RIP Arthur C. Clarke
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 - 6:36pm
Here's hoping that it actually is full of stars.
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His was some of the first science fiction I fell in love with, but it's been too long since I've actually read any. I think perhaps I'll try to try to dig up my copy of Childhood's End in the near future.
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Off to his Rendez-vous with Rama I suppose.
"I'm absolutely retarded. Not 100% sure why." - atom
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I was never a big novel fan, but by the time I got into college it was painful to read through any of the novels from my "filler" classes. I can safely say my favorite book of all time and the only novel I enjoyed reading in college is Childhood's End. RIP.
Just read the news.
I feel just as bad as I did when Isaac Asimov passed.
Safe travels Sir Arthur, you definitely left your mark on the world.
Fun fact - Geostationary orbit (something he envisioned 20 years before it happened) 36k k up is known by the IAU as "The Clarke Orbit"
He was a truly great man. One of the kind one can not really think of as 'gone', but only as 'passed through'.
And if I haven't seen further, it's because those bloody giants blocked my sight.
A sad day indeed.
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I used to watch reruns of his show when I was in college, and was impressed by how on the ball he was for his age then. The fact that he was still publishing well-regarded works at 90 years old is almost mind-boggling.
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I was in the seventh grade when I read Childhood's End which was on my older brothers summer reading list. It was my first introduction to mature SF and completely blew my mind. I quickly devoured all the Clarke novels I could get my hands on. I read somewhere that he just wanted to make it to 2001 to see the new millennium. Childhood's is still one of the best SF novels and, unlike most speculative fiction written in that time, it has aged extremely well.
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Damn. I've always meant to read his collected works. No time like the present.
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My introduction to him was Empire Earth, an out-of-print novel, that, if I recall, wasn't particularly well-received. I loved it, though. It was certainly non-traditional sci-fi, choosing to keep out some of the more incredibly fantastical possibilities of science fiction, focusing on the reality of what might happen to someone living in an age where the moons of Jupiter have been colonized, and a young man, born and raised on one, making his first trip to Earth.
I also remember playing that damned Rama video game, and getting hopelessly stuck on the puzzle with base-6 mathematics. After having learned base-2 in college, I'm pretty sure I could solve the puzzle now, but I never got around to it.
Your capability of producing new contributions to the universe may have passed, Arthur, but in the spirit of the novels, characters, and places you brought us to in your work, you live on, nobly, agelessly, and memorably.
"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible."
-Sir Arthur Charles Clarke
Let your pen, and your spirit, be at peaceful rest.
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Glad he had an impact on my life.
We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all.
So sad to see him go, but he deserves some time of peace and quiet. Rest in peace sir!
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LobsterMobster wrote:
When I was much younger, I loved his World of Strange Powers series. Then came the books, very mature and fascinating. He will be missed and remembered for a long time.
You can't take the sky from me.
Im gonna have my girlfriend watch 2001 with me this weekend, in his honor. I always liked 2010 better, though.
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Heinlein, Asimov, now Clarke. I always thought of them as "The Big Three" growing up. Certainly they were my Big Three writers; I read and devoured every word they wrote. They were also the first three writers I read voraciously.
That's a lot of great writers to mourn.
Rest in peace, Sir Arthur.
"I have not supped of Buffy, nor have I supped in any wise during the absence of Firefly. When Firefly returns again in glory, then shall I sup at the table of Whedon." - Fedaykin98
I am not much of a reader. I read probably less than one a year and my book collection takes less than one shelf. Yet, that collection includes his entire "Rama" collection which I read in less than one month and Asimov's "Foundation" series.
They both had a gift for creating fascinating places that a restless nerd with a short attention span like me could get lost in for hours. They will both be greatly missed.
Did anyone else play the RAMA PC game? I think it was published by Sierra.
That. Really. Sucks.
Science Fiction just lost one the greatest voices, it's ever had, or will ever have.
Godspeed Sir Arthur, and thank you for all the visions, of what may lie beyond our little blue marble. Here's hoping, you get to see all of the sights you've been telling us about, for all these years.
EDIT:
Yeah, I played it, I still have the discs as a matter of fact. And yes, it was published by Sierra.
LiquidMantis wrote:
Aw, that just sucks. I haven't read a lot of his books but what I did read and see made into film I always enjoyed immensely.
Rest in Peace, Arthur.
Now, uh, who gets his awesome crystal skull?
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It'll probably go to some museum. The freaking mooches.
"I'm absolutely retarded. Not 100% sure why." - atom
"Dhelor + intarwebs = Great ideas." - wordsmythe
"Do I what I do: hate everyone." - Quintin_Stone
Indiana Jones?
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
Wow...just...wow....that hurts man. I'm deeply saddened by this loss...