Word: overmind
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...Clarke novel superior aliens arriving in the form of a black monolith, the Devil, or a spaceship as big as a planet, would resolve the stalemate, usually by initiating man into a higher consciousness. Overmind--mind without matter--is the highest product of evolution in Clarke's scheme. Such a mind can flit from star to star, experience eternity as a single instant, and generally paint the universe red. (so if you were wondering what that baby floating across the stars at the end of 2001 was all about, now you know...
Aliens didn't swoop down on Clarke's Sri Lanka home, so instead of Overmind the reader gets The View from Serendip, a hodgepodge of autobiographical trivia, tepid sea stories and futuristic speculation. The essays on space and technology go several light-years towards redeeming Serendip, but they don't go far enough...
...kind of pax stellarum. When the Overlords finally reveal themselves, dark thoughts filter up in man's mind. The visitors are winged, horned, 12 ft. tall and have tails. What is their mission? Are they supreme in the universe, or do they serve some understandable-and thus conquerable-Overmind? It is, the author relates with relish, the end of the human race as man knows...
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