TALES FROM THE PLANET EARTH <i> by Arthur C. Clarke (Bantam: $9.95, illustrated)</i>

Although it doesn’t include all of Arthur C. Clarke’s stories about Earth (“No Morning After” and “The Nine Billion Names of God” are among the notable omissions), “Tales” offers some of the writer’s finest work from the ‘50s and ‘60s. “The Road to the Sea” and “The Lion of Comarre” represent early explorations of the link between cultural stagnation and technological advance, a theme Clarke would develop more fully in “The City and the Stars.” The bizarre surprise ending of “The Other Tiger” and the disastrously successful media hype in “Publicity Campaign” stand out as examples of the deliciously black humor that enables Clarke to end the world, not with a bang but a snigger.