Islands in the Sky

This is one that is more along the lines of the juvenal novels of Heinlein wherein there is an attempt to excite kids concerning science and space. It is well written and has just enough adventure to keep things relatively fast paced. But it is all "plausible" events given the set up. I like the SF general optimism that we would have achieved space stations and colonies if we could have put aside our petty differences. Again there are very convincing descriptions that make it see the novel was written after we had some knowledge of space flight and views of the earth etc. Revisiting early Clarke after 30+ years I expected it to be much more dated than it actually is. Visually and thematically this could be filmed very easily as is with a minimum of updating.

This is a story about the setting, the world that the main character lives in. As many people have commented nothing happens in this book. This is not an action book. However, I still really enjoyed it!

Clarke writes about a world where humans already have many space stations, colonies on the moon, and mars, and even exploration missions to mercury. Clarke clearly understands the way things work in space even though this was published in the 50's. Clarke describes the life of an average boy as he takes a couple weeks of vacation on a space station, not a vacation station though, but a working station.