"Paul Preuss - Venus Prime 1 - Breaking Strain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Preuss Paul)

And if I may be allowed to continue the immodest comparison, Kipling made two excellent attempts to
being the Clarke of the Air Age; see тАЬWith the Night MailтАЭ and тАЬAs Easy As ABC.тАЭ The ABC,
incidentally, stands for Aerial Board of Control.

Oh, yes, Breaking Strain. The original story is of course now slightly dated, though not as much as I had
expected. In any case, that doesnтАЩt matter; the kind of situation it describes is one which must have
occurred countless times in the past and will be with usтАУin ever more sophisticated formsтАУas long as the
human race endures.

Indeed, the near-catastrophe of the 1970 Apollo 13 mission presents some very close parallels. I still
have hanging up on my wall the first page of the mission summary, on which NASA Administrator Tom
Paine has written: тАЬJust as you always said it would be, Arthur.тАЭ

But the planet Venus, alas, has gone; my friend Brian Aldiss neatly summed up our sense of loss in the
title of his anthology Farewell, Fantastic Venus . . .

Where are the great rivers and seas, home of gigantic monsters that could provide a worthy challenge to
heroes in the Edgar Rice Burroughs mold? (Yes, ERB made several visits there, when Mars got boring.)
Gone with the thousand-degree-Farenheit wind of sulphuric acid vapor . . .

Yet all is not lost. Though no human beings may ever walk the surface of Venus as it is today, in a few
centuriesтАУor millenniaтАУwe may refashion the planet nearer to the heartтАЩs desire. The beautiful Evening
Star may become the twin of Earth that we once thought it to be, and the remote successors of Star
Queen will ply the spaceways between the worlds.

Paul Preuss, who knows about all these things, has cleverly updated my old tale and introduced some
elements of which I never dreamed (though IтАЩm amazed to see that The Seven Pillars of Wisdom was in
the original; when I read the new text, I thought that was PaulтАЩs invention). Although I deplore the fact
that crime stories have such a universal attraction, I suppose that somebody will still be trying to make a
dishonest buck selling life insurance the day before the Universe collapses into the final Black Hole.

It is also an interesting challenge combining the two genres of crime and science fiction, especially as
some experts have claimed that itтАЩs impossible. (My sole contribution here is тАЬTrouble with TimeтАЭ; and
though I hate to say so, Isaac WhatтАЩs-His-Name managed it superbly in his Caves of Steel series.)

Now itтАЩs PaulтАЩs turn. I think heтАЩs done a pretty good job.

тАУArthur C. Clarke

Columbo, Sri Lanka

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 ARTHUR C. CLARKE'S VENUS PRIME: VOLUME I




PART ONE
THE FOX