March 18, 2008

Sir Arthur C Clarke 1917-2008

  Crap...

One of the giants of Sci Fi has passed.

Sir Arthur C Clarke, Royal air force officer, inventor of the communications satellite and the concept of the space elevator, undersea explorer and author has died.

Though it must be said that he led a full and long life, his is a loss dearly felt. He was a renaissance man, and a visionary the likes of which is far too rare.

Big roundup here, Jerry Pournelle, * has thoughts on his old friend here.

*who is himself undergoing treatment for brain cancer (and has a tip jar)

UPDATE MARCH 22:via Instapundit, Clarkes final interview.


Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:19 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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A dark day.

Of the Three Giants of Science-Fiction, he was the one whose writing I liked the least.  Of course, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 1000 (best), with Heinlein being 1000, Harry Turtledove being ~850, and the (gazillion) authors of the Dungeons & Dragons novels being a collective 3, Clarke would have scored 998.  Something about his writing style struck me a little cold at some times, and that moves him below Asimov (999) on my scale.

But then, Rendevous At Rama and Childhood's End would be on my top 10 SF novels list, easy.  Heinlein would have three or four on the list, Asimov one or two, Turtledove one, and Niven/Pournelle the last.

A true genius, a true classic.

Posted by: Wonderduck at Tue Mar 18 22:37:38 2008 (Hrqgp)

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