I never liked the ending. I read the book when I was a teenager or a freshman in college. I hated the thought of the human race losing its individuality and merging with the Overmind. I kept hoping until almost the very end of the novel that Humanity would find a way to defeat the Overlords and kick them off Earth. I particularly hated the part where they halted all human space exploration. Clarke wrote Childhood’s End during the nuclear war angst of the early Cold War and when England was downgrading itself into a welfare state.
Childhood’s End was just one of the many times Clarke expressed his wish that humanity be restrained and controlled.
I never liked the ending. I read the book when I was a teenager or a freshman in college. I hated the thought of the human race losing its individuality and merging with the Overmind. I kept hoping until almost the very end of the novel that Humanity would find a way to defeat the Overlords and kick them off Earth. I particularly hated the part where they halted all human space exploration. Clarke wrote Childhood’s End during the nuclear war angst of the early Cold War and when England was downgrading itself into a welfare state.
Childhood’s End was just one of the many times Clarke expressed his wish that humanity be restrained and controlled.