Utopia in Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End

Abstract

The novel Childhood’s End resulted from a voluminous expansion of the novella “Guardian Angel” which originally appeared in two versions: a somewhat shorter, American one which appeared in the April 1950 issue of “Famous Fantastic Mysteries” and was edited by James Blish who condensed it and made minor alternations, and Clarke’s original version—which was published in the Winter 1950 issue of the British journal “New Worlds”. This latter one was subsequently used as the basis for the first of three parts of the future book.

No Utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time. As their material conditions improve, men raise their sights and become discontented with power and possessions that once would have seemed beyond their wildest dreams. And even when the external world has granted all it can, there still remain the searchings of the mind and the longings of the heart.

Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End

“Utopia in Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End.” Written in 1975. Originally published in Serbian in 1975 in the monthly magazine “Delo”, 11–12 / 1975, 1617–1625, Belgrade, Serbia First published in English in “Foundation” #124, Science Fiction Foundation, Harold Wood, Essex, UK, August 2016, 85–91.