Islands In The Sky by Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur C. Clarke cemented his status as a master of science fiction with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Winning a number of Hugo and Nebula awards, his novels of space exploration lean toward the technical rather than the fantastic.

Roy Malcolm hears the stories of travel to the Moon, Mars, and Venus, and longs to go himself. He beat out over 5,000 Rocket Club members to become a finalist on the televised Aviation Quiz Program put on by World Airways. When he wins the first prize of an all-expenses-paid trip anywhere on Earth, he surprises them by requesting a trip to the Inner Station, a relay satellite 1,000 miles up, technically still within Earth's airspace. The satellite is a refueling and acclimatizing station for those traveling on to other planets, unlike the meteorological satellite 6,000 miles up, or the hospital satellite 15,000 miles further.

Beside the satellite is a yard for disused rockets, and a rotating residential satellite (the only place where there is modest gravity). Disembarking from his first rocket flight, he gets used to zero gravity and meets Commander Doyle (a big man without legs, well-suited to weightlessness). Roy is introduced to (and joins) the academy apprentices working on the station, goes out for a spacewalk, watches large liners embark for Mars, helps repair the rocketship Morning Star, works a giant solar reflector, stows away on a trip to the hospital satellite, learns about Mercury's lakes of molten metal and the eight-legged Mercurians, and meets friends born on the Mars colony taking their first trip to Earth. When the rocket Cygnus is suspected to be smuggling cargo to Venus, it turns out to be the film crew of Twenty-First Century Pictures filming an interstellar movie.

If this seems like a juvenile travelogue designed to show the opportunities of space, it is.

One of Clarke's earliest works, this was a part of the Winston Science Fiction series published for teenage readers interested in electronics, aviation, and technology. It has been continually republished with cover art appealing adults, so I was taken aback to find the writing geared to a young audience. As a story of human settlement in Earth's lunar orbit, it's still of interest, if you know what you are getting.

1952 / Paperback / 160 pages

My other reviews for Arthur C. Clarke:

2001: A Space Odyssey