A Meeting with Medusa

By: Arthur C. Clarke

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

"A Meeting with Medusa" was first published in the December 1971 issue of Playboy.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) is regarded as one of the most-influential science fiction writers of all time. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

©2000 Arthur C. Clarke (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

bland

You could read the summary on Wikipedia and get as much out of it. Nothing mind-blowing.

The Author who started me on SF

I started in the AF reading a book called “Across The Sea of Stars”. It was a collection of short stories. Clark’s writing for

Entertaining

Nice story, but a bit predictable...except for the very end. Narration was excellent; easy to understand even while driving.

Classic Golden Age Story

Rip roaring adventure, fantastic creatures, and just enough hard science. Great fun and thought provoking.

Interesting story, inadequate reading performance

One of those performances with overly zealous articulation at completely ordinary times, but flatlining at peak moments. Not too terrible, just distracting. The story is interesting enough.

Bad Narrator

Story is interesting. The narration brings it down. It’s an odd style that seems very old and tired.

Ending

The story was fun. and I ending was interesting. I enjoy using my imagination.

Fun story, great Performance

A fun story full of wonder and intrigue. Some parts seemed to drag, but the second half seemed to pace itself nicely!

Two Different Stories

The ending of this story, while an interesting and lightly hinted at twist, bears no thematic relationship with the rest of the story, as far as I could discern. It's like the ending of a different story altogether. If I really stretch, I can see the future Clarke was alluding to from the protagonist's view, but this is far from sufficiently elucidated. After listening I assumed that this was an early work, but not so. In fact, it won awards. All hail Clarke.

The writing is enjoyable, the phenomena interesting and even fascinating, the forecast thought provoking. However, as a whole, it just doesn't gel.

Straight-up scifi by a master of the craft

I picked this up as a precursor to reading the "sequel" by Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds. It was a fine example of a straight-up scifi short story written by a master of the craft. There simply was no one like Arthur C Clarke when it came to describing the technology of the future. He could pack more ideas into one sentence than many writers get into a whole chapter.

[I listened to this as an audio book read by Jonathan Davis, who did an excellent job]