Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, an aide said. He was 90.
Without even clicking the story, I knew as soon as I saw the headline "Famous sci-fi author dies."* I was always more of an Asimov reader, but Clarke was a legend.
"All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest."
*I guess you could also think of Harlan Ellison, but then a headline should read "Famous sci-fi author / total asshole dies."
The one thing that struck me about his writing was that it was very believable, even when you read something of his years after the fundamental premise of the book has been scientifically disproven. For example, his book A Fall of Moondust, written several years before Apollo 11, is based on a theory that the moon is covered in seas of dust so fine that it behaves like water, and deals with a "ship" full of tourists which gets caught in a quake and sinks into this. Even though the fundamental premise is now known to be false, the store is still surprisingly believable in spite of this.
Rendezvous with Rama is still one of my favorite sci-fi books (the later ones not so much though.)
Harlan Ellison is a hero. No pussy whipped picketing and screaming the same phrase if someone has offensive "moral" values. Be an asshole and make a point out of them being wastes of life.
so long and tanks for all the spacefish unban shw <Megalixir> now that i know garegga is faggot central i can disregard it entirely
<Megalixir> i'm stuck in a hobby with gays
Also, he got into an epic 20-odd-year battle with some shmucks that weren't worth his time (bugfuck.txt), funny as hell. Only recently had a court settlement on that (2006).
p.s. Arthur C. Clarke can't scream now, he has no mouth lol
At the Harold Washington Branch of the Chicago Public Library they had a bunch of his books out in a little display in the fiction section. A meaningful gesture, I thought.
