Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Originally published in 1957, Tales from the White Hart, a collection of fifteen tall tales by Arthur C. Clarke, has been reissued in a smart new fiftieth anniversary edition with an introduction by Stephen Baxter and one new story, a collaboration between Baxter and Clarke himself.

For those more familiar with the Clarke of the transcendental vision of The City and the Stars, Childhood’s End, and the 2001 series, these stories may come as something of a surprise; whether or not that surprise is a pleasant one depends on your attitude to the style of story that used to be called “club tales.” The narrators of such stories—exclusively male—were usually participants in or witnesses to the narrative’s events who told their tall tales in such male preserves as the clubroom or bar, usually over a whiskey or beer. M.R. James’s supernatural stories were one variant, Lord Dunsany’s Jorkens tales were another. Though he had already established his reputation as a writer of visionary science fiction by the time most of these stories were written, they demonstrate his willingness to adopt a more playful and comic approach to storytelling. While, as Baxter observes in his introduction, the science in the stories is always “vaguely plausible,” the author seems to be “playing with genuine SF premises.”

So, what of the stories themselves? In truth, unless you’re a particularly keen fan of the “club tales” style, the familiarity and coziness of the stories’ structural framing device becomes a little tedious. I like a lot of Clarke’s work, but even avid devotees of his “visionary” fiction might find the repetitive nature and the forced jocularity of the stories, taken as a whole, hard to swallow. Unlike James, whose ghost stories induce a frisson which resonates beyond the secure world of their narrative frame, these tales seem entirely contained within the cozy bar of the White Hart and linger in the mind no longer than the memory of one’s last pint.

And yet, traces of Clarke’s more familiar literary and scientific preoccupations do occasionally reveal themselves, not least in “The Next Tenants,” perhaps the bleakest story on offer here. Harry Purvis—narrator of most of these tales and an entirely fictional character in contrast to his White Hart audience, the majority of whom are based on real SF writers, including Clarke himself, John Wyndham, John Christopher, and William Temple, among others—tells of the time he was seconded to an expedition carrying out atomic research on a Pacific atoll. On one small island he discovers and befriends a lone Japanese scientist who, while studying termites, has developed a device that enables him to “teach” and modify their behaviour. His reasons for doing so stem from his pessimism about the future of the human race and his desire for something of human achievement to remain after we are gone. Harry’s subdued conclusion is, for once, entirely in keeping with the story’s sombre tone.

In “The Pacifist,” Karl—a supercomputer fed the details of famous military campaigns and battles in order to be able to formulate the perfect winning strategy in any given military engagement—has one crucial but unexpected element built into its nature by programmer Dr. Milquetoast. The results prove less than satisfactory for the project’s overall commander, the overbearing General Smith. Despite the juvenile nature of Karl’s programmed responses, the story shows Clarke’s concerns regarding the military use of scientific research. “Cold War,” another U.S. based tale, has fun mixing ideas about east and west coast rivalry, Hollywood trickery—in the style of Orson Welles’s The War of the Worlds radio show hoax—and Cold War paranoia, while “Armaments Race”—which has its roots in Clarke’s visit to the set of George Pal’s 1953 version of War of the Worlds—uses the escalating desire for verisimilitude in special effects, in this instance, the weapons of Captain Zoom and his alien enemies, to highlight the stupidity of the Cold War arms race.

Environmental issues, particularly the despoliation of the Earth for mineral resources, are at the heart of “The Man who Ploughed the Sea.” Here, Purvis tells his fellow drinkers about a trip to the States in which he and a friend encounter a scientist who has developed a process for extracting minerals from the ocean. There are echoes of Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo in Dr. Romano, and an implicit criticism of scientists who sell out to industry. The story also demonstrates Clarke’s passion for the ocean and scuba diving, as does “Big Game Hunt,” which, like Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, features an encounter with a giant squid, this one not turning out so well for its protagonists.

Baxter cites “Silence Please” as one of those stories with a plausible scientific premise, focusing as it does on a scientist’s unsuccessful attempt to nullify intrusive noise, while “The Ultimate Melody” also explores aspects of sound, as Purvis tells his heckling listeners about Gilbert Lister’s experiments with music and encephalograms, which lead him to create a device capable of exploring countless combinations of notes to come up with the perfect melody. Unfortunately, the hearing of such a melody has unforeseen consequences, except for Lister’s tone deaf lab assistant. “Patent Pending” also concerns itself with pleasurable experiences, but here the scientist involved has more mercenary intentions: how to record the thoughts and sensations experienced by various connoisseurs of food, the arts, and—because what else gives more pleasure?—sex, and market these through a playback device. Recording his own sensations during sex with a notorious courtesan, Georges Dupin becomes obsessed with reliving the experience through what is, in effect, a virtual reality machine. Needless to say, Georges girlfriend is put out at his addiction to this sophisticated porn and takes her revenge.

“Critical Mass” pokes fun at the gullibility of suspicious locals when confronted with the presence of secretive scientists, and “The Reluctant Orchid” nods towards both Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids and Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors, with a flesh-eating orchid and its owner’s attempts to train it to devour his overbearing aunt. “Moving Spirit” tells of Harry’s Uncle Ferguson and his explosive attempts at home distilling, while “Sleeping Beauty” concerns itself with Sigmund Snoring’s desperate efforts to find a remedy to his awful snore. Cured by a potion which renders him unable to sleep, when Sigmund is given the antidote, it works too well, sending him into a decades-long sleep, much to the pleasure of his wife and family who have tired of his incessant moaning. “What Goes Up” has as its science fictional premise the accidental discovery in an atomic reactor of an anti-gravitational field, and what happens when the protagonist tries to penetrate and investigate the nature of said field.

In “The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch,” Osbert Inch creates a recording device capable of keeping a separate count of the numbers of words spoken by he and his wife, hoping this will demonstrate to her the tendency she has to run off at the mouth regardless of other people’s—mainly Osbert’s—desire to get a word in edgeways. Ermintrude’s frustration with the device leads her to cheat, prompting the action which gives the tale its title. The collection closes with the collaboration between Clarke and Baxter, “Time Gentlemen Please,” which reunites the old White Hart crowd in the early years of the 21st century at a student’s SF society convention, which after dinner relocates to their old watering hole. Absent friends are namechecked—Wyndham, John Brunner—and new ones made guest of honour—Gregory Benford, here in the guise of Ben Gregford. A 90-year-old, wheelchair-bound but still gregarious Harry Purvis is resurrected to narrate the story of Wells, a scientist who invents a time accelerator and, in demonstrating it, forgets some basic scientific principles—what happens to light and air in the limited and contained spatial field in which you have accelerated time to run at the equivalent of three hours per second of normal time?

Primarily for devotees of the “club tale” genre or Clarke completists, I suspect that given the author’s recent death, the collection may reach a wider audience than originally intended. Those who, like me, because of the visionary nature and majesty of his best work, were able to forgive Clarke’s awkward characterization and sometimes laboured prose will probably wait for similarly handsome editions of Childhood’s End, The City and the Stars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Fountains of Paradise, and The Songs of Distant Earth. It’s no great prediction, unlike some made by the man himself, to suggest that it’s for those works, rather than Tales from the White Hart, that Clarke will be deservedly remembered.

Publisher: PS Publishing (Jan. 2008)
Hardcover price: £ 20.00 [$40.00]
Slipcased hardcover price: £50.00 [$100.00]
Pages: 210
ISBN (hardcover):978-1905834778
ISBN (slipcased hardcover): 978-1905834785