As I\u2019m 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\u2019d not been well for a very long time shouldn\u2019t come as a shock – and yet I\u2019m surprised and saddened.<\/p>\n
I guess like most sf readers my age Clarke\u2019s 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 \u201cscience fiction\u201d. The first things I remember reading were the collections Expedition to Earth<\/em> and Nine Billion Names of God<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n From there I remember the novels A Fall of Moondust<\/em>, City and the Stars <\/em>and Earthlight<\/em> but it was Rendezvous with Rama<\/em> that blew my head off. I don\u2019t think anyone has ever achieved that \u201csense of wonder\u201d thing quite so comprehensively or memorably. Rama<\/em>, with Brunner\u2019s Stand on Zanzibar<\/em> (could two books be more different in style and tone) and Gibson\u2019s Neuromancer<\/em> stand as the triumvirate of sf novel that had a really powerful effect on me as a reader. Oddly I never stumbled across Childhood\u2019s End<\/em> 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\u2019s masterpiece.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a curious book – obviously very much of its time – but it encompasses perfectly the strength of Clarke\u2019s 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\u2019m amazed how much better Clarke\u2019s work has stood the test of time than many of his contemporaries – Heinlein\u2019s Have Spacesuit Will Travel<\/em> is five years younger but feels like it comes from a distant century in comparison to Childhood\u2019s End<\/em>. Over the coming days I\u2019ve no doubt much will be made of Clarke\u2019s futurism – most famously his \u201cinvention\u201d of communication satellites and all that – but recently I\u2019ve been thinking about the way Clarke seemed to have a clear grip on the idea of the \u201csingularity\u201d long before anyone else – has anyone summed up the idea of the singularity as efficiently as Clarke\u2019s famous claim that any sufficiently advanced technology will look like magic. I was surprised how strongly the post-human theme was developed in Childhood\u2019s End<\/em> and how similar the concerns were to many post-cyberpunk works.<\/p>\n
\nClarke\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n