atching in awe and fear as gleaming spacecraft emerge from the sky and position themselves, ominously, over the world's great cities, the human race learns it is not alone. Earth soon learns that its days of sovereignty are over. The alien Overlords are taking charge, for humanity's own good.
Early efforts to resist prove monumentally futile in the face of the Overlords'
vast intellectual and technological superiority. People are reduced to
either placid acceptance or fretful anxiety over the aliens' ultimate mission, which
they will not reveal. The Overlords even refuse to show themselves; they
issue directives through Rikki Stormgren, the U.N. secretary-general. Frustration
builds among a small minority of people, but the Overlords do not act until Stormgren is
kidnapped in a desperate attempt to pressure the visitors. Only then do they
promise to reveal themselves--in 50 years.
Much happens during that time. United politically, and with a completely
restructured economy, humanity no longer knows want. The Overlords
usher in a Golden Age. Consequently, Earth is so well-disposed toward the
aliens that when they finally reveal themselves, their uncanny
resemblance to a creature from the darkest human legends seems not to
matter.
A few people are restless, though, even in utopia. Some lament the dearth of new creative
and scientific achievements. Others wonder whether human nature can endure
paradise forever; and if not, what will follow. Meanwhile, the Overlords' edict
forbidding interstellar travel chafes a young dreamer named Jan, who
plots to smuggle himself onto an Overlord ship bound for their home world--though he
has no idea what he'll find there.
In any event, the Overlords' work is nearly done. Humanity has been prepared
for an awesome phenomenon even the Overlords don't understand, a phenomenon
that will touch every child on Earth.
Unconventional heroes
Though of necessity it singles out interesting characters to follow,
Childhood's End is not about a hero's adventures, but rather a sweep
of events that affects all of humanity. In a way humanity itself is the
protagonist, and what's at stake is the collective fate of the entire race.
Clarke, through clear storytelling and action that advances both the
characters' development and the larger drama, keeps Childhood's End
compelling and grounded through events that span centuries.
Of those interesting characters--including Stormgren, the secretary-general;
Jan, who stows away on the starship; and Jeff, the unexpectedly crucial
little boy--the Overlords are perhaps the most memorable. Their
intervention, which might easily have been a two-dimensional plot device,
instead initiates a complex story, and an alternate path for Earth.
A critical readers might quibble with the way humanity meekly accepts demotion to the status
of subject race, or argue the likelihood of this utopia, in which all
poverty and strife are eliminated. These elements, however, are present in
order to demonstrate the essential unity of the human race, which is crucial
to its destiny. Again, it's not about one unusual person being the key factor
in the race's advancement; everyone has the same potential.
What's more important, and more intriguing, is Clarke's central argument
that the human mind, because it's still so young and undeveloped, cannot
embrace the infinity of space. Such a skeptical view--if
accepted--might relegate much of today's galaxy-trotting science fiction to
mere wishful thinking that ignores the mind-bending nature of the universe.
Clarke's body of work, with some exceptions, offers little hope that
humanity will escape the solar system; Childhood's End is the
clincher.
