year “celebrated” in George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, is finally upon us. Despite the dire predictions of Orwell, Clarke finds the future is not necessarily gloomy. In this extraordinary collection of his articles, essays and speeches, Arthur C. Clarke, citizen of the world, expounds on some of the world’s enormously serious problems: war and peace, the frontiers of space, the need for global communications, etc. Then, in more personal pieces Clarke, citizen of Sri Lanka, takes on subjects near and dear to him in a series of revealing and delightful essays:

  • Life in Sri Lanka - then and now
  • The first ten years of the Apollo Program as Clarke saw them from his post as Walter Cronkite’s “color commentator” for many of the flights
  • Tourism - the challenge of change
  • The Menace of Creationism

An often diverting, always stimulating and informative look at today’s world and the promise of tomorrow through the eyes of one of the world’s most original thinkers.

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Arthur C Clarke’s A – Z (with Simon Welfare and John Fairley)

The latest in the bestselling series which began with Arthur C.Clarke’s Mysterious World is a guide to mysteries from Atlantis to Zombies - and to the weird and wonderful theories others have seized upon in their quest for explanations. Was the lost continent of Atlantis destroyed by a tidal wave caused by a huge asteroid from outer space? Was it on the Puerto Rico plateau, in the Sahara Desert or the Mediterranean, part of Sweden, Great Britain, Spain or the Bahamas? Did it exist at all? Is the strange image on the Turin shroud a medieval forgery or the face of Christ himself - a ‘vapourgraph’ produced by a chemical reaction between the heat of his body and the limestone of his tomb? Did the crew of the Mary Celeste disappear because the ship was attacked by pirates, her cargo of alcohol was about to explode, or because a giant squid dragged them all off the deck and into Davy Jones locker? This book abounds with such theories. Many of them are even more extraordinary than the mysteries themselves. All will stimulate the sense of wonder that Clarke - who has spent a lifetime collecting and analyzing the strangest and most puzzling events, objects and phenomena the universe has to offer - has never lost.

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Arthur C Clarke’s Chronicles of the Strange & Mysterious (with Simon Welfare and John Fairley)

Do wildmen roam the mountains of China? Does a puma stalk the leafy lanes of Surrey? Did two girls from Yorkshire really photograph fairies at play? What can explain the extraordinary reports of people who suddenly catch fire and are consumed by flames while their surroundings - even in some cases their clothing - remain virtually untouched? Did Chinese explorers reach the coast of California centuries before Columbus? Does a vast octopus, strong enough to tow a trawler lurk on the seabed off Bermuda? Did four British holiday makers spend a night in a phantom hotel in France? These are just a few of the mysteries which Arthur C. Clarke has added to his famous files since his two acclaimed television series, Mysterious World and World of Strange Powers, and their accompanying best-selling books, caught the imagination of audiences throughout the world. In this book, Clarke analyzes these fresh mysteries, presented by John Fairley and Simon Welfare, with characteristic authority and wit, without ever losing the sense of the marvelous that has led him to write: “The Universe is such a strange and wonderful place that reality will always outrun the wildest imagination; there will always be things unknown, and perhaps unknowable.’ John Fairley and Simon Welfare also provide surprising new evidence which casts light on some of the mysteries which have fascinated readers of the two earlier books in this series, including the Loch Ness Monster, falls of fish and frogs, ‘ghost photographs’ and the hunt for the supposedly extinct Tasmanian tiger. Finally, in a thought-provoking essay, Arthur C. Clarke, in the style that made him probably the world’s best selling author of science fact and fiction, offers his answer to the question most asked of him: ‘Are we being watched by aliens from Outer Space?’

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Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World (with Simon Welfare and John Fairley)

Beyond the world we can quantify, classify and analyse there is another, more mysterious world. In this book Arthur C Clarke, whose brilliant novels of prophecy and warning are read by millions, investigates this supra-scientific world. Under his direction, Simon Welfare and John Fairley travelled five continents interviewing witnesses of strange events and unexplained phenomena. They talked to men and women who had seen monsters from the depths of oceans and lakes, had been showered by frogs and fishes and had watched ‘unidentified flying objects’ crossing the night sky in brilliant light; they had talked to explorers and mountain people who had seen the yeti, the abominable snowman, so long dismissed as fantasy, and his cousin ‘Bigfoot’ who stalks the forests of North America. More threatening events are also evaluated in the hope that we can glean evidence which may prevent future catastrophe. The fiery object from the sky which destroyed a vast area of the Siberian forests in 1908 could well have obliterated Paris, New York or London: when will we be visited again? Arthur C Clarke, the creator of the classic 2001,which looked back to man’s origins and forward to interplanetary travel, would not wish, even if it were possible to provide answers to all the questions posed in this book. We may never know who built the stone circles of Britain nor why; we can only guess at what star the three wise men followed to Bethleham.But we may one day have living examples of animals believed long since to be extinct or never to have existed at all. As Arthur C Clarke writes: “The universe is such a strange and wonderful place that reality will always out-reach the wildest imagination.”

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Arthur C Clarke’s World of Strange Powers (with Simon Welfare and John Fairley)

From the beginning of time, the human race has been fascinated - as well as awed and terrified - by the range of phenomena we now describe as paranormal. On every page of this book there are stories to challenge credulity and imagination. Tales of ghosts and poltergeists, of dowsers who can find oilwells with a pendulum or a twig, men who can walk on fire, women who bleed with the wounds of Christ, mediums who claim to conjure up the spirits of the dead, visions of the future tragically fulfilled, and children who say they have lived before. The fascination of the supernatural is easy to explain, the truth is more difficult to find. John Fairley and Simon Welfare have pursued the quest in authoritative yet entertaining style, gathering eyewitness accounts throughout the world, and consulting the scientists, doctors and psychiatrists who have investigated some of the strangest stories ever told. Arthur C Clarke, scientist, best-selling author and connoisseur of the curious, contributes his own analysis of a subject which has fascinated him for over half a century. His opinions are thoughtful yet provocative, and his wise and witty reactions to the validity of many of the claims for the paranormal are certain to prove both enlightening and controversial.

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Ascent to Orbit

The first published theories pertaining to the concept of communications by satellite were presented in Wireless World by a young British RAF officer, Arthur C. Clarke. Twenty years later the launch of INTELSAT’S Early Bird, the world’s first international commercial satellite, transformed Clarke’s early speculations into scientific fact. For his pivotal role in making global communications a reality for billions of people, Clarke is now recognized as the “father” of satellite communications. In 1982, the Marconi Fellowship Council presented its prestigious Marconi Award to Arthur C. Clarke for his contributions to the advancement of communications technology. Inspired by this award, Clarke began compiling and writing Ascent to Orbit, a permanent record of these contributions. Although his fiction-most notably, 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: Odyssey Two, can be found in any bookstore, this is the first time his scientific articles have been collected. In fact, many of them have not been available since their first appearance in technical journals. Each article is introduced by an original, autobiographical essay that reflects not only Clarke’s speculations and theories, but the intellectual and political climate of his time - and a quiet humor that surfaces at unexpected moments.  

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Astounding Days

In the British schoolboy’s hands, the magazine was a thrilling monthly dose of adventure and wonderment. The boy grew up to be science fiction grand master Arthur C. Clarke - and his beloved Astounding Stories magazine became the focal point of SF’s legendary Golden Age. Here is the personal memoir of one of the fields greatest writers: a rare glimpse into the making of a career and the influence of a seminal publication (which, as Analog, is still going strong today). Astounding stories transcended its humble “pulp” origins - and some particularly awful early works that Clarke gleefully describes - to define a new era. In its pages thrived Clarke himself, and also Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, H.P. Lovecraft, Theodore Sturgeon, Jack Williamson, and many more of the greatest speculative writers. Their fantastic visions often came stunningly true - guided by editors Harry Bates, F. Orlin Tremayne, and especially John W. Campbell, Jr., whose extraordinary intelligence, curiosity, and occasional eccentricity built the structure of modern science fiction. Astounding Days is history with a sense of wonder, fantasy tempered with fact. It is the fascinating story of a man captivated by science and by its fiction - and the magazine that combined both his loves into one out-of-this-world package.

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Beyond Jupiter (with Chesley Bonestell)

In the late 1970’s, a remarkable event will take place. The outer planets of our solar system - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto - will arrive in orbital alignments that will make it possible for the first time in contemporary space history to send out a spaceprobe to fly by all of them in one grand sweep, taking pictures and gathering information.This robot spaceprobe would leave Earth in 1976, spending some ten years sending back hundreds of computer reassembled photographs and thousands of miscellaneous data before plunging into intergalactic space. It would tell us more than we have ever known before about the outer solar system and the very nature of space itself. This unusual book was inspired by the singular possibilities of that probe. A projection of what that robot spacecraft might see as it voyages to the outer planets, BEYOND JUPITER contains the truly extraordinary illustrations of Chelsey Bonestell, an artist internationally known for his ability to paint astronomical subjects with such perfection that his work is sometimes mistaken for photographs - even by astronomers. Bonestell has furnished twenty six paintings, of which fifteen are reproduced in full colour. In addition there are six diagrams and eleven photographs. The paintings are at once beautiful and uncannily accurate in the manner in which they visualize the planets of our solar system both as we know them today - and as they could be revealed by a future probe. The text is by Arthur C. Clarke, famous for his books and lectures on science and science fiction, Clarke explores what we already know about the outer planets and what a probe might discover there. He examines the technology of the proposed flight and traces the history of the robot spacecraft that have already preceded it, from Luna III to Mariner 9. And he explains why the flight must be taken: “It has often been said that when we explore space, we are also exploring time. Only when we have flown missions to every part of the Solar System will we have the vital statistics of all its components. And only then will we be able to turn back the pages of the book of cosmology - to the origins of our own world, and perhaps of the universe itself.”

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Boy Beneath the Sea

The young people of today are the luckiest who have ever been born, for they live in the most exciting age in the whole history of the world. Two vast new frontiers have opened up for mankind in this generation - the frontier of Space, and the frontier of the Sea. As the exploration of the earth’s land areas comes to an end, so the real age of exploration is beginning. It will lead men out to the stars, and down into the equally unknown realms beneath the waves. Though they have much in common, there is one great difference between these two forms of exploration. Going into space is a vast scientific project which will cost billions and require years of training on the part of the men who make the trip. The sea, on the other hand, is open to anyone who can get near it, and who is willing to spend a little time mastering the basic diving skills. It requires an admission fee of only a few dollars to enter a whole new universe of wonder, beauty and mystery.

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By Space Possessed

By Space Possessed brings together Clarke’s essays on travel to the planets and beyond in a form where they can be read individually or as a continuing narrative. It describes the history of an enthusiasm that took a Somerset farm boy to international fame, starting with the delightful, self deprecating humour of the early days of the British Interplanetary Society and proceeding to deeper concerns when at last the early daydreams, mocked by so many, began to come radiantly true. Along the way there are the delights of Clarke’s prediction of the Moon landing, the lecture which prompted George Bernard Shaw to join the British Interplanetary Society and the birthpangs of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Humanity’s future lies in space. These ever-topical essays, covering crucial years of interplanetary speculation and exploration, show that one man, Arthur C. Clarke, has always been capable of foreseeing possibilities and probabilities, and opening up magnificent vistas to those willing to look with unblinkered eyes and minds. This is a testament to his vision.

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