Arthur C. Clarke R.I.P

[Moonbiter]

And there goes another great one:

Author Arthur C. Clarke dies
Story Highlights
Arthur C. Clarke dies in Sri Lanka at age 90, aide says

"2001: A Space Odyssey" was perhaps his best known work

He and Stanley Kubrick shared Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay

Clarke had lived in Sri Lanka since the 1950s

(CNN) -- Author Arthur C. Clarke, whose science fiction and non-fiction works ranged from the script for "2001: A Space Odyssey" to an early proposal for communications satellites, has died at age 90, associates have said.

Clarke had been wheelchair-bound for several years with complications stemming from a youthful bout with polio and had suffered from back trouble recently, said Scott Chase, the secretary of the nonprofit Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.

He died early Wednesday -- Tuesday afternoon ET -- at a hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since the 1950s, Chase said.

"He had been taken to hospital in what we had hoped was one of the slings and arrows of being 90, but in this case it was his final visit," he said.

In a videotaped 90th birthday message to fans, Clarke said he still hoped to see some sign of intelligent life beyond Earth, more work on alternatives to fossil fuels -- and "closer to home," an end to the 25-year civil war in Sri Lanka between the government and ethnic Tamil separatists.

"I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible," he said. "But I'm aware that peace cannot just be wished -- it requires a great deal of hard work, courage and persistence."

Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick shared an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay for "2001." The film grew out of Clarke's 1951 short story, "The Sentinel," about an alien transmitter left on the moon that ceases broadcasting when humans arrive.

As a Royal Air Force officer during World War II, Clarke took part in the early development of radar. In a paper written for the radio journal "Wireless World" in 1945, he suggested that artificial satellites hovering in a fixed spot above Earth could be used to relay telecommunications signals across the globe.

He is widely credited with introducing the idea of the communications satellite, the first of which were launched in the early 1960s. But he never patented the idea, prompting a 1965 essay that he subtitled, "How I Lost a Billion Dollars in My Spare Time."

His best-known works, such as "2001" or the 1953 novel "Childhood's End," combined the hard science he learned studying physics and mathematics with insights into how future discoveries would change humanity.

David Eicher, editor of Astronomy magazine, told CNN that Clarke's writings were influential in shaping public interest in space exploration during the 1950s and '60s. Watch how Clarke stands among sci-fi giants »

"He was very interested in technology and also in humanity's history and what lay out in the cosmos," Eicher said. His works combined those "big-picture" themes with "compelling stories that were more interesting and more complex than other science fiction writers were doing," he said.

Tedson Meyers, the chairman of the Clarke Foundation, said the organization is now dedicated to reproducing the combination of imagination and knowledge that he credited the author with inspiring.

"The question for us is, how does human imagination bring about such talent on both sides of the brain?" he asked. "How do you find the next Arthur Clarke?"

Clarke was knighted in 1998. He wrote dozens of novels and collections of short stories and more than 30 nonfiction works during his career, and served as a television commentator during several of the Apollo moon missions.

Though humans have not returned to the moon since 1972, Clarke said he was confident that a "Golden Age" of space travel was just beginning. Watch Clarke talk about sci-fi vs. reality »

"After half a century of government-sponsored efforts, we are now witnessing the emergence of commercial space flight," he said in his December birthday message.

"Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will travel to Earth orbit -- and then, to the moon and beyond. Space travel and space tourism will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic destinations on our own planet."



Thanx for all the good times.

[C Elegans]

I have to admit I never liked his books since I didn't find much literary value in them, but I loved Kubrick's adaption of 2001.

RIP, I think 90 years is more than enough!

[Ashen]

Yes, another great one gone, indeed.

I am a great fan of some of his work, and he is one of my favorite SF writes, that I hold particularly dear in my heart considering that the very first piece of writing that was SF that my cousin, who is also unfortunately gone now, read to me a long, long time ago, was written by him. I remember loving it and so an obsession with all things SF was born.

No, 90 is not enough, not nearly enough, but we all have to pass at one moment in time, and for what its worth, in my mind, he left a sizable legacy behind him that will live on so RIP AC and who knows which adventure in space awaits you now.

[C Elegans]

Slightly OT, but I think 90 is enough, you get fed up with living, you've seen it all before, experienced it all before, and if you lived a good and happy life, your drive will decrease due to repetition.

[Moonbiter]

Originally Posted by C Elegans

Slightly OT, but I think 90 is enough, you get fed up with living, you've seen it all before, experienced it all before, and if you lived a good and happy life, your drive will decrease due to repetition.

That, my dear, depends on how you live life. If you feel you've seen it all, or you, like Clarke, are wheelchair-bound for the last 10-15 years of your life, that might be an issue. If your mind is up to it, and you haven't stopped dreaming, 90 is way too short.

As for Clarke, I loved him as a visionary, but I detested his writing. I also loathe 2001. Yes, there I said it. Blasphemy! I can't believe how much that movie disappointed me when I finally got to see it. Almost 20 years of people telling me "What? You haven't seen 2001?" and looking down their noses at me, the infidel. Then I discover that the Holy Grail of SF movies is a 150 minute snore-fest, displaying some of the worst acting in history (a fact that the fans conveniently never mentions), and with the pacing of an asthmatic snail in glue....

I feel that I'm going off on a rant here, which I won't. Clarke defined the vision of futurists. Most of his smaller predictions came through. The larger ones have just been postponed.

Edit: It's a funny thing that revolutionary science-fiction writers seem to be limited to a few "ancient" gurus. When Clarke, Asimov, Dick, Heinlein and Leiber started dreaming up the future, it was almost at the same time, and they were envisioning the same things. Most of them came through in their lifetime. Vint Cerf, the guy who practically invented the internet and the way we live, told me that his main inspiration back in the day was sci-fi novels and the complete lack of limitations that they represented. If you can dream it, you can do it! He is now working on a protocol that bypasses the time lag for sending messages between planets! My brain hurts. The cool thing about the aforementioned writers is that their visions have been limited by human stupidity. We don't have flying cars because it would be a mess to control traffic. Hence we stop the research. We haven't been to Mars yet, or colonized other planets, because we're too busy fighting wars and developing gadgets like iPod that can zombiefy us further. The technology is there. We have no vision, we're navel-gazers. Thanks to people like Clarke, a few guys like Vint Cerf work for the expansion of the human race, while the rest of us have stopped dreaming. What happens when the last visionary dies?

[C Elegans]

Originally Posted by Moonbiter

That, my dear, depends on how you live life. If you feel you've seen it all, or you, like Clarke, are wheelchair-bound for the last 10-15 years of your life, that might be an issue. If your mind is up to it, and you haven't stopped dreaming, 90 is way too short.

We feel that now because we are not 90, yes, but honestly I have never met a really old person who was really, really hungry for more. I've met many bitter, sad and depressed elderly people, but for the happy ones, I've never met one who wasn't quite satisfied. Not that people actively want to die right now, but it matters less and less with increasing age I believe. Old people who are happy with life seem to enter a much more saturated and content view of their own death.
We have evolved to have an average life-span of much shorter than 90 years, and perhaps this is the reason why when we are there it seems our biology develops into a different mind set.

However, I should stop posting in this thread because I really don't like SF a lot and not Clarke either, so I don't have anything constructive to say. I am however surprised you didn't like 2001. I think the scene where the hominoids encounter the monolith and then discover the use of bones as weapons, is one of the greatest film scenes of all time.

Thanks to people like Clarke, a few guys like Vint Cerf work for the expansion of the human race, while the rest of us have stopped dreaming. What happens when the last visionary dies?

We spare the universe our retrovirus-like spreading?