Writer of the Month - December 2009

Sir Arthur C. Clarke

One of the greatest writers in history was born today in 1917. Sir Arthur C. Clarke, British Grand Master of Science Fiction who entirely reinvented the genre and set a course unmatched even today.

More than just a writer, Clarke held degrees from King's College in London in Mathematics and Physics. This on top of a first class career in the Royal Air Force, serving from radar specialist to Flying Officer to Flight Lieutenant, where in each of these positions he had involvement in developing new technologies in the field of radar technology.

Later, his ideas on bouncing radio signals upwards and then back to Earth would lead to the development of and and credit for inventing the Geostationary Telecommunications Satellite! This is amazing stuff that you cannot make up!

His involvement in real life science lead to incredibly rich and through science fiction novels.

He is most well known for his grand epic 2001: A Space Odyssey series. It ponders the concept of what is driving everything and is a pretty in-depth commentary of the meaning of what it means to be alive and how far the machines of the future will think they are alive. The Stanley Kubrick movie version is well worth watching again. The dynamic between the astronaut Bowman and the intelligent ghost in the machine HAL is amazing. The line, "My God, it's full of stars!" is a classic.

His other most popular novel was Rendezvous with Rama, an amazing tale of a giant space ship that enters the solar system and is met by a group human explorers, "who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries." It is THE. BENCHMARK. OF. SCIENCE. FICTION. It is a classic that has won every major sci-fi award, including the Hugo and Nebula awards.

Our favorite Clarke work is the first we ever read of his. Childhood's End. This book blew our minds. It's an vivid take on aliens, politics, religion, the implications of human evolution cloaked/not-so-cloaked in a thorough social commentary...it's a rich tapestry that's a fast easy intelligent and worth-while read.

Clarke wrote for numerous magazines and was super-popular then and today. He may be remembered for a few TV shows that aired in the 1980's that centered on the mysterious and paranormal.

Arthur C. Clarke was awarded numerous honors during his lifetime including (from Wiki):

* The UNESCO-Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science in 1961.
* The Command Module of the Apollo 13 craft was named "Odyssey".
* 1969 Academy Award nomination with Stanley Kubrick in the category, Best Writing,
Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
* In 1985, The Arthur C. Clarke Award for the best science fiction novel published in the United Kingdom was established.
* Clarke was knighted in 2000
* In 1994, Clarke was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
* In 2000, he was named a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.
* The 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter is named in honour of Sir Arthur's works.
* In 2003, Sir Arthur was awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology.
* In 2004, Sir Arthur was awarded the Heinlein Award for outstanding achievement in hard or science-oriented science fiction.
* In 2005 he lent his name to the inaugural Sir Arthur Clarke Awards
* On 14 November 2005 Sri Lanka awarded Arthur C. Clarke its highest civilian award, the Sri Lankabhimanya for his contributions to science and technology and his commitment to his adopted country.
* An asteroid was named in Clarke's honour

* A species of ceratopsian dinosaur is named for him: Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei, discovered in Inverloch in Australia.
* The Learning Resource Centre at Richard Huish College, Taunton, which Clarke attended when it was Huish Grammar School, is named after him.
* Clarke was a distinguished vice-president of the H. G. Wells Society, being strongly influenced by H. G. Wells as a science-fiction writer.

We recommend his opus "Childhood's End" - Amazing!



* NOTE: Phillip K. Dick was also born this day. He is another award winning and fabulous writer whose epic, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" went on to be made as the sci-fi classic movie - Blade Runner. A few of his others books were adapted into the blockbuster movies Total Recall and Minority Report!