Arthur C. Clarke Turns 90!
by WFMeyer / December 16th, 2007
British sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke turns 90 on Dec. 16.
Clarke penned the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was adapted into Stanley Kubrick’s big-screen sci-fi favorite.
Clarke is also the last surviving member of the “Big Three” of science fiction authors (the other two members of the geeky coterie were Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein).
The command center of the Apollo 13 craft was named “2001″ after the movie, Clarke also had an asteroid AND a new species of dinosaur Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei named after him.
Clarke’s three laws (to writing speculative science fiction):
-
1. “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
2. “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
3. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
You can find a comprehensive collection of Athur C. Clarke’s works at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Tags: Arthur C. Clarke
Filed under: Science Fiction, Writers
December 16th, 2007 at 3:54 am
Clarke is easily the best prose stylist of the “big three”; he is that rarity, a scientist without a tin ear for dialogue and description. He’s very much his own man, irascible, intolerant of dummies. He’ll be remembered for “2001″ but it’s “Childhood’s End” that will linger longest with me…