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Post by doghair on Mar 18, 2008 22:13:15 GMT
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — 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.
Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30 a.m. after suffering breathing problems, aide Rohan De Silva said.
Clarke moved to Sri Lanka in 1956, lured by his interest in marine diving which he said was as close as he could get to the weightless feeling of space.
"I'm perfectly operational underwater," he once said.
Co-author with Stanley Kubrick of Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey," Clarke was regarded as far more than a science fiction writer.
He was credited with the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality. Geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are called Clarke orbits.
He joined American broadcaster Walter Cronkite as commentator on the U.S. Apollo moonshots in the late 1960s.
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Post by Zippy Moon Dust on Mar 18, 2008 22:50:52 GMT
You beat me to it on that one. I read loads of his books when I was a kid. That glass skull on his Mysterious World still gives me weird dreams.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2008 23:43:23 GMT
Sad. RIP Arthur. But 95 is a hell of an innings. Some of his stuff was ace, and some wasn't. In 1978 me and lil-bro (who was 6) were looking forward to seeing Star Wars, but when our Gran took us to the pictures that screen was full ... but there was no queue for 2001; so she took us to that. I don't think we ever got over it ...  Not a good day for English writer/directors ... Minghella going far too young at 54 ... RIP too. ah |
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Post by Lakeland Potter on Mar 19, 2008 8:08:48 GMT
Like Andy says, some of his stuff was not so good but a lot of it was excellent - The City and the Stars, A Fall of Moondust and of course, 2001 and the sequel.
I read him avidly as a teenager and liked the fact that his books had as much science as fiction in them. One of the most prophetic writers of the 20th Century.
RIP Arthur
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Post by GlennA on Mar 19, 2008 8:28:03 GMT
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Post by scfc147 on Mar 19, 2008 11:50:29 GMT
So, Arthur C. Clarke and Captain Birdseye died on the same day then. One was a mysterious old man who lived on an island and was suspiciously close to a lot of young children... and the other sold fish fingers for a living.
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Post by Kenilworth_Stokies on Mar 19, 2008 13:57:37 GMT
Arthur C Clark - what a man, what a mind. Totally blurred the line between imaginative science fiction and genuine theoretical scientific thought.  |
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