Mr Clarke has specialised in the exploration of space, and so enjoys an edge when he comes to write fiction concerned with it. A story set in the future is not thereby a prophecy, and he is too good a novelist to make the confusion; but an intimate knowledge of the possible and the plausible greatly assists in that naturalising of the marvellous which is the characteristic achievement of the best science fiction.

With the heavy stuff out of the way, let it be said at once that Mr Clarke's new novel [The Fountains of Paradise] is no easier to put down than any of his others. It takes us to the 22nd century and the equatorial island of Taprobane…. (p. 119)

The book becomes an action story instead of a metaphysical romance, but the action is tense enough…. As I read I kept pushing myself further and further...