E-books, a review and “The Secret”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) was an English science-fiction writer, the author of “2001: A Space Odyssey”. In the extract the journalist Henry Cooper is visiting the Moon for the second time and writing reports for the United Nations Space Administration. He notices that the Medical Research Group is avoiding him and talks to his old friend, Chief Inspector Chandra Coomaraswamy of the police. Two weeks later Chandra takes him by moon car to a glass building. There Dr Hastings shows him a five-year-old ordinary hamster, though hamsters usually live only two years; some are almost ten. Cooper whispers that they have found a way to make life longer. The extract ends here. It is science fiction: there is no such laboratory on the Moon.