58 pages • 1 hour read
Arthur C. ClarkeThe Nine Billion Names of God
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1967A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Stories 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Story 16 Summary: “Superiority”
The author notes that this short story alludes to World War II.
The narrator is a former military commander serving time in prison after losing an intergalactic war. He makes a statement for the court. He hopes his explanation will lead the court to grant him an important request. He also wants to refute the incorrect news stories about him and his men. He declares, “we were defeated by one thing only—by the inferior science of our enemies” (172).
After the Battle of the Five Suns, his crew realizes that the opposition is stronger than anticipated. They decide to hold a war conference to discuss strategy. Professor-General Norden is concerned that their weaponry has not been revolutionized. A month later, Norden presents “the Sphere of Annihilation, which produced complete disintegration of matter over a radius of several hundred meters” (173). The narrator and his men are so impressed by the power of this weapon that they overlook an important fact: Because it is a sphere, it destroys its own equipment as well. In the excitement of the new development, they focus only on this new weapon, feeling that everything that came before is now obsolete.
In six months, the Sphere is outfitted to the Fleet and ready for use. Unfortunately, a defect in the system causes the Sphere to detonate and destroy one of the Fleet’s own ships and all the men on board. This causes a delay of one more month, during which time the enemy takes advantage of their distraction and total lack of older torpedoes; they stopped producing anything other than the new weapon. Furthermore, the enemy redoubles their efforts to build an enormous army. Although they continue to build the older models of ships and torpedoes, the sheer number of their ships gives them the upper hand.
While the Sphere causes greater destruction than the older technology, it doesn’t tip the scales as fast as Norden promised. Norden offers another stunning invention to appease them: the battle analyzer. This computer program will allow them to replace their operations staff with calculators, giving them the ability to fight far more efficiently. The supreme commanders put all their focus into building four battle analyzers and training men to operate and maintain them. The analyzer will require separate ships just to hold the men and the equipment needed to run it, and these separate ships turn out to be vulnerable. The first one is destroyed by an errant explosive and the mission must be abandoned. The second analyzer does extraordinarily well and defeats the enemy mightily. However, the enemy learns that the analyzer relies on the unarmed ship accompanying it and in the next battle launches an attack directly on the vulnerable ship. This results in such great losses that the supreme commander commits suicide.
The narrator then assumes supreme command. The enemy continues to advance with the old technology and infighting ensues. The scientists blame the soldiers and vice versa. Norden is defensive. Everyone is so focused on finding the super weapon that they refuse to go back to the old technology. Norden then recommends a weapon called “the Exponential Field” (178). This makes it possible for a warship to fly with an exponential amount of space around itself, such that an enemy ship can never get close and the ship itself can seem to appear out of nowhere to make a surprise attack on its target.
At first, the Field is a huge success. The narrator’s forces gain back much of their lost territory and begin to hold the upper hand again. Then, during battle, something goes wrong with the Field. The communications fail, and the Field seems not to respond appropriately. They discover that there are unexpected side effects from using the Field. The effects are cumulative, slowly destroying the fleet. Meanwhile, the enemy fights on, pummeling the fleet with their original torpedoes: “[O]ur magnificent Fleet, crippled by our own science, fought on as best it could until it was overwhelmed and forced to surrender” (181). The narrator ends his recounting of the war here. He returns to his request. He requests that he no longer share a prison cell with Professor Norden; he cannot be held responsible for what happens to him should he have to spend one more minute in his presence.
Story 17 Summary: “A Walk in the Dark”
Robert Armstrong has been walking for two miles when his flashlight dies. He marvels at his bad luck and thinks about how important it is to catch a ship before it departs. He cannot bear to stay on base or this planet for another minute, let alone the planned four weeks. He has four hours and four miles to go.
Robert recalls a tall tale that he heard on his first night at the base. One of the men walked by night to Carver’s Pass, just as Robert does now, and swore that he was followed by an unknown beast. Robert tries to convince himself that the story couldn’t be true, for this planet is barren and uninhabited. He thinks about all the life-forms he has met on his intergalactic travels. They have been either disinterested in humans or quite friendly. Yet, he can’t quite put the old man’s story out of his mind. Moreover, there is nothing on this planet for a creature to eat.
Just as he begins to feel better, Roberts recalls some of the creatures he has encountered on other planets who could survive for long periods with no food. Others could survive simply on cosmic radiation. Suddenly he isn’t so sure that the old man was lying. He is again pulled back to his anxious thoughts as he remembers that he is nearing the point in the journey where the old man supposedly had his encounter. The old man described in great detail the strange clicking sound that the being made, much like a crab clicking its pincers together. He also described a uniquely large tunnel, which an expedition of men had gone to investigate the next day. While no one saw any signs of life, there was an unnatural rock, which looked like a whetstone, placed at the entrance of the tunnel—a whetstone that could be used for the sharpening of claws or talons.
By the time Armstrong finishes recounting this memory, he has passed the point at which the old man saw the creature. He can see the lights of Port Sanderson ahead and cheers up immensely. He is only 30 minutes away. There is one final hill to climb which causes him to lose sight of the lights. As soon as he is in the darkness again his anxieties return. He is overwhelmed with dark thoughts and worries that something will happen to him now that he is so close to the end of his journey. He finally succumbs to fear, turning slowly around and holding his breath so that he may hear any noises behind him. He experiences total silence. Feeling much better, he turns and faces Port Sanderson again, sure that he is safe. The narrator ends the story with the line: “But the gods have always been unfair to man, and now they were enjoying their little jest. For there could be no mistaking the rattle of monstrous claws in the darkness ahead of him” (192).
Story 18 Summary: “The Call of the Stars”
An unnamed man looks down on Earth from a space station. He “can see the lights of a hundred sleepless cities” (193) on New Year’s Eve, 1999. He wishes he could celebrate on Earth and wonders what the “hundred years that begin with two and zero [will] bring” (193).
In his youth, the narrator was always obsessed with going to space. His father did not want him to pursue a career in space travel, firmly believing that Earth is where humans are meant to be. He tried to persuade the narrator to give up his dream and stay on Earth, but he failed. His son could always win an argument about the logic of space travel: “How do you know where we were meant to live, Dad? After all, we were in the sea for about a billion years before we decided to tackle the land” (193). Even when he was accepted to the most prestigious apprenticeship at the Institute of Astronautical Technology, his father would not support him. He went anyway, returning for yearly visits to see his mother and father. When it was finally time for him to launch into space, his father did not tell him how sick he was. The narrator respects him for this, because had he known that his father was dying, he likely would have stayed behind. Now that he is a father preparing to say goodbye to his own son, he finally understands his father and is at peace with their relationship.
Stories 16-18 Analysis
“Superiority” became required reading at MIT because it so deftly analyzes the danger in becoming obsessed with the newest technology. Specifically, the story shows that just because something can be invented, this doesn’t mean it should, nor that it will immediately function better than the older model. The warring parties in the story begin with the same set of weaponry. The winning side decides it wants to utilize newer technology to further their advances and secure their technological superiority. They become so entranced with a man who promises bigger and better weapons that they follow his lead, even as they see their gains slip away.
The new technology, while impressive, hasn’t had time to be fully tested. Each invention has a problem. Rather than stopping to fix the problem or go back to tried and true methods, they simply move on to the next exciting weapon. Meanwhile, their enemy continues to build and perfect the older weapons until they have gained an unbeatable upper hand. Although the commander can see their progress dwindling, they feel compelled to continue searching for a new weapon, “for it seemed to us then that all our existing weapons had become obsolete overnight” (173).
The story becomes an allegory for modern warfare. Writing in 1948, just after the end of World War II, Clarke comments on the dangerous escalation of weaponry and the exponential increase in human devastation. More specifically, he may be making a comparison between the Allied forces and the Axis Powers. For example, Germany used a new submarine called a U-boat in ocean battles. Equipped with highly destructive missiles, the power of the U-boat was unmatched. However, Allied forces fought back successfully with sheer numbers and maneuverability, just as the intergalactic opponents do in “Superiority.” Reading this story from the contemporary moment, fraught with decades-long global wars, readers might see poignant validity in Clarke’s words: “[T]he search for an irresistible weapon must go on. At first it had been a luxury that would shorten the war. Now it was a necessity if we were to end it victoriously” (177).
“Walk in the Dark” plays with the concept of man versus nature. The narrator, Robert Armstrong, feels an urgent need to escape the base camp on an unnamed planet. He decides to walk the distance between camp and the station with a spaceship which can take him away. As he walks, he becomes overwhelmed with fear and anxiety. Clarke refers to him as a man “facing Nature, with no weapons but his own strength and skill” (184). The depiction could just as easily be of a man walking through a pitch-black night on Earth. Clarke masterfully moves the narrative in and out of panicked frenzy, perfectly emulating the relatable experience of losing oneself in anxious thoughts, pulling free, and returning again.
Over and over, Armstrong recalls the story about a terrifying creature lurking in the darkness. He then convinces himself through rational logic that it’s impossible. Just as he comes to the end of his journey, confident that he will reach safety, the narrator disrupts the reader’s peace by making an unexpected announcement: “[B]ut the gods have always been unfair to man, and now they were enjoying their little jest” (192). The jest is that in over-confidence, a person thinks they know what is in front of them; they think they can predict the future. So, individuals fear what might be lurking behind them, only to find out that the proverbial monster lies in wait just ahead, rather than behind.
“Call of the Stars” illustrates an imagined future when space travel is common and a young man might end up living on a space station in order to study the galaxy. The story acts as a short bildungsroman, exploring the themes of maturity, independence, and separation from the family. The narrator experiences the same human struggle that all young people do when they want to pursue an education or career of which their parents disapprove. He is called to the stars, as the title implies. His skeptical father discourages him from pursuing space travel, wishing he would stay close to home. In order to become an astronaut, the narrator must disconnect from his disapproving father and essentially lose his family of origin. It isn’t until the narrator becomes a father himself that he truly understands his own father. The reader understands through reading this science fiction story that growing up requires painful separation and individuation, just as raising children requires immense sacrifice and letting go.
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