Childhood's End
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Childhood's End is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. It was originally published in 1953, and a version with a new introduction was released in 2001.
Childhood's End deals with the transformation of humanity into part of an interplanetary hive mind.
The book opens with enormous alien spaceships appearing one day over all of Earth's major cities. The aliens, who become known as the Overlords, quickly make radio contact and announce their benign intentions and desire to help mankind. They also arrange person-to-person (though not face-to-face) meetings to be conducted between Secretary General of the United Nations Stormgren and the Overlord leader Karellen, although through a one-way mirror so that Stormgren cannot see Karellen. They promise to reveal themselves in fifty years, after which mankind will have become used to their presence.
True to their word, fifty years after their arrival, they appear in person. They have all the classical appearance of devils – dark skin, leathery wings, pointed tails, etc.
The Overlords, after a hundred years on Earth, reveal their true purpose. They are in service to a being of pure energy known as the Overmind. Their purpose is to usher humanity's evolution to a higher plane of existence, high enough to merge with the Overmind. The fact that they look like devils is a reverse racial memory – we knew that their coming would foretell the end of our species.
One day, humanity's children start displaying telepathic and telekinetic abilites. These children soon become distant from their parents, and the Overlords quarantine all of them to the continent of Australia. Following the quarantine, no more normal children are born. The rest of humanity ages and dies off, while the children become closer and closer to the Overmind.
Jan Rodricks, a mulatto, is the last living human being, and he will witness the final transformation. He had stowed away on an Overlord supply ship, and due to the relativistic nature of time he lived longer than any other human. By the time he returns to Earth from the Overlords' homeworld, the rest of humanity has died out. He stays behind to witness the final transformation while the Overlords depart and Earth itself dissolves away. Humanity has evolved to a higher plane of existence, and the childhood of mankind has come to an end.
Childhood's End in other media
The BBC produced a two-hour radio dramatisation of the novel, which was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1997.
The book's dramatic opening scene, in which the spaceships appear over Earth’s major cities, was echoed (some might say “stolen”) by the opening scenes of both the American TV movie V and the movie Independence Day.
The final scenes of the book, in which Earth's children gather in Australia and become the hivemind entity inspired the cover of the Led Zeppelin album Houses of the Holy. It is also believed that the end of the novel also inspired the Human Instrumentality Project in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
The novel also inspired a song of the same name by Pink Floyd on the album Obscured by Clouds.
Iron Maiden also have a song entitled "Childhood's End" on the album Fear of the Dark, however it is uncertain whether or not the song was inspired by the book.
"Childhood's End" was the name of a Stargate Atlantis episode.
External links
- Utopia in Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/show.html?ey.utopia), by Zoran Zivkovicfr:Les Enfants d'Icare