Quasit's Daily Book Recommendations: "The Nine Billion Names of God" (1967) by Arthur C. Clarke
Age Range: 14 to adult
Genre: Science Fiction
When I was a young science fiction fan, we had the "Big Three"–Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. They were widely considered the greats; I hope they still are.
"The Nine Billion Names of God" is a collection of the best short science fiction of Arthur C. Clarke. Or rather, they're •his• favorites of his stories from the first thirty years of his career. They're well worth reading!
Of course "The Nine Billion Names of God" is also the name of the first story in the book. I've already recommended it, as it's included in "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1", which I recommended on 4/24/2026. If you haven't read it, I'll refrain from spoiling it for you. Suffice it to say that these are some of the greatest stories in science fiction.
In "Rescue Party" a crew of aliens lands on a planet whose sun will go nova in a few hours; they hope to rescue some survivors, if possible. But the planet, despite showing clear signs of an advanced civilization, seems uninhabited.
[As soon as his colleagues had entered the air lock, Orostron hurled his tiny machine into the sky and set the controls to home on the S9000. Then he turned to his friends.
"Well, what have you found?" he asked.
Klarten produced a large roll of canvas and spread it out on the floor.
"This is what they were like," he said quietly. "Bipeds, with only two arms. They seem to have managed well, in spite of that handicap. Only two eyes as well, unless there are others in the back. We were lucky to find this; it's about the only thing they left behind."
The ancient oil painting stared stonily back at the four creatures regarding it so intently. By the irony of fate, its complete worthlessness had saved it from oblivion.
When the city had been evacuated, no one had bothered to move Alderman John Richards, 1909-1974. For a century and a half he had been gathering dust while far away from the old cities the new civilization had been rising to heights no earlier culture had ever known.
"That was almost all we found," said Klarten. "The city must have been deserted for years. I'm afraid our expedition has been a failure. If there are any living beings on this world, they've hidden themselves too well for us to find them."]
Another story is "The Sentinel", which was the original basis for "2001: A Space Odyssey".
The final story is "The Star". Again, I don't want to spoil it for you–but it's another one that packs a real wallop in the final line. Clarke really was a master of the form!
As far as I can tell the collection's no longer in physical print, but it's available from the usual providers as an ebook or audiobook (please don't use Amazon). You can also borrow it at no cost from the Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/ninebillionnames0000arth
Happy reading! 🤓📖
Here's a complete spreadsheet of all the books I've recommended on Mastodon to date (along with links to each post):
#Books #Bookstodon #ScienceFiction #Classic #ShortStories #BookRecs #BookRecommendations #DailyBookRecs #QuasitBookRecs
