Tales from the White Hart
by Arthur C. Clarke · first published 1940
5mentions
2recommended by
4HN commenters
2008–2026first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
A compendium of science fiction stories that combine elements of comedy and horror, including "Silence Please," "Critical Mass," and "What Goes Up."
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Tales from the White Hart (Clarke, RIP) kicked off my interest in science and thus in IT. So that inspired me most. Still, I think the best SF I've read was Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks.
on “Ask YC: What's the most inspiring sci-fi book you've read?” ↗That was a fun read. Arthur C. Clarke's "Tales From the White Hart" meets Derek Lowe's "Things I Won't Work With", with Lowe showing up in the comments afterwards. Thanks for the link.
on “Craft using an inertial mass reduction device (Patent by US Navy)” ↗Heh, sorry to disagree, but that's a big nope. I learned the word in my teens, back in the 70s, from the Arthur C. Clarke story "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" in his "Tales from the White Hart" collection of SF-oriented tall tales.
on “Defenestration of Prague Window” ↗"Defenestrate" was not in my list, but it's a word I would have gotten, as I know it from: (1) An A.C. Clarke short story ("The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch", in "Tales from the White Hart", if I remember correctly); and (2) The Defenstration of Prague (I have visited Prague Castle - there were apparently multiple defenestrations there). It's an interestingly (amusingly?) macabre word.…
on “How many of the 170k English words do you know?” ↗TIL that "Tales from the White Hart" had at least some readership in the USA - I would have feared that its air of post-war English constraints (rationing and London grime) felt almost more fantastical than the accounts of Harry Purvis.
on “Defenestration of Prague Window” ↗