Against the Fall of Night Book Summary

Against the fall of Night is a Science Fiction novel first conceived by Arthur C. Clarke in the 1930’s and finally published in final form in the late 1940’s.  The protagonist, Alvin of Loronei, lived in the city of Diaspar about 1 billion years into Earth’s future.  All Earth except Diaspar is a desert.  There were other cities but slowly they were abandoned as people migrated to mankind’s last city.  The city is controlled by very effective robots that provide power and the essentials of life and effect repairs.  Humans live tens of thousands of years, only have children every few thousand years and spend their lives in pursuit of the arts and leisure.  According to dim Diaspar legends, mankind once attempted to travel to the stars but disturbed a savage and powerful race known as the Invaders and were driven back to Earth where after the epic battle of Shalmirane and in return for a promise never to venture out again, the Earth was left alone.

Alvin was curious by nature and struggled to find a way out of Diaspar.  He found a tunnel to a ledge where he could see the desert and the stars.  A message inscribed there by Alain of Lyndar instructed the reader to inquire of the Keeper of Records.  Alvin did so, and the Keeper, Rorden, who though inquisitive was yet less so than Alvin, agreed to help him.  They found an ancient train terminal under the park with one still active train line – to “Lys”.

Alvin went to Lys and found that it was not a city but a vast rural area surrounded by mountains hundred of miles from Diaspar.  The people there lived much shorter lives, were telepathic and lived in small villages among the lakes and forests.  Their history suggested it was they who had defeated the Invaders at Shalmirane, the ruin of which still existed in their southern mountains.  Alvin met Seranis, leader of the council of Lys who told him they needed to deliberate since contact between Lys and Diaspar was prohibited by mutual consent (the people of Diaspar having promptly forgotten about the existence of Lys).  Alvin joined Theon, Seranis’ son, on an excursion to the untended forests of Southern Lys (Alvin had never had a playmate, being the only child born in Diaspar in 7000 years, and was besotted with his new friendship.)  When they arrived, Alvin convinced Theon to take him to the nearby ruins of Shalmirane.  There they found an old man, the last of thousands of disciples of a messianic ancient space traveler called the Master.  The Master brought with him three incredibly sophisticated robots who still served his followers.  The followers had been put in suspended animation and were awakened serially to await the return of the Great Ones who had  gone away promising to return.  The old man was the last survivor.  Alvin convinced him to a loan of a robot to take to Diaspar where it could be made to yield the Master’s secrets.  However on arrival at Seranis' village, Alvin was told that he must either return to Diaspar with his memory of Lys erased or remain in Lys forever.  He was given an hour to decide.  He secretly instructed his robot to make sure he was on the return train to Diaspar regardless of what Seranis made him do.

Thus, Alvin returned to Diaspar but found that the council of Lys had contacted that of Diaspar concerning him and they were equally determined there be no contact.  Working with Rorden, Alvin had the robots of Diaspar duplicate his borrowed robot, evading the Master’s proscriptions, and then had his robots enter the desert and raise the Master’s hidden starship.  Alvin rode the ship to Lys, found Theon and the two of them rode the ship through space to an artificially made constellation of stars from whence the Master had apparently come.  There on a beautiful planet lit by the light of multicoloured suns, they met Vanamonde, a vast and ancient but benign galactic mind.  Vanamonde, finding sympathetic intelligences in the universe aside from itself, immediately went to Earth ahead of the boys and began communicating with the telepaths of Lys.  Working together the recordkeepers of Diaspar and the scientists of Lys were able to piece together the lost 1 billion years of human history.

Humans had not originally gone to the stars.  When they reached the edge of the solar system, other races contacted Earth.  Humans were profoundly dismayed by the disparity in level of culture and returned to Earth to further develop themselves.  After some millions of years, humans again ventured out, joined other races (The Empire) and became a catalyst for vast galactic efforts and accomplishments including creation of a galactic mind.  The mind they created was insane and destructive.  They confined it in a black hole at great cost to the galaxy.  They created another mind, Vanamonde, that was sane but cognitively immature.  Then the advanced members of the Empire, human and otherwise, found a new, more developed civilization of beings “around the curve of the cosmos”, whence they removed, putatively planning to return when Vanamonde had matured.

Alvin resolved to work for the regeneration of Earth and then, perhaps with help from Vanamonde whose development they could perhaps accelerate, someday contact the “Great Ones” who had left and thereby restore the neglected destiny of humankind.