found that one still needed the other, and that their cultures had become stifled. The Council from Diaspar had become old and weary, and did not want to deal with the exuberance of youth, while Lys, feeling that it was young, did not want the city culture to interfere with its natural way of life. When the two cultures met, they found out that they complemented each other: Diaspar with infinite life and technology, and Lys with quick minds and telepathy. Reception Groff Conklin described the original edition of the novel as "a light, simple, fast-moving and often richly imaginative fantasy." Boucher and McComas praised "this brief but intense book" as "beautiful", describing it as "poetry and awe and wonder" and characterizing Clarke as "the visionary poet of a future so far distant that its most prosaic science passes our technical understanding." P. Schuyler Miller reported that because the narrative "is so well told, the story becomes convincing, and its magic spreads over the reader as well as the people of the plot." In 1969, Alexei Panshin wrote that "the story is largely undeveloped -- too much is asserted, too little is examined." Notes The work opens with a story fragment, apparently written in isolation in 1935, in which all Diaspar has fallen silent and Alvin is called outside by his father to see something in the sky. It is a cloud. This scene dramatises the "desert at the end of time" setting. References Sources External links Novels by Arthur C. Clarke 1948 British novels 1948 science fiction novels Dying Earth (genre) British science fiction novels Works originally published in Startling Stories Debut science fiction novels Books with cover art by Frank Kelly Freas Fiction set in the 7th millennium or beyond 1948 debut novels Gnome Press books