Childhood's End

British author Arthur C. Clarke is commonly considered one of the three most influential science fiction writers of the 20th century. In addition to a successful career as a writer, Clarke was also an engineer who helped pioneer communications technology. He spent more than half his life in Sri Lanka, where he explored the ocean. His most famous work is 2001: A Space Odyssey, written while he crafted the film script with Stanley Kubrick. Before his death in 2008, Clarke had written and published over 70 works of fiction and nonfiction.

In the foreword to the 1990 edition of Childhood’s End, Clarke explains both a disclaimer at the beginning of the novel and the revisions he made to the first chapter. The book contains the disclaimer that “the opinions expressed in this book are not those of the author,” which Clarke explains initially referenced the ban on space travel featured in the novel. In 1990, he adds that his previous belief in the paranormal, which frames several plot developments in Childhood’s End, has been replaced almost entirely with skepticism.

A decade after the publication of Childhood’s End, Clarke published Profiles of the Future, a nonfiction book in which he articulates his three laws, including his most well-known quote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (“

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