Centrada en las rivaldiades políticas entre los habitantes de Titán, la historia ofrece también interesantes descripciones técnicas sobre los viajes espaciales. El consagrado autor de Cita con Rama y Alcanza el Mañana crea con mano maestra un mundo fascinante y conserva, como era lógico esperar de su brillante imaginación, distintos hechos que sucesivamente van sorprendiendo al lector.

Al borde de una guerra de consecuencias imprevisibles entre la Tierra y la Federación por el control del titanio y uranio, Bertram Saddler recibe el encargo de averiguar quién está proporcionando información secreta acerca de los últimos avances en tecnología militar de la Tierra a la coalición encabezada por Marte y Venus. Su investigación se convertirá en una estremecedora aventura que sólo al final, en el que Clarke pone toda la carne en el asador, encuentra su resolución en un giro inesperado. Las escenas bélicas, sin ser cruciales en el desarrollo de la trama, han quedado como unas de las mejores en el ámbito de las guerras en el espacio. Inspirada en los bombardeos de Londres durante la segunda guerra mundial, Claro de Tierra es un emocionante cruce entre la novela de ciencia ficción y la de espionaje, en la que no faltan ni los ocasionales y característicos rasgos de humor de Clarke ni unos personajes perfectamente trazados.

Duncan Makenzie, invited to speak at the 500th anniversary of the American Revolution as a representative of Saturn's moon, Titan, has a problem. 70 years earlier, his "grandfather", Malcolm, was the leader of colonists on Titan, but also had a problem. Malcolm's problem was that he had acquired a genetic defect that made it impossible for him to father children. Wanting to retain the family name, Malcolm went to Earth and had a clone made. This clone was Duncan's "father", Colin, who in turn had a clone made who was Duncan. Now it was Duncan's turn to get a clone made, and it had to be done now, otherwise the elevated gravity on Earth would have a made trip impossible. Duncan's problems would only get worse, though, as it turned out his best friend, Karl, was doing things he should not have been. Dealing with Karl's extracurricular activities would shape the rest of Duncan's life.

I think I've begun to see some of Clarke's patterns. He will often (when writing in the future) describe a list of things. Two or three of those things are well known to us now. The final item in the list is always something that happened in characters' past, but our future. Additionally, Clarke loves to leave a book with hints of future wonders of engineering yet to be built. I've also noticed that for some odd reason, many of Clarke's references to past arts, events, or ideas are 20th century ideas. Once in awhile, these common patterns are interesting - after reading several Clarke books in a row, they start to get repetitive.

In the end, the core of the plot was not all that interesting. The final engineering project was not as compelling as some of Clarke's other man-made wonders. The final surprise reveal was not completely explained - I actually figure out what it meant only by reading some other comments on LibraryThing. The heavy comparisons between Titan and the Titanic were cumbersome and not quite as informative as I would have hoped. ( )

Titan og Jorden, 2275
Indeholder kapitlerne "1. Titan", " 1. A shriek in the night", " 2. Dynasty", " 3. Invitation to a centennial", " 4. The red moon", " 5. The politics of time and space", " 6. By the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Hellbrew", " 7. A cross of Titanite", " 8. Children of the corridors", " 9. The fatal gift", " 10. World's End", "2. Transit", " 11. Sirius", " 12. Last Words", " 13. The longest voyage", " 14. Songs of empire", " 15. At the node", " 16. Port Van Allen", "3. Terra", " 17. Washington, DC", " 18. Embassy", " 19. Mount Vernon", " 20. The taste of honey", " 21. Calindy", " 22. The ghost from the Grand Banks", " 23. Akhenaten and Cleopatra", " 24. Party games", " 25. The rivals", " 26. The Island of Dr Mohammed", " 27. Golden Reef", " 28. Sleuth", " 29. Star day", " 30. A message from Titan", " 31. The eye of Allah", " 32. Meeting at Cyclops", " 33. The listeners", " 34. Business and desire", " 35. Argus Panoptes", " 36. Independence day", " 37. The mirror of the sea", "4. Titan", " 38. Homecoming", "Acknowledgements and notes".

Duncan Makenzie rejser fra Titan til Jorden. Familienavnet var oprindeligt Mackenzie, men en computerfejl kostede c'et livet. Den første til at rejse ud var Malcolm Makenzie. Han er stadig i live, men en mutation har ødelagt hans muligheder for at få levedygtige børn. I stedet rejste han til Jorden og blev klonet. Resultatet Colin Makenzie er også stadig i live. Men mutationen fulgte med, så i moden alder fulgte han i Malcolms fodspor og returnerede med Duncan. Malcolm, Colin og Duncan er sorte, men Malcolm Jr er designet til at være hvid.

Lad være med at tænke for meget over hvordan samfundet kan udvikle sig så meget og så ikke kunne reparere en simpel genfejl? Ditto med hvordan mutationen kan være arvelig? ( )

This book took forever to get through. It's not complex. It's not too long. It was just not engaging.

Dated...I was a tad disappointed in Clarke for that. I'm not keen on authors using contemporary terms, mores, etc. when writing a future history novel. Three hundred years is a lot of time for change and I would expect Clarke to know better than to use geopolitical names and overly specific limits on technology, and yet here he did. And I thought one part rather cute (this was written in 1974-1975):

No one would ever know how many immature young minds had been ruined by them. "Brain burning had been a disease of the sixties [e.g. 2260s], until the epidemic had run its course[...]

As I said, dated. Not bad, but a forerunner of his later Rama writings. ( )