Goodbye Arthur C. Clarke

I was sad to hear of the passing of noted Science Fiction novelist Arthur C Clarke in his adopted home of Sri Lanka on 19th March. Clarke was responsible along with Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert's Dune and a few other choice SF classics for igniting my interest in Science Fiction during my teenage years - an interest that remains to this day, even if the amount of Science Fiction I read is now tragically reduced (Note to self: should start reading more SF again). In honour of the occasion of his passing, this blog post is dedicated to a retrospective of my reading of Clarke over the years.

I cannot now recall precisely which was the first Clarke novel I read. My first encounter with his work may well have been a collection of his short stories, likely Expedition to Earth or Reach for Tomorrow. I do remember reading Rendezvous with Rama, on account of the book having scooped both the Hugo and Nebula Awards (the two most prestigious honours in the Science Fiction world)when I was in Secondary School along with The Fountains of Paradise (another Hugo winner). Despite the honours it received, I found Rendezvous to be a thoroughly dull read. Perhaps it was a deficit in my sense of imagination, but I couldn't feel any sense of wonder despite Clarke's attempts at evoking the tremendous size and scale of the alien spacecraft.

Fountains of Paradise was typical of Clarke in that it presented an intriguing idea - a 'space elevator' rising from near the equator (a fictional Sri Lanka moved slightly southwards to cross the equatorial boundary). Such an elevator would vastly reduce the fuel costs necessary to propel an object or spacecraft out of earth orbit. It is also sadly, suffering a bit from Clarke's occasionally wooden prose style and characterization.

Of all of Clarke's works, my absolute favourite must be Childhood's End. The book is probably the best written of Clarke's novels, with prose that sparkles, and an ending that I can only describe as transcendent. It remains probably his most critically recommended work to date.

It can be argued that Clarke was a more effective writer in the short story mold which suited his strengths as a Science Fiction writer. The short story allowed him to put his immense imagination and capacity for generating powerful ideas to great use with a more limited need for complex characterization. This could be said to be an attribute he shared with fellow Science Fiction Isaac Asimov (about whom it can be uncharitably said that all his characters are mere parodies of each other). Clarke may well have been amused by that - he and Asimov had earlier made a pack to name the other person if they were ever asked whom they thought the best Science Fiction writer was.

Arthur Clarke was ultimately a man of ideas - and not just fictional ones. At the end of World War II (which he spent working on Radar - so crucial to the British victory in the Battle of Britain), he published a famous article expounding the possibility of geosynchronous satellites. One of my favourites is his so-called 'third law' - that any technology that is sufficiently advanced can be mistaken for magic.

One thing is for certain: there is little doubt that his legacy in the Science Fiction field will endure.