World criticism calls Arthur Charles Clarke (born in 1907) “Science Fiction Number One.” He collected a simply unprecedented harvest of all kinds of literary awards - Hugo, Nebula, Jupiter, J. W. Campbell Memorial Prize, International Science Fiction Prize, Kalinga Prize, Westinghouse Prize, Marconi Prize, International Aerospace Literary Prize. These assessments speak so eloquently for themselves that only one thing can be added to them: the three novels included in this collection are among the writer’s early and generally recognized most successful works, and they demonstrate three genres, three directions of his work. Isaac Asimov once called The Great Deep a “maritime western”; "The City and the Stars" is a space opera, and "The Sands of Mars" is a wonderful example of classic "hard SF."