Arthur C. Clarke Is Dead At 90

Many readers are sending in word that Arthur C. Clarke has died in Sri Lanka. He wrote over 100 books including 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous With Rama, and popularized the ideas of geosynchronous communications satellites and space elevators.

R.I.P Arthur C. Clarke

[darkob]

Good man has died. R.I.P.

Now this is someone

[Paranatural]

Who actually has done a lot to promote science. Ok, so he did a lot of Sci-Fi. But most scientists I know were drawn to it *because* of some of the sci-fi they had seen. A sad passing, not just for the cause of geeks and entertainment, but nerd and science.

requiescat in pace

[ZJVavrek]

Rest in peace, Sir Clarke. You will be missed.

This one hurts!

[kclittle]

I see a notice of passing of this or that "famous" person every day. But this one hurts...
Bon Voyage, Sir Arthur! Many of us will truly miss you...

Re:Link for the uninformed.

[RamblinLonghorn]

Clarke corresponded with C. S. Lewis in the 1940s and 1950s, and once met in an Oxford pub, the Eastgate, to discuss science fiction and space travel.

Oh to have been a fly on the walls of that pub.

Friend of my youth

[ZonkerWilliam]

His and Asimov's books were what I read growing up.

"Time is the fire in which we burn..."

RIP

RIP

[fhic]

I hope wherever he's gone, it's full of stars.

Re:NAMBLA

[TripMaster Monkey]

It was only a matter of time before some jackass puked forth this groundless accusation.

STFU. Try to have a little respect for a man whose shoelaces you are not fit to tie.

Commiserations

[Chukcha]

That's all.

Condolences and fond memories

[Dread_ed]

My deepest condolences to his family, friends, and fans. He was one of the first writers I experienced that changed the way I thought and felt about the world in a drastic way.

I can still remember hollowness in my chest from "Childhood's End," the wonder and fear from the "Odysseys", and the rompy fun from "Rama."

Though we can all take some solace from the immortal parts of him that live on in all of his books and in us, his readers, I for one will surely miss him.

Thank you Sir Clarke and peace on your eternal rest.

Will I dream? Of course you will.

[dgerman]

His long lasting legacy is that he taught many computer sciences (and electrical engineers) how to dream.

many of those dreams became a relaity.

And we are still pursuing some of them.

--dmg

Re:What a loss...

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Have you actually read any "Westerns?" What's your beef with the likes of Louis L'Amour? My guess is that your post was a pathetic nod to the tired liberal talking point about "Cowboy Diplomacy." One could only wish that more world leaders had more in common with the archetypal Old West cowboy (soft-spoken, decisive, defender of the weak, swift and ruthless, yet also capable of deep compassion) than with spineless appeasement mongers.

Now my whole trinity is gone...

[WCMI92]

My 3 favorite, and the 3 who most influenced me are now gone... Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein..

But their stories, intellect, and vision for the future will inspire generations more.

Re:Not Just the Fiction

[Trails]

A good point. A lot of ideas he conceived/incubated/popularized have done much for humanity. Aside from his watershed prose, his ideas are a testament to human ingenuity and imagination.

God speed, Mr. Clarke.

Re:NAMBLA

[Alwin Henseler]

First of all, please define what constitutes "conventional"

You must be new here! It's so simple:

1. Stop reading Slashdot
2. ???
3. "Sexually conventional lifestyle" (aka profit)

Re:shame.

[dhavleak]

Rest in peace, Arthur C. Clarke - you will never be forgotten.

I can still remember the chill that went down my spine at the end of 2010 (the year we make contact) when HAL relays David Bowman's message:

All these worlds are yours except Europa
Attempt no landings there.
Use them together. Use them in Peace.

And the (almost Obamaesque) hope I felt when Haywood Floyd tells his son, "Someday, the children of the old sun will meet the children of the new sun. I hope we can be friends"

2001, 2010, Rama, Glide Path (and instrument landing systems), The City and the Stars, Earthlight, The Nine Billions Names of God, his Scientific American paper on geosynchronous satellites, and so much more. I can't imagine what our world would be like without his contributions.

Re:shame.

[mikeabbott420]

Growing up in the 70's I scoured every library of every place I moved to for Asimov,Clarke and Heinlein and read their books many times over. Now they're all gone and I feel sad, like the last of a special group of friends is gone.

Re:All These Novels...

[Lu]

I would argue it is precisely that movie that made him into the giant that he was. It was a synthesis and evolution of many previous works into a larger, more important, and more cohesive vehicle. The reason it exists at all is because of Kubrick. The books were great, but except for that movie he was just a very good science fiction writer. It was Kubrick's vision and execution that lifted him. And it was Kubrick that was responsible for its polished final form, as he kept rejecting Clarke's drafts and insisting that he could do better. The book was written along with the development of the movie. It was published after the movie was released, but it was finished beforehand and is in fact the basis of the movie, instead of the reverse, which is a common misconception.

And the morons, the geeknobs, the imbeciles that self-award themselves for movies, completely blew it. Do you know what won the Oscar for the best movie of 1969? You might look it up. No one remembers it. 2001 didn't even win an award for best costumes, that went to the inane world of Roddy McDowell and his geriatric simians for Planet of the Apes. They gave 2001 an award for special effects, and you can argue almost everything important until CG was done in 2001. It didn't make it onto that stupid list of 100 best films (give me a break). And compared to other films made the same year (how about the ludicrous 'Robinson Crusoe on Mars'?) it was just miles and miles ahead of anything anyone else could imagine.

Most importantly, much of what Clarke/Kubrick presented was righteously and vigorously dismissed as bunk, especially w.r.t. the early hominid sequences. Remember this was the era of arguing over "Killer Apes" or gentle pre-humans. His presentation of pre-humans' war-like behavior was ridiculed, and his presentation of weapons development as the nucleus of development of greater intelligence was mostly scorned.

Today we can watch some of the nature channel films about chimpanzees going out on "war patrol." They act almost exactly like the prehumans did in the film. They said bands of apes wouldn't fight, well, they do. They said apes don't fight over water, well, they do. They say they don't use tools as weapons, well, they do. In the end, Kubrick and Clarke were right about almost everything.

To this day, from watching his film, almost no one can grasp his biggest concept on their own (that when we encounter a greater intelligence we will have no greater understanding of it than an ant would walking about on a tank). And to this day almost no one can spot the aliens right there in plain sight (and no, they aren't the monoliths).

You will be missed, Arthur and Stanley.

-Luen

Re:Now this is someone

[ScrewMaster]

Arthur C. Clarke was the archetypical hard science-fiction author. Science-fiction, if you please. In his stories, the math always worked, the science was as real as it could be. Since I was a kid I read everything he wrote that I could get my hands on ... and now I think I'm going to go select one of my favorites and re-read it.

Rest in peace, Arthur.

Re:Not Just the Fiction

[Veggiesama]

You seem to have dismissed the entire art of literature in one fell swoop. I find it somewhat condescending to only appreciate a great writer such as Clarke (or anyone else) insofar as they act as cheerleaders for other professions or ideals.

That said, I do share your opinion in part, and I don't want to sound like I'm flaming. I do think that his stories, and the field of science-fiction in general, has not only inspired budding scientists and engineers, but also ordinary people to develop an interest in the role of science in our society, as well as its prominent role in humanity's future.

That is one way of appreciating Clarke's writings. It can also be appreciated for its historical significance, having been written in an era of unprecedented American optimism. Just a year after both the book and movie were written, the Americans landed on the moon, after all! The stories' popularity can also be seen as a reflection of our self-image, value systems, or even fears through the themes and issues it raises. And if the HAL 9000 isn't an expression of our fear of technology, then I don't know what is!

(as written on Wikipedia, because I'm too lazy to do any of my own analysis, one theme that the book examines is the way that "troubles... crop up when man builds machines, the inner workings of which he does not fully comprehend and therefore cannot fully control"--sounds like my mother trying to work her DVD player, but I digress)

Once again, I'm not trying to criticize your feelings, but I merely wish to nitpick and point out to others that it is possible to appreciate authors and the works they create in more ways than a pragmatic, utilitarian, "what have they done to improve our world" sense of appreciation. Literature is more than just a tool...

Re:He's not dead you earthing fools

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"Life is just one big banana. Science fiction allows us all to peel open the reality and discover the yellow truth inside."

Kinda evidence to the contrary, no?

Re:He was really a futurist...

[meringuoid]

The article states he died on wednesday, but it's still tuesday! (I know, I know... it's due to the time zones...)

So the news reached you that quickly? From Sri Lanka to you in a matter of minutes... What a wonderful invention allows instanteneous intercontinental communication! Who is it that we have to thank?

Re:Not Just the Fiction

[Zantetsuken]

As I read it, the GP didn't dismiss any kind of literature as not having artistic value. He put the artistic value and "cheerleading" aspect of Clarke's work next to each other on a bar graph and said that the inspirational value is higher than the artistic value. In other words, if the artistic value is a fantastic contribution to society, the inspirational value to society would then be astronomical...

Steve Ballmer

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Steve Ballmer? I wonder if he'll get his own article plus all this adulation when he passes on? People like Clarke and Gygax certainly do. RIP.

Re:shame.

[jpowell180]

Damn. One of the Great Three (Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke).

Re:What a loss...

[JustOK]

Pulp westerns, sure. The classics, however, paint a vivid picture of human behaviour and of nature: at times in harmony but often fraught with peril. Travel between spots of civilization was long and slow, with language and culture as interesting variables. The old frontiers and the new are more alike than we may immediately realize.

Re:Link for the uninformed.

[Plutonite]

Yes, the discourse between imaginative minds is an amazing and truly capturing phenomenon whatever the domain of discourse it may be. I would also have liked to be a fly on the wall in Max Born's office when he talked to Heisenberg, or to have listened to the tornados of mathematical rhetoric that went on betwen Feynman and Bohr when they talked over the phone to discuss the things that nobody else in the world could understand, or bear to hear. Maybe that wouldn't have been as entertaining as the distant worlds Clarke would have talked about, but it was still imagination, and imagination is such a darn beautiful thing. It is born of reflection, and reflection is what marks human kind, because it embodies the sentience/self-awareness/abstraction of concepts and physical symbols that makes us so "special". Actually, take away the quotes there. We are very lucky, and very special.

So it is no exaggeration to say that these are the people who have really lived. The least we can do, so that we ourselves can be said to have lived, is read what they wrote down.

RIP Mr. Clarke. Thank you for everything.

Re:Legends die in groups

[PakProtector]

Frank Herbert was not a Hack. His Dune series is not interesting from the perspective of Science Fiction, but from that of Anthropology.

Re:CNN Quote - regarding patents

[westlake]

Look at the advancement of humankind because he didn't patent the idea of satellites

He didn't patent the idea because an idea can't be patented. Nor was the idea original. Fantasy and sci-fi writers had been playing with the concept for at least a half-century. Clarke's contribution was to sketch out the advantages of placing relays in synchronous orbit in convincing detail.

Re:One of the masters

[theydidnthavemyname]

There's a time and place to criticise a man's beliefs

Re:All These Novels...

[Luyseyal]

If reading something by a dedicated vegetarian bothers you in 2008, imagine how this farm boy felt reading The Deep Range in 1957.

The problem is his vegetarianism limited his sci-fi vision. The reality is that people are going to keep eating meat. It may be grown in labs or grafted into the proverbial "meat trees", but people are still going to eat it. What was irritating is that he knew that, but his moralizing caused him to write that whole section on how plants are more efficient to grow, meat is gross, etc.

My wife is a vegetarian and she agreed it was moralizing and short-sighted.

-l

Re:Not Just the Fiction

[Trails]

As an atheist myself, I'm sure he would take it in the spirit it was given, one of respect and admiration for his accomplishments, and sadness at his passing, the opinions of a semantic nitpicker and pompous shithead(i.e. you) notwithstanding.

2010 - one of his least appreciated books

[MagikSlinger]

I wish I could find a handy transcription to quote the conversation between Chandra and HAL, but in 2010, Clarke showed he did know how to write. I'll never forget the chill up my spine when Dave Bowman shows up to warn the crew that they have to leave, and on leaving, the dark spot appears on Jupiter... *shudder* (When 2010 shows up on the boob tube, I tune in just for the ending).

And the final dialog between Chandra and HAL actually talking with him and being honest. And HAL chosing the right thing. The redemption of HAL is one of my all-time favorite moments in SF.

That was awesome writing.

Re:One of the masters

[Anonymous Coward]

More than once in his writings he made the claim that he was proud to be an atheist. Somehow I hope that he wasn't disappointed being wrong and instead was pleasantly surprised.

Seriously? In a thread about Clarke's passing you have to slip in a little flame bait? That is shameful.