ABC meaning
Asimov,
Brunner and
Clarke. Last month I celebrated the science fiction writing of
Jack Vance by reading several
stories that he published in 1951. Back in March, I read "
Satisfaction Guaranteed", a positronic robot story that was published by Asimov in 1951. Here in this blog post, I'm going to continue that theme and comment on two short stories by Brunner and Clarke that were published 70 years ago, in 1951. The stories concern aliens who are watching Earth... and waiting...
Apparently, Arthur C. Clarke wrote "The Sentinel" in 1948 and it was first published in 1951 in 10 Story Fantasy. Hoping for a sale, maybe Clarke's agent routinely sent "The Sentinel" to all the editors of science fiction magazines such as Donald Wollheim. I'd be interested to know if there were any other editors who rejected the story as a "clunker", possibly suspecting that it was too thoughtful for most readers.
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Figure 1; Wilson reaches the little plataeu
interior art from 1951
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When I was discovering printed science fiction stories in the early 1970s,
Avon was gradually getting out of the Sci Fi field, but it was through their distribution of cheap paperback books that I was able to read Asimov's
Foundation saga and other interesting novels (
example). In the early 1950s, Avon was experimenting with several Sci Fi and fantasy magazines and somehow "The Sentinel" ended up in
10 Story Fantasy, published under the title "Sentinel of Eternity". That was the only published issue of the magazine. "The Sentinel" is famous because it is one of Clarke's stories that contributed ideas that went into the 1968 film,
2001: A Space Odyssey. "The Sentinel" has been widely anthologized, but today I finally read "The Sentinel" in its original published form that included the illustration shown to the left on this page.
Sea of Crises. The events of the story begin in the year 1996 when the first human exploration of
Mare Crisium is taking place. The name "Mare Crisium" is attributed to
Giovanni Riccioli, who in his writing about the
Moon stated his belief that there was no life on the Moon.
Clarke wrote "The Sentinel" for submission to a BBC writing contest and his target audience was likely to be familiar with an idea popularized in fiction: that other planetary bodies such as the Moon (see "The Death of the Moon") and Mars might be "dying worlds" that long ago may have had more water and environmental conditions suitable for life.
Life on MarsFictional accounts of life on Mars are often traced to the imaginative
Giovanni Schiaparelli who reported seeing linear surface features on Mars that other astronomers could not see by telescopic observation.
Nicolas Flammarion fanned the flames of fantasy about intelligent life on Mars, suggested that an ancient Martian civilization might have long ago engineered paths for the distribution of a dwindling water supply across the surface of Mars. Not to be left on the sidelines of history,
Percival Lowell built an observatory and his
imaginary sightings of "canals" on Mars culminated in his 1908 book
Mars As the Abode of Life. Many of Clarke's British readers were certainly familiar with
The War of the Worlds and its depiction of Martian invaders at war with humans in England. If there could be intelligent beings from Mars, then why not Earth's Moon as well?
Clarke included in "The Sentinel" the idea that the relatively flat surface of Mare Crisium had once (a billion years ago) been covered by water a half mile deep. In 1911 "
Caterpillar" was adopted as the name for steel plate-tracked vehicles (originally a British invention). The first page of "The Sentinel" reads like a carefully designed product placement advertisement for Caterpillar tractors. I remember as a boy listening to some folks fret about the possibility that Apollo astronauts might sink into
deep Moon dust. Clarke seems to have been more concerned about crevices and steep mountains as likely impediments to driving around on the surface of the Moon. However, Moon dust does play a role in Clarke's story.
In Clarke's imagination, the entire southern end of Mare Crisium was covered by river deltas, created in an ancient age when torrential rains fell on the nearby mountains.
Clarke's description of the surface of the Moon in "The Sentinel" sounds most similar to what has been found on Mars (see the image to the left) where there actually are sedimentary deposits and the remnants of ancient river deltas.
While on their drive across the flat Mare, the exploration team spots a strange metallic glint emanating from the top of a mountain located along the edge of the Mare. They decide to investigate and while approaching the
Mysterious Mountain™ there are discussions among the team concerning living things on the Moon and the unlikely possibility of intelligent life having existed on the Moon in the far past.
In Clarke's imaginary fictional universe of "The Sentinel", it was well known that "primitive" plant-like organism had once existed on the Moon (Clarke calls it "creeping moss"). Also creeping into the story is the whispered possibility that some as-yet undiscovered advanced life-form may have once existed on the Moon. Maybe in another Reality there could have been a sequel to "The Sentinel" about the plant people of the Moon.
At first, the explorers of Mare Crisium have no reason to suspect that they have discovered an artifact left on the Moon by space aliens. Clarke includes in the story a more likely source of the metallic glint: a recent meteor strike may have laid bare a brightly reflective metal deposit on the side of the mountain.
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Clarke's description of the alien artifact.
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The story as told in "The Sentinel" is a first person account that is narrated by Wilson, a selenologist, who climbs the
Mysterious Mountain with Garnett, his assistant. Look at those jagged peaks in
Figure 1, above. Lucky for Wilson and Garnett, the low gravity of the Moon allows them to climb the steep mountain and discover an alien artifact. The "roughly pyramidal structure" has "glittering mirror surfaces" that have long been protected by a force-field.
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the circular edge of the force-field
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This is where Clarke brings in the Moon dust (see the passage shown to the left on this page). Wilson realizes that he has discovered an alien machine, protected from meteorite strikes for "an eternity" (well, only hundreds of millions of years) by the force-field.
Wilson wonders how long the alien artifact has been there; possibly since before there was life on Earth. Towards the end of the story, Wilson says that the artifact has been dated to about the time when on Earth "life emerged from the sea".
As depicted in "The Sentinel", Wilson's account of the alien machine's discovery is written 20 years later (2016), at a point in time after which atomic power had been used to break through the alien force-field. In doing so, the artifact was damaged. Wilson guesses that for eons the alien artifact had been sending a signal back to its creators. Now, with that signal interrupted, Wilson wonders if the aliens might come to investigate Earth. "The Sentinel" is a rare story that neatly avoids
Clement's Paradox.
John Bunner's 1951 story "The Watchers" was published in an even more obscure venue than was "The Sentinel": a fanzine called Slant. Brunner was only 17 in 1951.
The "
Watchers" reside inside a plastic bubble on the Moon, surrounded by devices that keep them alive. Lucky for us, there are
two Watchers who have to discuss their mission and so provide us with an account of why they are watching Earth. "Discuss" might not be the best word since Brunner seems to imply that the two
Watchers are telepathically linked.
The Watchers of Brunner's imagination make use of a "perception probe" that detects interesting objects on Earth and transmits images of science fiction magazines (issues of Galaxy, Astounding, New Worlds...) back to the Watchers. Based on what they see in the pulp Sci Fi magazines, the Watchers conclude that Earthlings will soon have spaceships and will then visit the Moon.
It is not clear how long the
Watchers have been waiting for Earthlings to develop a technological civilization and spaceships. "The Watchers" is very short, so there are few clues, but I like to imagine that Brunner tried to depict the
Watchers as some kind of artificial life-form that could be switched on and off, allowing them to wait through many eons while life evolved on Earth.
After writing "The Sentinel", Clarke went on to write other stories (example) that allowed him to explore and imagine how advanced aliens might interact with primitive humans. I have not read many of Brunner's novels; I'd be interested to know if any of them concerned what happened when his alien Watchers finally made contact with humans. I hope The Atlantic Abomination is not the best that Brunner could come up with for an ancient aliens novel.
From among Asimov, Brunner, Clarke and Vance, which of these authors had the most intriguing story about ancient aliens? I'm partial to Vance's
Star King because in that novel, Vance had the audacity to suggest that aliens played a role in creating we humans. However, among this group of writers, Clarke seemed to take most seriously the idea of humans meeting aliens who are far more technologically advanced than we are.
Related Reading: more Avon novels, Asimov fiction set in 2016 & "The Golden Helix" & The Clarke-Brunner Effect
Next: Clarke's 1948 story Against the Fall of Night
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