The Nine billion names of God by Clarke’s

Many of the stories pursue themes related to the impact of technology upon civilization and the future of humanity. Clarke’s very first published story in 1937 is about the consequences of teleportation. “Technical Error” was published in 1950 under the much more to-the-point title “The Reversed Man.” In one particularly prescient story published in 1954, the “Patent Pending” is for a machine that can record and play brain waves which is almost immediately exploited for pornographic potential. The technology of Clarke’s stories populate tales that take place in space as well on earth and occasionally include no other referent to science fiction on the space-time continuum; they are simply stories of how technology seems almost destined to fail and doom us all.