My reaction upon reading this in 1990.

A very entertaining, chatty memoir of a portion of Clarke’s sf career. Reading this book is like hearing Clarke on his tv shows Mysterious World and World of Strange Powers. Clarke warmly recalls his early life, his introduction to sf (particularly Astounding, the central subject and touchstone of this book), and his days promoting rocketry with the British Interplanetary Society. Until I read this book, I didn’t realize how involved Clarke was in real science, not only with the BIS but early radar and (I always took it to be an exagerrated, somewhat apocryphal story) the development of communication satellites. Clarke knew an amazing number of famous people -- scientists, actors, newsmen, writers, directors -- many before they became famous. ( )

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