Prelude to Space Read online

  “Throughout my teens, while my widowed mother was struggling to make the farm pay, I spent my time building scientific gadgets. The most ambitious was a photo-phone transmitter made from a bicycle lamp, which could send speech for several yards along a modulated light-beam.

  “The science-fiction virus attacked me when I was fourteen and saw my first copies of Amazing Stories and Astounding. For years I collected every issue I could lay my hands upon; I can still recall the thrill of receiving an entire crateful of Wonder Stories which I’d purchased for five cents apiece.

  “When I was around fifteen I started writing short pieces for the school magazine and eventually became its assistant editor. On turning up these articles recently, I was depressed to see how little improvement there had been in the interim.

  “Moving to London after I passed a civil-service exam (there were 1500 candidates, and 25 had the cheek to get better marks than I did) I encountered the British science-fiction world, as well as the embryo British Interplanetary Society. Was treasurer of the B.I.S., edited, wrote for, and duplicated countless science-fiction ‘fan mags,’ and sold my first articles on space flight.

  “The War and the R.A.F. jolted me out of the civil service and introduced me to radar. The experience I gained running the first Ground-Control Approach equipment has been reflected in a number of my stories and has given me an insight into the scientific mind.

  “With the help of a friendly Member of Parliament I obtained our equivalent of a G.I. scholarship to Kings College, London, and passed out two years later with a First Class Honors B.S. in physics and pure and applied math.

  “Meanwhile I had started selling stories to the science-fiction magazines in the United States (my first check arrived while I was stationed at Stratford-on-Avon, from which something may possibly be deducted). I continued writing fiction and nonfiction after I’d left college and became Assistant Editor of Physics Abstracts—a very interesting job that kept me in touch with scientific progress. Threw this up after two years when my space-time income began to exceed my salary.

  “In 1950 my first book was published—a technical work called Interplanetary Flight, which was so successful despite its specialized nature that I was asked to do a second book for the general public. This was The Exploration of Space.

  “Lately a great deal of my time has been taken up by the chairmanship of the British Interplanetary Society, and I’ve not been able to do as much writing as I would like. TV has also reared its ugly head, but I don’t intend to be seduced from the printed page. Still, I must confess I rather enjoy being in front of the TV cameras, for no future program can possibly be as tough as my first BBC assignment—a straight twenty-minute talk on the fourth dimension, without the camera leaving me for a second.”

  For a man who expends enormous energy barnstorming America and the Continent in pursuit of his scientific interests, Mr. Clarke’s literary output is phenomenal, both as to quality and quantity. At present he lives in London, where he is completing a series of inter-related short stories and preparing a new novel.