Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2014 March 14 • Friday

Here's a real classic. I think I read it a very long time ago, when it was probably above my reading level. I didn't remember it at all, though, so when a friend of mine gave it to me recently, it was a new book as far as I was concerned.

There's not much I can say about it without ruining the story for those who don't know it. It concerns the same event that's at the heart of the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man". An advanced alien race comes to Earth in space ships and starts cleaning up the place.

The strength of this novel is the gradual unfolding of the story, which takes place over a relatively long period of time and is revealed through a few different characters. The aliens themselves are among the most interesting, particularly the "Supervisor" alien.

You may wonder, as I did, if the book was heading to the same conclusion as "To Serve Man". You'll enjoy numerous suspenseful scenes before you find out. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that "Childhood's End" is in sympathy with much of John Wyndham's work.

The first line is "The volcano that had reared Taratua up from the Pacific depths had been sleeping now for half a million years".