Sir Arthur C. Clarke, 1917-2008
I'm sorry to report that Arthur C. Clarke, the last and (in my opinion) greatest of the Big Three science fiction writers, died today at the age of 90. Clarke was last mentioned here a few months ago in a post honoring his 90th birthday.
Just recently I read one of Clarke's nonfiction books, "Profiles of the Future". A lot of his "extrapolations" (he didn't like to call them predictions), unsurprisingly, were way off, and a few were disturbingly on the mark. But it was very interesting to see his views of technology. Clarke's immense hope for the future and his belief in humanity's vast potential is very inspiring for me.
I love pretty much everything of his I've read so far, and I've always meant to read more Clarke, especially the Hammer of God and the Rama series. The Space Odyssey books are outstanding (though missing a lot of the weirdness that makes the movie so wonderful), and so are the highly underrated novel Childhood's End, The Star and (probably his best known short story) The Nine Billion Names of God.
Wired has a nice tribute to Clarke, including his contribution to their 2006 Very Short Stories project (Clarke cheated and used ten words instead of the required six). His story, in its entirety, was:
"God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist."
Wired also quotes Clarke's epitaph, which seems the ideal way to end this tribute to him.
Just recently I read one of Clarke's nonfiction books, "Profiles of the Future". A lot of his "extrapolations" (he didn't like to call them predictions), unsurprisingly, were way off, and a few were disturbingly on the mark. But it was very interesting to see his views of technology. Clarke's immense hope for the future and his belief in humanity's vast potential is very inspiring for me.
I love pretty much everything of his I've read so far, and I've always meant to read more Clarke, especially the Hammer of God and the Rama series. The Space Odyssey books are outstanding (though missing a lot of the weirdness that makes the movie so wonderful), and so are the highly underrated novel Childhood's End, The Star and (probably his best known short story) The Nine Billion Names of God.
Wired has a nice tribute to Clarke, including his contribution to their 2006 Very Short Stories project (Clarke cheated and used ten words instead of the required six). His story, in its entirety, was:
"God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist."
Wired also quotes Clarke's epitaph, which seems the ideal way to end this tribute to him.
'He never grew up; but he never stopped growing.'
posted by Skippy | 10:33 AM
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