From Narnia to the Space Odyssey

Hello Gang,
I purchased a delightful little book from Amazon.com which
arrived yesterday morning entitled "From Narnia to the Space Odyssey:
Stories, Letters, and Commentary By and About C.S. Lewis and Arthur C.
Clarke" edited by Ryder W. Miller

From Narnia to Space Odyssey is the dialogue in their personal letters,
essays, stories, and novels between two of the twentieth centuries great
intellectual giants - Arthur C. Clarke and C.S. Lewis

Clarke and Lewis began their correspondence in December 1943 when Clarke
took Lewis to task for his remark in "Out of the Silent Planet" (the
first book in the Space Trilogy) about "little rocket societies bent on
exporting the crimes of mankind to other planets." While they met only
once (at a well known pub the Eastgate in Oxford, with Lewis bringing
along a good friend the Oxford don, one J.R.R. Tolkein) while Clarke
brought along Val Cleaver, a pioneer in Atomic Rocketry. Neither
side could convert the other but, they all had a merry old time during
the debate over pints of bitter . Lewis' parting words were "I'm sure
you are wicked people - but how dull it would be if everyone was
good" Their "encounters" lasted until 1954 when Clarke became involved
in underwater exploration and left for the Great BarrierReef.

C.S. Lewis was concerned about Interplanetary Imperialism with a twist,
the human species being the perpetrators of interplanetary genocide.
Echoes of that concern can still be heard today when we
discuss terraforming or the possibility of contaminating Mars and Europa
with earthly microbes carried by our space probes.

In "Prelude to Space" Arthur C. Clarke makes reference to this Lewis'
arguments concerning Interplanetary Imperialism and dismisses them with
a stoke of the pen.

Their concerns about the future of human society confront us today. The
question of whether humankind can control the explosion of technology
or will become its slave vex us still . Eugenics, environmental
degradation, nuclear proliferation and whether space will be a frontier
we explore in the spirit of peace and international cooperation or just
the high ground where humankind will export its earthly conflicts are
questions that will confront us for the rest of the millennium.

I wish you all a wonderful Sunday afternoon's reading,

Yours truly,

Alex Michael Bonnici