Arthur C. Clarke, R.I.P.
Arthur C. Clarke died yesterday. I’ve never read anything by him. I don’t think anyone has. He’s the science-fiction writer that everyone loves to mention but no one has ever read.
Here is the picture that’s been attached to most of his obituaries:
That is exactly what I want my science-fiction writers to look like. I bet he got that shirt on one of his spice-trading missions to Mars.
March 19th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I read him - and loved it. He WAS exactly what a science fiction writer should be. Dream big dreams and even get it right much of the time - although he kinda dreamed too big or had too much faith in our progress with his 2001/2010 etc. books. He became sort of old fashioned over the last few years with all the cyberpunk and things centering around the singularity (which is getting really close now), but he provided some great dreams during my teen and young adult years. RIP indeed.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
What books would you recommend?
March 19th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I really liked Rendezvous With Rama and Fountains of Paradise. Those are the two that stick in my mind most strongly. I haven’t read any of his newer things - probably in the last 2 decades. I would say to avoid his collaborations with Gentry Lee - although his recent work with Stephen Baxter seems to please a lot of people. The most important thing that he did was predict communication satellites in 1945 and pretty much spelled out exactly how they would work - so everyone that uses Dish or DirectTV or pretty much any TV these days owes it all to Arthur Clarke.
By the way - knowing a bit about the nature of your sense of humor, you might take a look at Charles Stross if you want to have some real fun with current science fiction. If I picked for you - I would choose Accelerando. I think you’d like it. Totally off topic - we saw a production of Reefer Madness the Musical in Key West last week and thought about what a perfect play it would be for you to be involved in. It was great fun. If you haven’t seen it already you should try to catch it.