Conference noted::sf

              -< The Songs of Distant Earth, by Arthur C. Clarke >-

I just paid $13 for it. Not bad but he's done better. It was fairly fast
paced and interesting throughout, but I didn't think he really carried off
the conclusion.

If I could do it over I'd go to the library.

Peter.

    	
    		re .1  Maybe I'm wrong, but aren't conclusions one of
    	Clarke's strong points? (usually?)
    
    						Sankar
    

    I've just finished reading TSODE. I have not read (far as I remember
    the short version), so I didn't know what do expect...
    
    The conclusion, well - the message - time/space does many hard things
    to beings and minds, the last line of the book:
    
    "One day the pain would be gone; but never the memory."
    
    Clarkes univers's are usually wide open things, this book has no
    exceptions to that. The theme is very close to that of "Rendezvous
    with Rama", but the other way around - in one sence.
    
    There are some strong points on religion (Chpt 46) as well as on
    contempory cultures and societies on Earth. I find my personal
    conclusion along the line: though I might not fully understand the
    implications of my choices of today; if the heart is part of them,
    they will bear some fruit - some day ;-)
    
    
    Nis

    I haven't seen the short story either, but the novel reads like one.
    There just isn't all that much here.  A nice read, but pretty light
    for one of the field's masters.
    /jlr

    
    .4>  did you walk away with the same hungry feeling as I?  it seemed
    to be a couple of introductory chapters for a novel but certainly is
    not up to par with the rest of his works.......
    
    steve

    	The following may be taken as a spoiler, though it is more of
    a technical discussion of the starship MAGELLAN than of the plot
    itself:
          
    	While I do like the idea of putting huge chunks of ice ahead
    of MAGELLAN as an ablative shield against the interstellar medium,
    why did they have to obtain it by freezing some of Thalassa's ocean
    water and then lifting the ice blocks into orbit?  Why didn't they
    just obtain a relatively small *comet* and put that in front of
    the starship?  
      
        Comets already exist in space, plus their combinations of ice 
    and rock would seem to make an even harder shield than just pure ice 
    water; and I do think that the MAGELLAN's crew had the technology to 
    transport a comet from the Thalassan system.  Now here I am assuming 
    that Thalassa's solar system has a sphere of comets around it like 
    the Sol system's Oort Cloud, but I do not think that is farfetched, as 
    it has been recently shown that other star systems have rings of
    material surrounding them, no doubt the debris of comets and planets.
                                                      
    	Larry
                                              

You may be able to obtain ice in the depths of space, but it would already be 
frozen into a shape that is unsuitable for their purposes. Also, there is the 
question of purity. The ice in a comet may not be structurally sound and as the 
ice ablates, the distribution of the weight of the remaining matter might 
adversely affect the dynamics of the ship.

Dave

    I really have to agree with Larry.
    
    It is FAR cheaper to purify and shape ice that is already in space
    than to bring up megatonnes of the stuff from deep down a hole.
    
    That is of course unless there exist other technologies that change
    the basic cost assumptions that we have, like oh, I don't know anti-
    gravity.  (Sure others like cheap fusion or superconducting magnetic
    launching cannon may do)
    
    Tony

    	Clarke did his best to steer away from any type of antigravity
    or FTL technology in this novel (Which I greatly appreciated). 
    Even the Quantum Drive which powered MAGELLAN was based on actual
    theoretical models.
    
    	Larry
    

    I haven't read the story.  What's the "quantum drive" supposed to be?
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    For someone with an STL starship, the problems of getting mass into low
    planetary orbit can't be too serious.  If you can boost your ship to
    100,000 miles/sec, 7 miles/sec isn't hard.  The starship crew also
    probably wanted to stay close to the human colony and to sunny beaches
    rather than working out in the cold, dark Oort cloud.
    /jlr

        Clarke did not get very detailed, but essentially a Quantum Drive
    operates like a Bussard Ramjet, except that it involves extracting the
    energy from "quantum fluctuations" formed in the vacuum of space.  He
    lists several real sources in the book's "Acknowledgements" section for
    more details on the drive. 
    
    	Apparently the Quantum Drive also suffers from what most relatively
    fast STL starships suffer from - damage from collisions with particles
    in the interstellar medium (thus all the fuss about the cone of ice in 
    front of MAGELLAN).
           
    	Larry
    

It's been a while since I read it so correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't the ice 
formed into LARGE flat plates before being lifted into position? In orbit or
in deep space, the only way to get FLAT plates would be to freeze the water
in large molds from which all of the air would have to be evacuated. Unless
there were some gravitational field, getting the air to an evacuation port 
would be a little tricky since the bubbles would tend to mix throughout
the liquid. If artificial gravity were used without a fully surrounding 
mold, the surface of the ice would take on a cylindrical shape (or other,
depending on the geometry of the situation. Remember Rama?). Also, the mold
would have to shrink and expand as the water first contracted and then the ice
expanded. Not insurmountable problems, just an observation.

Dave

    In addition, getting a comet into place might involve a rather large
    delta-vee, where building the shield from ice blocks would allow
    a lower power output for a longer period of time.  It's reasonable
    to do it that way, so I don't have any problems with it.
    
    Willie

    I have to throw my support behind the freeze an ocean and move it
    into orbit style.  Catching and harnessing a comet sounds like far
    too much trouble what with trying to change its orbit and impurity
    problems.  Clarke stuck with supposedly theoritically possible
    technology and his solution seems possible, economically and
    scientifically.
    
    Yours in ignorance (just a hack B.A. reader with no science bkgrnd.)
    
    
    Dave Rotor.