Book Review – A Meeting with Medusa By Arthur C. Clarke

Clarke does seem to have a thing for Jupiter, eh? This 1971 short novella puts us into a first planet exploration, the previously mentioned gas giant, and a first contact scenario with giant creatures unknown to humanity at the time. But before we get there, we are introduced to our main character Captain Howard Falcon (but not the F-Zero racer).

The prelude to the mission is a strange encounter where a dirigible crashes along the Grand Canyon and monkey crew members go flying. It is a weird introduction and it sets up the ending which I believe was meant to be a twist-like ending but it seems like an obvious state we find Captain Falcon in. Maybe in 1971, this was a more surprising revelation than today.

Captain Falcon doesn’t seem to have much setback from his crash minus a long physical recovery. He’s tasked to lead the expedition to Jupiter and makes it easily enough. The encounters with marine-like life in Jupiter’s atmosphere is the big focus and it’s nice to see a first contact with actual alien life that aren’t just bipedal humanoids with advanced tech. That is mostly the story with a quick revelation on Captain Falcon and his musings of what further exploration by humanity among the planets would be like, with the new life discovery being a catalyst for excitement to go and seek out new life.

Writing at the end of the Apollo moon mission apathy taking hold of America, and the rest of the world, this type of inspirational story makes sense. Other than that, it’s just a nice, little space story. Nothing too positive or negative about the characters or plot. The big aliens being the ground breaking item that would be built upon by others (and continued by current day sci-fi writers of this exact story). A nice, sci-fi read.