Childhood’s End: Biggest Letdown in History

Few books leave me disgusted and angry after reading them. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke did both of those. The back cover of the book makes some lofty claims:

THE LAST GENERATION ON MANKIND ON EARTH
Without warning, giant silver ships from deep space appear in the skies above every major city on Earth.
They are manned by the Overlords…mysterious creatures from an alien race who soon take over control of the world.
Within fifty years, these brilliant masters have all but eliminated ignorance, disease, poverty and fear.
Then suddenly this golden age ends…and the end of Mankind begins!

Ok, this sounds pretty good. Granted, I was hoping it would be like V since the cover does feature a ship almost exactly like the ones seen in V hovering above what is obviously New York. Also, it promises the end of mankind on Earth. Maybe through destruction? Let’s find out!
The reason this book is so disappointing is because it stretches reality until it breaks. It sounds like the massive ships showed up above fifty cities on Earth, started giving orders, and humanity bent over and obeyed the orders. Humans wouldn’t do that. Humans need incentives to do things, and it sounds like the overlords don’t give them any, not right away anyway. After a while they do (at a bullfight in Spain, the entire crowd feels the pain of the bull as it is killed in the Overlords effort to end animal cruelty). Eventually, the Earth is a perfect utopia: there is no crime, everyone goes to college, and there are no problems. Clarke admits that some people think it’s boring (I agree that it would be), but says that most people really like it.
Then comes the nefarious and sinister plot that ends mankind, right? When we’re defenseless because we lost the need for guns and armies, the overlords enslave us and start eating us, right? Then a resistance forms and there’s action and it’s great. Nope. The last generation of mankind that the back cover talks about? It’s the last generation because their children evolve into something else. They develop mental powers and stop communicating verbally. One human remains on earth to observe them, and he describes how they start turning the moon around with their mental powers. Eventually the Earth disappears. That’s how it ends. I just saved you 218 pages of disappointment.
Another problem I have with this book is that Clarke wastes a lot of time. The book seems to be going nowhere, and Clarke must have realized that, because it abruptly shifts directions and starts describing an island called “New Athens.” Humans have lost the drive to create any new forms of art, since there are no problems and no frustration to inspire art. So a group of people form a new city in the Mediterranean Sea where they can have theater troupes and create art and all that fun stuff. What does that have to do with anything? It doesn’t. Clarke just wanted to waste 30 pages describing it. All that is pertinent to the story is that the character ‘s the book is following at that point lived near the sea, and their child is almost killed by a giant wave but the Overlords save him so that evolution can still happen. It’s not clear why that specific child is needed, since after he evolves, the rest of them do.
Another problem I have with the book is that it doesn’t focus on a single main character the whole time. Granted I did read this book about a month ago, but I don’t remember any of the characters names (I read Slaughterhouse-Five at least eight months ago, and I remember Billy Pilgrim’s name quite easily. That book is focused). I had to look up the main Overlord’s name because all I remember about it is that it had a K in it, I think (it is Karellen, but I had to look that up). Because of the lack of focus, it is impossible to care about any of the characters, since the book spends little to no time effectively showing who they are, and when it does show a little bit about their likes and dislikes, it made me dislike them more (I found the guy who moved his family to New Athens very unlikeable because he just up and moved his family there. It didn’t sound like he gave them much choice, so they had to uproot and go there just for him). Overall, there are Zero likeable characters, there is Zero action. This book makes some exciting promises, and delivers on them, just in a really boring and stupid way.

Childhood's End on Amazon.com
ISBN# 0-345-24937-2-150