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Childhood's End

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
This article is about a novel. For other uses, see Childhood's End (disambiguation).
Childhood's End
ChildhoodsEnd(1stEd).jpg
Cover of first edition hardcover
Author Arthur C. Clarke
Cover artist Richard M. Powers
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Ballantine Books
Publication date
1953
Media type Print (hardcover and paperback)
Pages 214
ISBN 0-345-34795-1
OCLC 36566890

Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows the peaceful alien invasion[1] of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture.

Clarke's idea for the book began with his short story "Guardian Angel" (1946), which he expanded into a novel in 1952, incorporating it as the first part of the book, "Earth and the Overlords". Completed and published in 1953, Childhood's End sold out its first printing, received good reviews, and became Clarke's first successful novel. The book is often regarded by both readers and critics as Clarke's best novel,[2] and is described as "a classic of alien literature".[3] Along with The Songs of Distant Earth (1986), Clarke considered Childhood's End to be one of his favourites of his own novels.[4] The novel was nominated for the Retro Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2004.

Several attempts to adapt the novel into a film or miniseries have been made with varying levels of success. Director Stanley Kubrick expressed interest in the 1960s, but collaborated with Clarke on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) instead. The novel's theme of transcendent evolution also appears in Clarke's Space Odyssey series. In 1997, the BBC produced a two-hour radio dramatization of Childhood's End that was adapted by Tony Mulholland. The Syfy Channel produced a three-part, four-hour television mini-series of Childhood's End, which was broadcast on December 14–16, 2015.

 

Contents

 

Plot summary

The novel is divided into three parts, following a third-person omniscient narrative with no main character.[5]

Earth and the Overlords

In the late 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union are competing to launch the first spacecraft into orbit, for military purposes. When vast alien spaceships suddenly position themselves above Earth's principal cities, the space race ceases. After one week, the aliens announce they are assuming supervision of international affairs, to prevent humanity's extinction. They become known as the Overlords. In general, they let humans go on conducting their affairs in their own way. They overtly interfere only twice: in South Africa, where sometime before their arrival Apartheid had collapsed and was replaced with savage persecution of the white minority; and in Spain, where they put an end to bull fighting. Some humans are suspicious of the Overlords' benign intent, as they never visibly appear. The Overlord Karellen, the "Supervisor for Earth," who speaks directly only to Rikki Stormgren, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, tells Stormgren that the Overlords will reveal themselves in 50 years, when humanity will have become used to their presence. Stormgren smuggles a device onto Karellen's ship in an attempt to see Karellen's true form. He succeeds, is shocked, and chooses to keep silent.

The Golden Age

Men called them Overlords
They had come from outer space—
they had brought peace
and prosperity to Earth
But then the change began.
It appeared first in the children
—frightening, incomprehensible.
Now the Overlords made their announcement:
This was to be the first step
in the elimination of the human race
and the beginning of—What?

—Original back cover quote, paperback edition

Humankind enters a golden age of prosperity at the expense of creativity. Five decades after their arrival, the Overlords reveal their appearance, resembling the traditional Christian folk images of demons: large bipeds with cloven hooves, leathery wings, horns, and tails. The Overlords are interested in psychic research, which humans suppose is part of their anthropological study. Rupert Boyce, a prolific book collector on the subject, allows one Overlord, Rashaverak, to study these books at his home. To impress his friends with Rashaverak's presence, Boyce holds a party, during which he makes use of a Ouija board. Jan Rodricks, an astrophysicist and Rupert's brother-in-law, asks the identity of the Overlords' home star. George Greggson's future wife Jean faints as the Ouija board reveals a star-catalog number consistent with the direction in which Overlord supply ships appear and disappear. With the help of an oceanographer friend Jan Rodricks stows away on an Overlord supply ship and travels 40 light-years to their home planet. Due to the time dilation of special relativity at near-light speeds, the elapsed time on the ship is only a few weeks, and he arranges to endure it in drug-induced hibernation.

The Last Generation

Although humanity and the Overlords have peaceful relations, some believe human innovation is being suppressed and that culture is becoming stagnant. One of these groups establishes New Athens, an island colony in the middle of the Pacific Ocean devoted to the creative arts, which George and Jean Greggson join. The Overlords conceal a special interest in the Greggsons' children, Jeffrey and Jennifer Anne, and intervene to save Jeffrey's life when a tsunami strikes the island. The Overlords have been watching them since the incident with the Ouija board, which revealed the seed of the coming transformation hidden within Jean.

Well over a century after the Overlords' arrival, human children, beginning with the Greggsons', begin to display clairvoyance and telekinetic powers. Karellen reveals the Overlords' purpose; they serve the Overmind, a vast cosmic intelligence, born of amalgamated ancient civilizations, and freed from the limitations of material existence. The Overlords themselves are unable to join the Overmind, but serve it as a bridge species, fostering other races' eventual union with it.

As Karellen explains, the time of humanity as a race composed of single individuals with a concrete identity is coming to an end. The children's minds reach into each other and merge into a single vast group consciousness. If the Pacific were to be dried up, the islands dotting it would lose their identity as islands and become part of a new continent; in the same way, the children cease to be the individuals which their parents knew and become something else, completely alien to the "old type of human".

For the transformed children's safety - and also because it is painful for their parents to see what they had become - they are segregated on a continent of their own. No more human children are born, and many parents die or commit suicide. The members of New Athens destroy themselves with a nuclear bomb.

Jan Rodricks emerges from hibernation on the Overlord supply ship and arrives on their planet. The Overlords permit him a glimpse of how the Overmind communicates with them. When Jan returns to Earth (approximately 80 years after his departure by Earth time) he finds an unexpectedly altered planet. Humanity has effectively become extinct, and he is now the last man alive. Hundreds of millions of children – no longer fitting what Rodricks defines as "human" – remain on the quarantined continent, having become a single intelligence readying themselves to join the Overmind.

Some Overlords remain on Earth to study the children from a safe distance. When the evolved children mentally alter the Moon's rotation and make other planetary manipulations, it becomes too dangerous to remain. The departing Overlords offer to take Rodricks with them, but he chooses to stay to witness Earth's end, and transmit a report of what he sees.

Before they depart, Rodricks asks Rashaverak what encounter the Overlords had with humanity in the past, according to an assumption that the fear that humans had of their "demonic" form was due to a traumatic encounter with them in the distant past; but Rashaverak explains that the primal fear experienced by humans was not due to a racial memory, but a racial premonition of the Overlords' role in their metamorphosis.

The Overlords are eager to escape from their own evolutionary dead end by studying the Overmind, so Rodricks's information is potentially of great value to them. By radio, Rodricks describes a vast burning column ascending from the planet. As the column disappears, Rodricks experiences a profound sense of emptiness when the children have gone. Then material objects and the Earth itself begin to dissolve into transparency. Jan reports no fear, but a powerful sense of fulfillment. The Earth evaporates in a flash of light. Karellen looks back at the receding Solar System and gives a final salute to the human species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood's_End

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Guest Larstrup

Guest Larstrup

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I fell in love with Jane Olivor when I was 17 because the boy I was falling in love with at the time was constantly playing her album.  This will always remind me of him. And me. As it was…Us.

 

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AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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The Great Organs of First Church

The Great Organs of First Church is an instrument appreciated by organ aficionados around the world for its complexity, grandeur, and remarkable sound.  Comprised of several organs joined together, it is among the largest church pipe organs in the world, with 18,094 speaking pipes, 328 ranks, 15 divisions, and a total of 278 speaking stops.  For more detailed info about the Great Organs, click HERE.

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AdamSmith Grand Master

AdamSmith

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The Great Organs

The Great Organs of First Church, situated in the enormous vaulted Sanctuary of Los Angeles' oldest Protestant Church, together constitute perhaps the largest musical instrument existing in any church in the world today. Now, with approximately 346 ranks, 265 stops, 233 voices, 18 divisions and more than 20,000 pipes, the Great Organs speak down the Nave and Chancel and from the South and North Transept Galleries with the music of the ages.

The Seeley Wintersmith Mudd Memorial Organ (Chancel)

Since its founding in 1867, First Congregational Church of Los Angeles has played an important role in the musical and cultural life our city. So it was appropriate that, when First Church constructed its new soaring Gothic Cathedral on West 6th Street in 1931, a new organ would be built. In chambers high on both sides of the Chancel, the Seeley Wintersmith Mudd Memorial Organ was constructed and installed by the noted American organ builder, Ernest M. Skinner. Voiced in the style of what came to be known as the "American Classic" school of organ building, the five divisions of that organ — controlled by a four-manual draw-knob-console — served as the church's principal instrument until 1969, when it was greatly enlarged from its original 58 ranks. Unaltered in the 1969 expansion were the sturdy diapasons, lush strings, and the Skinner hallmarks: the romantic flute and reed stops of the Solo division.

The Frank C. Noon Memorial Organ (West Gallery)

The nationally known James W. Fifield, Jr., Senior Minister of First Church for 32 years, and Lloyd Holzgraf, the brilliant Organist in Residence at First Church from 1959 until 1998, envisioned a grand new instrument in the West Gallery of First Church, more than 200 feet from the Main Altar in the Chancel. Thus, the Frank C. Noon Memorial Organ, named for the distinguished banker and devout churchman who guided the project to completion, was built by Herman Schlicker, with Clarence Mader and Mr. Holzgraf as consultants. Set in a free-standing case with towering copper pedal pipes on either side of the rose window, the Gallery Organ, with its clean voicing, brilliant ensembles and grand basses in its five divisions, enables the organist to capture the spirit and inspiration of the North German tradition of the 17th century.

The Italian Division (Chancel)

The 11th division consists of a small Italian-style Continuo Organ, situated above the Peace Shrine (adjacent to the South Choir of the Chancel). Build by Schlicker, the crisp tones of the Continuo Organ are heard frequently in the accompaniments and in large ensembles.

The Holzgraf Trumpet Royale (Chancel)

In 1984, in honor of Mr. Holzgraf's 25th anniversary as Organist in Residence at First Church, a splendid state trumpet — known as the Holzgraf Trumpet Royale — was added. Extending into the Chancel high above on both sides, at the foot of the Mudd Memorial Organ, the pipes of this rank find frequent use in the rich liturgy of great festival services. This brought the Great Organs to a total of approximately 218 ranks. But that is far from the end of the story.

Renewal and Upgrades

In 1990, First church embarked on a program of renewal and upgrading of the Great Organs designed to meet three separate challenges:

Recognizing that the duplicate Schlicker consoles (1969) were both technologically outdated and increasingly incapable of controlling the vast resources of the organs, the Trustees awarded a contract for the construction of two mammoth five-manual consoles to M.P. Moller, Inc., the oldest and largest American organ builder.

The Mudd Memorial Organ in the Chancel was in need of new wind chests and other mechanical repairs after some 60 years of service.

1989 first Church received a very substantial gift that would add approximately 100 ranks to the Great Organs. Richard F. Meunch, longtime Curator of the Great Organs, undertook the second and third parts of this work until his untimely death in 1992 and it was completed by William Zeiler.

The Moller Consoles (Chancel and West Gallery)

The duplicate consoles that grace the Chancel and the West Gallery of First Church are the largest draw-knob consoles ever built in the Western Hemisphere. The Chancel console, which can be moved out into the Chancel for performances, was installed in November, 1992, and was the last masterpiece designed by the venerable Moller firm, which soon closed its doors as a result of financial problems. (Moller knowingly underbid the actual cost of these gigantic consoles so as to have the prestige of designing/building them).

The twin Gallery console, completed by former Moller craftsmen at the Hagerstown Organ Company, was installed a few months later.

Gospel and Epistle Divisions (North and South Transepts)

Under the direction of the famed Frederick Swann, Organist in Residence from 1998 to 2001, William Zeiler completed the installation of Divisions in the North Transept Gallery (Gospel) and the South Transept Gallery (Epistle), so that those attending services and concerts at First Church are now surrounded by music on four sides. Organists of note from around the world, including E. Power Biggs, Virgil Fox, Alexander Schreiner and Pierre Cochereau, to name only a few, have played the Great Organs of First Church during the last 40 years.

Hearing the Great Organs of First Church

The Great Organs are heard each Sunday in a half-hour organ prelude at 10:30 am. Then, they are played for our morning worship service at 11:00 am and at the great Festival Services of the year. Additionally, they are always played in the Organ Concert Series, which features artists of world renown each season.

http://www.fccla.org/the-great-organs

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AdamSmith Grand Master

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The First Light of Trinity

By Alex Wellerstein

July 16, 2015

 
Wellerstein-Trinity1.jpg

Seventy years ago, the flash of a nuclear bomb illuminated the skies over Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Courtesy Los Alamos National Laboratory

The light of a nuclear explosion is unlike anything else on Earth. This is because the heat of a nuclear explosion is unlike anything else on Earth. Seventy years ago today, when the first atomic weapon was tested, they called its light cosmic. Where else, except in the interiors of stars, do the temperatures reach into the tens of millions of degrees? It is that blistering radiation, released in a reaction that takes about a millionth of a second to complete, that makes the light so unearthly, that gives it the strength to burn through photographic paper and wound human eyes. The heat is such that the air around it becomes luminous and incandescent and then opaque; for a moment, the brightness hides itself. Then the air expands outward, shedding its energy at the speed of sound—the blast wave that destroys houses, hospitals, schools, cities.

...

General Thomas Farrell, the deputy commander of the Manhattan Project, was in the control bunker with Oppenheimer when the blast went off. “The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun,” he wrote immediately afterward. “It was golden, purple, violet, gray, and blue. It lighted every peak, crevasse, and ridge of the nearby mountain range with a clarity and beauty that cannot be described but must be seen to be imagined. It was that beauty the great poets dream about but describe most poorly and inadequately.” Twenty-seven miles away from the tower, the Berkeley physicist and Nobel Prize winner Ernest O. Lawrence was stepping out of a car. “Just as I put my foot on the ground I was enveloped with a warm brilliant yellow white light—from darkness to brilliant sunshine in an instant,” he wrote. James Conant, the president of Harvard University, was watching from the V.I.P. viewing spot, ten miles from the tower. “The enormity of the light and its length quite stunned me,” he wrote. “The whole sky suddenly full of white light like the end of the world.”

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-first-light-of-the-trinity-atomic-test

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