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Podcast: Science Fiction
Episode: Arthur C Clarke’s forgotten masterpiece of hard SF
Description: It's Arthur C Clarke's greatest novel and a classic of "hard" science fiction. The Fountains of Paradise is a brilliantly realized story of humankind's ascent to the stars, not on rockets, but by building the first space elevator. Clarke predicted the discovery of carbon super materials with the "diamond hyperfilament" that is strong enough to stretch 36,000km from Earth to geosynchronous orbit.
But it's not the science that makes Arthur C Clarke's novel so great.
It's the symbolism.
00:00 The Fountains of Paradise
03:50 Science Fiction Q & A
06:49 The forgotten masterpiece of Arthur C Clarke
09:49 The three stages of Clarke's career
14:07 Was...