Wednesday, March 19, 2008

R.I.P., sci-fi dude...



The man who wrote "The Sentinel" and 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Childhood's End has finally begun his ascension to that outer other. He'd spent most of his life writing about extraterrestrial visitors and journey's into the mysteries of space and has now exited this plane of existence to meet with the great monolithic slab in the sky.
Arthur C. Clarke, though never a favorite of mine as a sci-fi writer, did turn me on to a lot of great concepts and ideas:
a) apes worshiping a humming black slab of unknown that always seems to appear in one of my books or stories
b) that Jupiter could possibly become a new star in our solar system.
c) the ridiculous concept of RAMA.

Ideas. Things that I will never be able to get out of my head. Like Ray Bradbury he was the last of the great sci-fi theorists of the 20th-21st century.
Ground Control to Mr. Clarke: have a swell trip.

" I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. "--HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey

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