NO MORNING AFTER

Episode #129 · Written by Arthur C. Clarke · Narrated by Scott Miller

When alien minds reach out across half a thousand light-years, humanity’s fate rests in the hands of one man—drunk, heartbroken, and utterly disillusioned. Their warning could save our world… if only he cared enough to listen.

Half a millennium away, the beings of Thaar sense catastrophe on a distant blue planet: a sun about to explode. They stretch their vast telepathic powers across the void, searching for one receptive mind. The only consciousness that answers belongs to Dr. William Cross—a disillusioned rocket engineer nursing a broken heart and an empty bottle. What begins as an extraordinary link between worlds becomes a grim reflection on apathy, failure, and the blindness of a species too weary to save itself. Through Cross’s bitter indifference, Clarke delivers one of his most ironic and devastating visions of humanity’s self-destruction. No Morning After is as tragic as it is clever—a story of alien mercy, human futility, and the quiet end of the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arthur C. Clarke (1917 – 2008) stood at the intersection of science and storytelling. A trained physicist, inventor, and lifelong visionary, he authored more than one hundred works exploring mankind’s relationship with technology and destiny. From Childhood’s End to Rendezvous with Rama and The Nine Billion Names of God, Clarke’s fiction balanced cosmic scale with intimate insight. He predicted geostationary satellites, the rise of AI, and the cultural revolution of the Space Age decades before they became real. Yet beneath the equations and starfields, his writing returned again and again to one question: what will humanity do when faced with the infinite? Whether inspiring hope or warning of hubris, Clarke’s legacy endures as the conscience of classic science fiction.

LISTEN TO THE STORY

Listen to No Morning After by Arthur C. Clarke — a vintage sci-fi warning where alien minds reach a doomed Earth, and one man’s apathy decides humanity’s fate.

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