Songs of distant earth

The late Arthur C Clarke's short stories reveal the many facets of science fiction, a genre that deals with very human concerns even as it explores remote worlds.

Science fiction can be a daunting genre if you're trying to find your way into it "" many modern novels seem written to defeat the untrained reader, being full of complicated terminology and concepts that require a degree in physics to fully comprehend.

Which is why I thank my lucky supernovas that my introduction to SF was through Arthur C Clarke's short stories, which are intelligent and stimulating without being intimidating.

They are also eye-openers, showing how varied and multi-faceted the genre is; that it doesn't have to be all about outlandish happenings on alien lands, and that at its best it can engage with human lives and concerns more closely than laboured, literal-minded stories set in the "real world".

One of the most notable things about Clarke's short fiction is how it holds up a large cosmic mirror in which we can see the limitedness of our perspectives and the pettiness of many manmade concepts "" patriotism, for instance. (In "Refugee", a character reflects how odd it is that shrill nationalism had managed to survive into the space age "" a time when the astronaut's-eye view should have made the artificial geographical divides on our tiny planet appear ridiculous.)

Of course, none of this means that Clarke is insensitive to the emotions and internal conflicts that define human existence. One of his most moving short stories, the unashamedly sentimental "Dog Star", is about an astronaut having to part with his beloved dog when he goes to live on a lunar observatory. In another, much lighter tale, "Passer-by", a man allows his romantic feelings to override a professional decision.

Nor is there anything coldly scientific about his work, which frequently deals with the conflict between reason and faith, and how even the most rational mind must occasionally stop to question.

Many of his stories involve the existence of a higher power "" even if this is a race of aliens that made contact with primitive man, as in "The Sentinel", which led to the script for the iconic film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Other works deal more directly with the idea of a supreme being, such as "The Nine Billion Names of God", which postulates that the creator will "wind up the universe" after a team of monks have finished the task of listing all His names (aided by a supercomputer, which is a supreme being in its own right).

Unlike, say, Brian Aldiss, whose work is driven as much by form as content, Clarke isn't a great stylist. His stories are functional, plot-driven and not very "literary" (in the rigidly defined sense of that word).

Reading the earliest of them, written in the 1930s and 1940s, one can immediately see how they would have fit the tone of the pulp "fanzines" in which they were first published.

Inevitably some of them seem unsophisticated when seen through modern eyes, many of their plot elements having been rendered obsolete by real-world developments. However, the best of them retain the imaginative power that made them so popular in the first place.

The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke, which brings together more than 100 of his short pieces, is an invaluable introduction to his work. The stories included here span over 60 years and cover a gamut of moods.

Among the more austere is the chilling "The Wall of Darkness", which deals with the enigma of the one-sided moebius strip; "Out of the Sun", which exposes the myopia of human perceptions about the nature of life; and the haunting "The Star", with its shiver-inducing twist that led to a televised version being shown in the US on Christmas Eve (read the story and you'll see how inappropriate a decision this was).

My favourites among the humorous pieces are "History Lesson" (minor spoiler: you'll never look at Donald Duck the same way again), "The Food of the Gods", "A Slight Case of Sunstroke", "Let there be Light", and "Reunion".

But these are just a few of the dozens of gems included in this collection. Read them in chronological order for a firsthand sense of the evolution of science-fiction over the 20th century "" and for some great entertainment.