Man and machine: “A Meeting with Medusa” (1971) and The Medusa Chronicles (2016)

Delving into the mysteries of Jupiter with two stories which link two generations of the UK's greatest science fiction writers.

An enduring icon of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - 2008) is best remembered for his novels, especially Childhood’s End (1953), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Rendezvous with Rama (1973). However, up until around 1962 he was also a prolific writer of short fiction. He published so much, in fact, that the most comprehensive collection runs to over 900 pages, or an intimidating 50 hours in audiobook form. 

Originally published in the December 1971 issue of Playboy, “A Meeting With Medusa” is generally thought of as Clarke’s last significant shorter work. Notably, it won the Nebula Award for Best Novella the following year. It was also an early inspiration for two of Clarke’s successors in the British SF scene. 45 years after the novella’s publication, Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds delivered their novel-length sequel, The Medusa Chronicles.

Taken together, these two works form an exciting exploration of the possibility of life on Jupiter, the effects of transhumanism, and the relationship between humans and machines. They are also a fascinating link between two generations of British science fiction talent.

“A Meeting With Medusa”

“A Meeting with Medusa” opens in the 2080s, by which time the Earth is run by the kind of benign world government common to much of Clarke’s work. Howard Falcon is a seasoned test pilot for the World Navy, assigned to captain an enormous helium-based dirigible, the Queen Elizabeth IV. While the airship is flying over the Grand Canyon, disaster strikes when a camera drone caught in a freak wind collides with the aircraft. The Queen Elizabeth IV crashes and is destroyed - Falcon is the only survivor.

Years later, Falcon is sent to pilot a radically different dirigible to a far more exotic environment. His task is to immerse the craft into the hostile, gaseous outer layers of Jupiter on a mission of scientific discovery. To his surprise, he discovers an incredible ecosystem of creatures adapted to the extreme conditions. There are immense, tentacled creatures he dubs “medusae”, which are preyed upon by smaller carnivores he calls “mantas”. Falcon ultimately emerges from Jupiter to relay his findings, and Clarke reveals why Falcon was selected for the mission: because he is now a cyborg, extensively rebuilt with cybernetics after his earlier crash.

“A Meeting With Medusa” is classic Clarke in condensed form which merges several of his favourite themes - utopia, technophilic optimism, and survival in harsh environments.

The Medusa Chronicles

During an email exchange, Alastair Reynolds suggested to Stephen Baxter that if they were ever to collaborate on a novel, it should be a sequel to “A Meeting With Medusa”. As it happened, Baxter had just re-read Clarke’s story. They made space in their writing schedules, got their agents and publishers on board, got clearance from the Clarke estate, and set about writing The Medusa Chronicles.

This is simply a great, wonderfully engaging science fiction novel - and particularly enjoyable for Clarke fans. The co-authors' deep knowledge of his work is clearly evident, and they iterate cleverly on his favoured themes. Crucially, though, Reynolds and Baxter are never cowed by Clarke’s legendary status and they take their sequel in directions he very likely would not have chosen. For one thing, the utopian society does not last over the long term - in this future, war and oppression return time and again to human affairs.

The word “chronicles” in the title is used advisedly; the novel spans a period of nearly 900 years. This epic scope is particularly in keeping with Baxter’s style. The earliest events take place in the 1960s, when a joint US-Soviet effort to prevent a devastating asteroid strike on the Earth sows the seeds of the world government. The final events take place in the 29th century, and add up to a dizzying chain of conceptual breakthroughs involving sophisticated AI, the Jovian ecosystem, and mysteries in the core of Earth’s sun.

Present for all of these events is Howard Falcon, whose life is hugely extended by his cyborg nature and a succession of breakthroughs in human longevity. Interestingly, Falcon serves more as an observer than a participant in the seismic shifts of future history. However, he does have a key impact at certain points, especially through his encounters with an increasingly sophisticated robot named Adam. Falcon’s part-machine nature positions him between the two factions who come to war over the solar system.

Writing a novel-length sequel to a Clarke story must have been a daunting task, but it is one that Reynolds and Baxter rose to in some style. Reading “A Meeting with Medusa” and The Medusa Chronicles in quick succession underlines the similarities and differences between two generations of British SF writers. Clarke has been a clear influence on his successors, but in revisiting his themes, Reynolds and Baxter strike out into new and exciting territory.

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• Clarke novels covered previously here include The Sands of Mars (1951), Earthlight (1955), A Fall of Moondust (1961), Imperial Earth (1975) and The Hammer of God (1993).
  
• Reynolds was likely inspired by Clarke’s superchimps when he created his similarly uplifted pigs, hyperpigs, in his Revelation Space series which began in 2000.
• Previously, Baxter had collaborated with Clarke on The Light of Other Days (2000) and the Time Odyssey trilogy (2003 - 2007). He has written official sequels to books by another British SF icon. The Time Ships (1995) and The Massacre of Mankind (2017) follow on from the H.G. Wells novels The Time Machine (1895) and The War of the Worlds (1898), respectively.

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Addendum: The Medusa Chronicles is packed with references to Clarke’s stories and novels. Baxter and Reynolds clearly enjoyed themselves adding these nods into the text, and it represents a fun treasure hunt for Clarke fans. Here are just a few of them:

• It is said that by the 2090s much of the population lives on farmed plankton derivatives; this is a key concept in The Deep Range (1957).
  
• A settlement on Mars is mentioned, Port Lowell - this was featured previously in The Sands of Mars (1951), the short story “Refugee” (1955), and in The Lost Worlds of 2001 (1972).
  
• A reference is made to a facility in the Clavius crater on Earth’s moon - this links with Clavius Base in the book and film versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
  
• In another link with 2001, one of the Machines discusses having been built in Urbana, Illinois - this is where HAL 9000 was built.
  
• The composer of the “Neutrino Symphony” performed in Antarctica in part two is Kalindy Bhaskar; Kalindy is a character in Imperial Earth (1975).
  
• The “Discovery” class and “Goliath” class ships are references to ships in 2001 and The Hammer of God (1993), respectively. The “interlude” sections dealing with asteroid deflection in the 1960s also recall The Hammer of God.
  
• The rivalry between Earth and its colonies in the solar system, notably Mars, recalls the plot of Earthlight (1955).