Tales from the White Hart

Tales from the White Hart
by Arthur C. Clarke

Our Price: $59.99
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $8.41 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-10-06
ISBN: 0345430727
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Del Rey

Book Reviews of Tales from the White Hart

Book Review: Not Free SF Reader
Summary: 4 Stars

In a similar setup to the Gavagan's Bar stories, but, as Clarke says, set in the UK, not the USA.

His bar actually features John Christopher, John Wyndham and 'George Whitley' in small cameos in the tall tales recounted by Harry Purvis. So a haunt of the literary types someone under a newspaper building or thereabouts, is what he says, so maybe pointing out a real pub somewhere he liked?

Anyway, all from around the 1950 mark, these. All they are intended to be is fun stories, and the author pretty much succeeds at that, in general.

Tales from the White Hart : Silence Please! - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Big Game Hunt - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Patent Pending - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Armaments Race - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Critical Mass - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Ultimate Melody - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Pacifist - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Next Tenants - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Moving Spirit - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Man Who Ploughed the Sea - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Reluctant Orchid - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Cold War - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : What Goes Up - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : Sleeping Beauty - Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from the White Hart : The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch - Arthur C. Clarke

Negative feedback showstopping blowup.

3.5 out of 5

Giant Squid control lacking.

3 out of 5

Sensation register commerce.

2.5 out of 5

Captain Zoom gun prop death ray.

3.5 out of 5

Bee ooze.

3.5 out of 5

Stuck in a hit pattern.

3 out of 5

War program insults.

3.5 out of 5

'The number of mad scientists who wish to conquer the world,' said Harry Purvis, looking thoughtfully at his beer, 'has been grossly exaggerated'.

3 out of 5

Whiskey making case a bomb.

3 out of 5

Submarine getaway extraction.

3.5 out of 5

Wellsian hothouse epic coward.

4 out of 5

Iceberg towing bet interruption.

3 out of 5

Antigravity flameout.

3 out of 5

Snoring cure insomnia reversal.

3.5 out of 5

Word count loop cheat pushover.

3.5 out of 5

3.5 out of 5

Write your own review

More Tales from the White Hart reviews:
1 2

Summary of Tales from the White Hart

The 50th Anniversary Edition of one of Arthur C. Clarke's best-loved collections featuring a brand new White Hart story written in collaboration with Stephen Baxter. Although written, as the author informs us in his Introduction to the 1969 edition, in such diverse locations as New York, Miami, Columbo and Sydney there is something inherently English about these stories. London's famed Fleet Street district has changed dramatically in the five decades since the collection's first appearance as a Ballantine paperback original... and, of course, many of the regulars of the White Hart (based on the White Horse pub on Fetter Lane) are no longer with us. But the White Hart's most prominent raconteaur, Harry Purvis can still be found propping up the bar and regaling us all once again with tales of quirky and often downright eccentric scientists and inventors. Here, for example, are a man who could control a giant squid; a man who could silence an entire orchestra at the flick of a switch; and a French genius who invents a machine that can record all human pleasures and transmit them to any client rich enough to afford such luxury. And rounding up the whole affair is 'Time Gentlemen, Please', in which we encounter a gadget able to accelerate the passage of time in a small volume... immensely useful for vaccine research where an entire year's worth of study could be completed in seconds. But the hapless inventor finds himself walled off by immobile air molecules... and even worse. It's a tale which points out, with some nostalgic resonance, that we simply cannot slow the passage of time. A fitting last word for one of SF's most enduring watering holes!

Literature & Fiction Books

Book Subjects

Most talked about in Literature & Fiction Books

Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott
Scribner; Published: 1986-06-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops: ~~$5.00~~

The Killing Ground
by JACK HIGGINS
HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS LTD; Published: 2007; Hardcover; Book

Saving Fish from Drowning
by Amy Tan
4th Estate; Published: 2005; Paperback; Book

Life Expectancy
by Dean Koontz
Harpercollins Pb; Published: 2005-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00

Constant Princess
by Philippa Gregory
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster; Published: 2005; Hardcover; Book

Wolf of the Plains (Conqueror, Book 1)
by Conn Iggulden
Harper; Published: 2007; Paperback; Book

Sahara
by Clive Cussler
Harper Collins Pb; Published: 2005-03-21; Paperback; Book

Perelandra (Cosmic Trilogy)
by C. S. Lewis
Voyager; Published: 2005-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.70
Price in other shops: ~~$10.50~~

The Lord Of The Rings: Part 2 The Two Towers
by J. R. R. Tolkien
Harper Collins Publishers; Published: 2001; Paperback; Book

Red Mars
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Trafalgar Square; Published: 2001-06; Paperback; Book

Similar Books and other products

Rendezvous with Rama
by Arthur C. Clarke
Spectra; Published: 1990-12-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.86
Price in other shops: ~~$7.99~~