Transience (short story)

Summary

The story is told through scenes of three children playing on the same beach on Earth, but across vast gulfs of time.

Development

Clarke wrote that the story was inspired by one of A. E. Housman's poems as well as his childhood memories.

Release

"Transience" was first published in the July 1949 issue of Startling Stories. The Beechhurst Press later published in the anthology volume Looking Forward in 1953. The story was also published in collections of some of Clark's work such as 1958's The Other Side of the Sky and 1961's From the Ocean, from the Stars. In 2001 the University of Western Australia Press published "Transience" in the anthology Earth is But a Star: Excursions Through Science Fiction to the Far Future.

"Transience" has been translated into four languages, Dutch, French, German, and Serbian.

Themes

Per Gary Westfahl, "Transience" is one of relatively few works by Clarke that mention the theme of terraforming. Other themes in "Transience" include the passing of culture and time, the end of the world, and "the sea as seen".

Reception

John Hollow has described "Transience" as "more meditation than story". In a review for the 2001 collection Earth is But a Star: Excursions Through Science Fiction to the Far Future, Jennifer Burwell favorably compared it to Pamela Zoline's "The Heat Death of the Universe" and noted that the story "barely hints at the circumstances that ultimately lead to humans abandoning their home on earth. Clarke at once invites the reader to immerse herself in the melancholy sensibility of the story, and invited to take the active role of a detective searching between the lines to uncover."

Adaptations

The story has been adapted into a musical piece The Tentacles of the Dark Nebula by David Bedford.

References

References

1. {{ISFDB title. 56748
2. Arthur C. Clarke. (12 July 2016). "The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke". RosettaBooks.
3. Victoria Brooks. (2000). "Literary Trips: Following in the Footsteps of Fame". GreatestEscapes.com Pub..
4. Mccomas, J. Francis. (1953-11-15). "The Spaceman's Realm; Psychiatric Espionage (Published 1953)". The New York Times.
5. Clarke, Arthur C.. (1987). "The other side of the sky : 24 short stories of the future". New American Library.
6. Clarke, Arthur C.. (1962). "From the ocean, from the stars; an omnibus containing the complete novels: The deep range and The city and the stars, and twenty-four short stories.". Harcourt, Brace & World.
7. Burwell, Jennifer. (2001). "Review of Earth is But a Star: Excursions Through Science Fiction to the Far Future". Utopian Studies.
8. Gary Westfahl. (14 June 2018). "Arthur C. Clarke". University of Illinois Press.
9. Hollow, John. (1987). "Against the Night, the Stars: The Science Fiction of Arthur C. Clarke". Ohio University Press.
10. Pierce, John J.. (1989). "When World Views Collide: A Study in Imagination and Evolution". Greenwood Press.
11. Dougherty, Stephen. (2019). "Liu Cixin, Arthur C. Clarke, and "Repositioning"". Science Fiction Studies.
12. "David Bedford: The Tentacles of the Dark Nebula [JF] Classical Music Reviews - MusicWeb-International".
13. (9 July 2015). "British Musical Modernism: The Manchester Group and their Contemporaries". Cambridge University Press.