Childhood's End

Steven Pacey stars as Jan Rodricks with Peter Jeffrey as Karellen in this powerful BBC Radio 4 dramatization of Arthur C. Clarke s apocalyptic vision of the future.

Alone many miles above the Earth, Jan Rodricks, the last surviving human, is witnessing the end of the world. As he watches, he records for the benefit of history how mankind was doomed

The massive spaceships appeared over every city on Earth, bringing the Overlords, a seemingly benign race vastly superior in technology and intelligence. Led by the enigmatic Karrellen, they promised a new age of peace and prosperity, and with the help of UN Secretary General Stormgren, they eradicated poverty, disease, and war.

But contentment has its price. As the years pass, culture, science, and religion start to die, and there are those who question the road down which the Overlords are leading them.

For it seems the apparently benevolent and omnipotent masters of the Earth are themselves only the servants of a greater power: a power they have no choice but to obey

First published in 1953, Arthur C. Clarke s tale of the evolution and eventual end of humanity has come to be seen as one of the great SF works."