Arthur C Clarke

Dammit, it seems like i'm writing these every couple of weeks these days.

Arthur C Clarke, the grand old man of science fiction has died, aged 90, in Sri Lanka.

Of all of the old sci-fi writers from the Golden Age, Clarke was always one of my favorites. Not always consistent in his larger books '(2001', 'Rendezvous with Rama') to which he had the disarming habit of writing sequels far past the use-by date of the concept, my favorite books of Clarkes were his small 'once-offs'. In these you always got the sense that he'd had an idea for a piece of technology and wanted to introduce the reader to it. 'The Gardens Of Paradise', 'The Ghost From Grand Banks', 'Prelude To Space', all written to highlight a technology more than to tell a story.

Also a delight was his 'technical' writing, by which I mean his collections of essays such as 'Spring 1984: A Choice Of Futures', and 'Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!' in which he displayed a rare wit and a capacity to involve the reader. Few of his contemporaries shared this ability, but most notably Asimov had it, and I think that says something.

As a postscript, I remember an anecdote that Clarke told in which, when he was the Treasurer of the British Interplanetary Society (1938) he recieved a letter from George Bernard Shaw who wished to join because "he thought it was time he looked into the matter". At the time, George Bernard Shaw was 97, and I for one am glad to see that Arthur C Clarke took this lesson to heart, and never stopped learning, right up until the end.

Arthur C Clarke, we're missing you already.