As I’m sure most of the sf fans reading this blog will know, Arthur C Clarke died today. In one sense the death of a 90 year old man who’d not been well for a very long time shouldn’t come as a shock – and yet I’m surprised and saddened.
I guess like most sf readers my age Clarke’s science fiction was one of the first things I picked up when I was a kid and (along with Asimov and Heinlein) he played a big part in defining the boundaries I put around the term “science fiction”. The first things I remember reading were the collections Expedition to Earth and Nine Billion Names of God from my local library – both of which I read in a day and then immediately reread. Both books stand as proof that Sir Arthur could wrap enough ideas to power another writers whole career into one short story.
From there I remember the novels A Fall of Moondust, City and the Stars and Earthlight but it was Rendezvous with Rama that blew my head off. I don’t think anyone has ever achieved that “sense of wonder” thing quite so comprehensively or memorably. Rama, with Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar (could two books be more different in style and tone) and Gibson’s Neuromancer stand as the triumvirate of sf novel that had a really powerful effect on me as a reader. Oddly I never stumbled across Childhood’s End as a young reader and it was only about six months ago that I finally got around to reading what, I believe, many people consider Clarke’s masterpiece.
It’s a curious book – obviously very much of its time – but it encompasses perfectly the strength of Clarke’s writing – the ability to embrace the enormous scale of the universe and our tiny place within it without ever losing a grip on the moral imperative for us to behave as if our actions mattered. Clarke walked the middle ground between the distant coldness of Olaf Stapledon and too cozy Americans like Heinlein. I enjoyed it immensely – and having just read the shortlist for the 1958 BSFA Awards – I’m amazed how much better Clarke’s work has stood the test of time than many of his contemporaries – Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit Will Travel is five years younger but feels like it comes from a distant century in comparison to Childhood’s End.
Clarke’s work continues to have its influences. Obviously there are writers who are mining similar seams – authors like Baxter and Reynolds who possess the same ability to place humanity in fierce perspective against a galactic backdrop. But equally important is Sir Arthur’s humanism – a common thread in British SF woven through the works of Wells to Clarke and on to writers who probably see themselves as having reacted against the spaceships and futurism that Clarke embodied.
Over the coming days I’ve no doubt much will be made of Clarke’s futurism – most famously his “invention” of communication satellites and all that – but recently I’ve been thinking about the way Clarke seemed to have a clear grip on the idea of the “singularity” long before anyone else – has anyone summed up the idea of the singularity as efficiently as Clarke’s famous claim that any sufficiently advanced technology will look like magic. I was surprised how strongly the post-human theme was developed in Childhood’s End and how similar the concerns were to many post-cyberpunk works.
Entirely by coincindence, last week I was listening to this programme on the BBC Radio 4 website. It’s a nice tribute to the man, he comes across as funny, modest and, of course, fearsomely clever, even as a very old and sick man. It also contains a fantastic exchange between Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov from 1974.
Clarke: “Ladies, gentlemen, and in the case of any robots or extraterrestrial’s present, gentlebeings, I’m not going to waste any time introducing Isaac Asimov, that would be as useless as introducing the equator – which, indeed, with the passing of time he is coming to resemble more and more closely. The rumour that there’s a certain rivalry between us should be put to rest once and for all in my recent book Report on Planet Three – for those of you not wise enough to have bought that small masterpiece the dedication reads as follows:
“In accordance with the terms of the Clarke/Asimov treaty the second best science writer dedicates this book to the second best science fiction writer.”
To which Asimov replied: “From here on in I won’t mention him at all, from here on in let us talk about science fiction which is after all what we both do. I because I am a great writer, and Arthur because he is a stubborn writer.”
As I say, I’m surprised at how sad this news has made me feel. The world is a stupider and slightly less exciting place today. My thought are with Arthur’s friends and family, especially his brother – an exceptionally nice man.