Tales from the White Hart
Fantasy, science fiction | |
| Publisher | Ballantine Books |
|---|---|
Publication date | 1957 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 151 pp |
Tales from the White Hart is a collection of short stories by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, in the "club tales" style.
Thirteen of the fifteen stories originally appeared across a number of different publications; some had no connection to the White Hart in their original version. "Silence Please" was the title of two distinct stories; the version in the book has a different plot from the original magazine version. "Moving Spirit" and "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" were first published in this book and hence presumably were written specifically for it. "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" rounds off the cycle of stories and explicitly mentions their book publication.
The White Hart is a pub (modelled on the White Horse, New Fetter Lane, just north of Fleet Street, once the weekly rendezvous of science fiction fans in London till the mid 50s, when they moved to the Globe pub in Hatton Garden)[1] where a character named Harry Purvis tells a series of tall tales. Incidental characters inhabiting the White Hart include science fiction writers Samuel Youd (also known as John Christopher), John Wyndham (John Beynon), and Clarke himself in addition to the narrative voice as his pseudonym Charles Willis.
The style and nature of the stories was inspired by the
According to Clarke's preface to the book, the book was his third collection of short stories, which were written between 1953 and 1956 in such diverse spots as New York, Miami, Colombo, London and Sydney.
One additional story from the White Hart 'universe', "Let There Be Light", is reprinted in Tales of Ten Worlds.
Clarke and Stephen Baxter collaborated on one final White Hart story, "Time, Gentlemen, Please" for a 2007 limited edition from PS Publishing, issued for the book's 50th anniversary. ("Let There Be Light" does not appear in that edition.)
Contents
The collection, originally published in paperback in 1957 by Ballantine Books, includes:
| Title | Time of first publication | First edition publisher/publication | Summary | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Silence Please" | Winter 1950 | Science Fantasy | [3] | |
| "Big Game Hunt" | October 1956 | Adventure | [3] | |
| "Patent Pending" | November 1954 | Adventure | [3] | |
| "Armaments Race" | April 1954 | Adventure | [3] | |
| "Critical Mass" | February 1957 | Lilliput | This story discusses the fraught relationship between a village and a nuclear research facility located near it. On the day that the story takes place, a truck carrying a mysterious cargo has an accident, and the driver flees. The terrified villagers are about to begin an evacuation, when the narrator discovers that the cargo were merely hives of bees. | [3] |
| "The Ultimate Melody" | If | The story describes the work of a physiologist who attempts to discover the connections between music and the rhythms of the electrical pulses in the brain. He believed that all "hit-tunes" were merely poor reflections of an "ultimate" melody, and he built a machine to search for this tune. By the end of the story, he succeeds, but the melody is so powerful that he becomes completely entranced. | [3] | |
| " The Pacifist "
|
Fantastic Universe | [3] | ||
| "The Next Tenants" | Satellite Science Fiction | [3] | ||
| "Moving Spirit" | Tales from the White Hart | [3] | ||
| "The Man Who Ploughed the Sea" | Satellite Science Fiction | [3] | ||
| "The Reluctant Orchid" | Satellite Science Fiction | [3] | ||
| "Cold War" | Satellite Science Fiction | The story describes a scheme to discredit Florida's claim to being the sunniest state in the US. A former submarine commander is hired to ferry an ice-machine into the Atlantic Ocean and create a small iceberg there, which is expected to drift to the Florida coast and cause a negative news sensation. The submarine accidentally begins creating an iceberg near a US missile testing range, and a missile comes down near it. Upon investigation, the protagonists find that a Russian submarine is trying to appropriate the missile. | [3] | |
| "What Goes Up" | The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
|
[3] | ||
| "Sleeping Beauty" | Infinity Science Fiction | [3] | ||
| The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch | Tales from the White Hart | [3] |
Reception
Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale praised the collection as "as light and frothy a conglomeration of sidesplitters as it has been my good fortune to read."[4]
Citations
- ^ "Close to tears, he left at the intermission": how Stanley Kubrick upset Arthur C Clarke
- The Collected Jorkens, Volume One
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Clarke, Arthur C. (1957). Tales from the White Hart. London: Ballantine Books. p. Forward.
- ^ "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf", Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1957, p.108
General sources
- ISBN 978-0345298805.
- ISBN 978-0-911682-20-5.
External links
- Tales from the White Hart title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database