Here’s a rather timely re-post, one based on a post prompted back in 2006 by an astronomer at the University of Hawaii. Professor Esther M. Hu, pointed me towards this reading of an Arthur C. Clarke classic, one read by Clarke himself!
Listening to it again today, and thinking about the significance of science and history of such an event, and the related event happening today, I found Clarke’s reading of The Transit Of Earth to be an incredibly moving experience.
Since then I’ve noticed that there was an introduction written for it too, which appeared in the May 1984 issue of Omni. It’s rather timely, considering that Clarke mentions today’s transit of Venus (which will be the last until 2117):
Here is that issue of Omni in the |CBR| format.
And here are the scans: |Page 70|Pages 71 and 72|Page 108|Page 110|Page 112|Page 113|Page 116|
The Transit Of Earth
By Arthur C. Clarke; Read by Arthur C. Clarke
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Caedmon
Published: 1975
Product #: TC-1566
[via the still awesome Record Brother blog and hugely resourceful Typnet.net]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Thank you for this update. I dug up the old link for my own blog yesterday, but the Omni stuff is an interesting plus.
I love all the stories on the record, and I think Clarke’s own reading of “The Nine Billion Names of God” is the best I’ve heard–surpassing even Harlan Ellison’s able effort on the audiobook of Clarke’s collected stories.
Anyhow nice to know someone else remembered this tale and Clarke’s reading of it.