I just finished Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke about an invasion of sufficiently advanced aliens who use their technology to bring peace, prosperity and wealth to the people of the Earth, whilst maintaining an enigmatic ulterior agenda.
The novel starts well, framing the 'invasion' through the eyes of the leader of the UN who becomes the human face of the 'overlords.' The early chapters involve his efforts to balance the demands of the overlords against the wishes of the human subjects, managing protests and dealing with violent rebel groups. The novel then skips ahead fifty years and it's this part of the book which is the weakest and yet occupies the greatest volume of the book. The overlords have revealed themselves, humanity is settling into a peaceful yet dull golden age and there is no real mystery or challenge to drive the plot forwards until we reach the final fifth of the book.
On one hand, the ending comes too quickly without enough buildup but the last few chapters are what cements this book in the SF canon. The bland utopia novel you thought you were reading suddenly leaves you feeling small, insignificant, and faintly depressed as the real purpose of the overlord's invasion becomes clear and mankind changes beyond all recognition in a swirl of beautiful prose.
In conclusion, I'd give the opening chapters a 4/5, the middle a low 3/5 and a full 5/5 to the final chapters. Overall 4/5 - Definitely worth reading but you'll have to struggle through the bland middle section to get the most out of it.
I read that book for school. I thought it was pretty good. I've always liked Arthur C Clarke; he wrote really thoughtful, edgy, and plausible science-fiction. Even as a kid I had a short story collection of his called
The Nine Billion Names of God that I loved.
When I read
Childhood's End for school I was assigned a really dumb project where we had to create a mock newspaper that takes place in the world of the novel. I did mine as a
Weekly World News-style tabloid. I put a picture of a very happy and very pregnant woman smiling and holding her belly with the original caption "I'm excited and frightened" attached to it, and the headline "I'm Having Karellan's Baby!" I can't remember what the actual story was, but it
was Weekly World News so the bitch may very well have been having the devil's baby. Anyway I thought it was pretty funny but I was disappointed because I only got a C for it. That teacher (Mrs Posatko, I also had her for Latin) never appreciated my creativity.