"Transience" is a

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

short story by English writer Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1949 in the magazine '' Startling Stories''. It was later collected in '' The Other Side of the Sky'' and '' The Nine Billion Names of God''.

Summary

The story is told through scenes of three children playing on the same beach on Earth, but across vast gulfs of time.

Development

Clarke wrote that the story was inspired by one of

A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classics, classical scholar and poet. He showed early promise as a student at the University of Oxford, but he failed his final examination in ''literae humaniores'' and t ...

's poems as well as his childhood memories.

Release

"Transience" was first published in the July 1949 issue of '' Startling Stories''. The Beechhurst Press later published in the anthology volume '' Looking Forward'' in 1953. The story was also published in collections of some of Clark's work such as 1958's '' The Other Side of the Sky'' and 1961's ''From the Ocean, from the Stars''. In 2001 the University of Western Australia Press published "Transience" in the anthology ''Earth is But a Star: Excursions Through Science Fiction to the Far Future''. "Transience" has been translated into four languages, Dutch, French, German, and Serbian.

Themes

Per

Gary Westfahl Gary Wesley Westfahl (born May 7, 1951) is an American writer and scholar of science fiction. He has written reviews for the ''Los Angeles Times'', '' The Internet Review of Science Fiction'' and Locus Online. He worked at the University of Cal ...

, "Transience" is one of relatively few works by Clarke that mention the theme of

terraforming Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to mak ...

. Other themes in "Transience" include the passing of culture and time, the end of the world, and "the sea as seen".

Reception

John Hollow has described "Transience" as "more meditation than story". In a review for the 2001 collection ''Earth is But a Star: Excursions Through Science Fiction to the Far Future'', Jennifer Burwell favorably compared it to

Pamela Zoline Pamela Zoline (or Pamela Lifton-Zoline; born on June 20, 1941) is an American science fiction writer, painter, and activist. Background Zoline was born in Chicago, Illinois but lived in the United Kingdom, especially London, for the first two dec ...

's "The Heat Death of the Universe" and noted that the story "barely hints at the circumstances that ultimately lead to humans abandoning their home on earth. Clarke at once invites the reader to immerse herself in the melancholy sensibility of the story, and invited to take the active role of a detective searching between the lines to uncover."

Adaptations

The story has been adapted into a musical piece ''The Tentacles of the Dark Nebula'' by

David Bedford David Vickerman Bedford (4 August 1937 – 1 October 2011) was an English composer and musician. He wrote and played both popular and classical music. He was the brother of the conductor Steuart Bedford, the grandson of the composer, painter ...

References

External links

* {{Arthur C. Clarke Short stories by Arthur C. Clarke 1949 short stories Works originally published in Startling Stories