This volume is a collection of two early works by Arthur C. Clarke. Originally published in 1968, it has been reprinted several times. Both concern Earth in the far future, with a utopian, but static human society. Against the Fall of Night was later expanded and revised into a novel as The City and the Stars, one of Clarke's best-known works. The Lion of Comarre has a similar theme. It is about a dissatisfied young man in search "something more" in a future society that believes it has discovered everything and ceases to advance. The two are not, however, in the same future history.
Author
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke was one of the most important and influential figures in 20th century science fiction. He spent the first half of his life in England, where he served in World War Two as a radar operator, before emigrating to Ceylon in 1956. He is best known for the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he co-created with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick. Clarke was a graduate of King's College, London where he obtained First Class Honours in Physics and Mathematics. He is past Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society, a member of the Academy of Astronautics, the Royal Astronomical Society, and many other scientific organizations. Author of over fifty books, his numerous awards include the 1961 Kalinga Prize, the AAAS-Westinghouse science writing prize, the Bradford Washburn Award, and the John W. Campbell Award for his novel Rendezvous With Rama. Clarke also won the Nebula Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1972, 1974 and 1979, the Hugo Award of the World Science Fiction Convention in 1974 and 1980, and in 1986 became Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He was awarded the CBE in 1989.
