A friend just informed me about the death of Arthur C. Clarke. I’m sad to hear we’ve lost another grandmaster of SF. I still remember laying in bed in the basement of my grandmother’s vacation house one summer, ignoring my family’s entreaties to go to the beach or interact with them so that I could finish Childhood’s End. Even more I remember how shaken I was when I finished; the book has stayed with me ever since. Reading that book truly drove home to me the power of SF; I think it helped me really understand what these books can do to a reader.
And I just found The Nine Billion Names of God online, for your enjoyment.
25 responses so far ↓
1 skzb // Mar 18, 2008 at 6:49 pm
It is sad. He defined the field as much as anyone. We’ll miss him.
2 Kira // Mar 18, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Thanks for THAT news right before I leave for Italy. Love when my heros die. >_<
3 mmy // Mar 18, 2008 at 8:50 pm
The very first science fiction author I ever read. I didn’t even know that such a thing existed till, staying overnight at the home of friends of my parents, I started reading a book I found in their guest room. It was a collection of Clarke short stories — and my life was changed.
4 Miramon // Mar 18, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Of course his more frequently cited novels are great, but I always liked Clarke’s Tales From the White Hart, a collection of humorous short stories with a common narrative frame.
Everyone knows about many of Clarke’s famous technological predictions such as satellite communications, but I think many have overlooked Clarke’s 1976 conception of the PDA in Imperial Earth, a not very well known novel that includes extensive description of a “personal secretary” device capable of storing an arbitrary amount of audio-video information, for which the chief problem is indexing everything, another percipient prediction.
5 ~Easy // Mar 19, 2008 at 2:06 pm
The last of the Big 3 are gone. Childhood’s End was an amazing novel, and one of his best works IMHO
6 Nolly // Mar 19, 2008 at 10:53 pm
~Easy: Which “Big 3″ would that be? I’m guessing Asimov is one, but who else? Personally, I’d include Bradbury in any such list, and he’s still with us.
7 kit // Mar 19, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I have no idea how much it shows in my writing now, but Bradbury was a formative influence on me when my mom forced a copy of R is for Rocket into my hands at a young age.
8 Bawrence // Mar 19, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov I’m assuming, although it pains me greatly to omit Roger Zelazny. How about a big 4?
9 ~Easy // Mar 20, 2008 at 8:27 am
In SF circles, Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein are collectively known as the Big 3. I’m not sure where it comes from, or who coined it, but I recall seeing it in my youthful days in the early ’70′s and I’ve seen the reference online in several other blogs and news stories. I’m not sure, but I think the moniker comes from the prodigious output of those three during the “Golden Years”, and the wide variety of their fiction and non-fiction.
I agree that if one was to put together a list of great writers it would be larger than these three. Personally, Heinlein is my hands-down favorite. However, Bradbury had a powerful effect on me too, though my favorite story by him (“The Sound Of Summer Running”) really isn’t quite SF
( I like Zelazny too, but I’m not sure I’d put him up there with the other three.)
10 Bawrence // Mar 20, 2008 at 9:25 am
OT, but I’ve wondered for a while now why skzb didn’t pick up the Amber torch. Betancourt is OK, but our mr. Brust writes more like Zelazny.
11 Miramon // Mar 20, 2008 at 11:34 am
Zelazny was a better writer than Asimov, Clarke, or Heinlein. But Zelazny only started writing in the 60s, after the other three had already been established.
Those three embodied the “Golden Age”, IMO, which is where that big three title comes from, and their impact on the field and on future writers was gigantic, partially due to their individual and collectively vast output, and partially due to their individual distinctive styles and modes of popularity.
Bradbury was not so clearly identified as a genre writer, I think, with a generally lower output, and less material in the magazines. He too may be a better writer than Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, but I prefer to actually read the works of those three than the work of Bradbury, which just doesn’t entertain or interest me as much.
In reply to Bawrence, I would have hoped that no one would pick up that torch. Betancourt isn’t a bad writer, but his Amber stuff is not good. Similarly Robin Bailey’s attempts at Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are just abysmal. For that matter, much as I admire Zelazny, that last Amber series was not up to the level of the first. I’d much rather have good writers doing stuff as good and creative as Lord of Light or Creatures of Light and Darkness in their own ways and styles than attempting retreads of other writers’ works.
12 Chris // Mar 20, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I have never been much for writers putting in lots of time in someone else’s world. I mean, it’s all well and good to write a Firefly fanfic when you just really need to get it out of your system, but building a career out of continuing Dune? Foundation? Amber?
If you’re a good enough writer that I should spend my precious reading time on your stuff, you should be doing your own thing.
13 Bawrence // Mar 20, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Given that someone *did* take over the Amber franchise, I merely expressed my opinion that there was someone more suitable to the task. Whether someone should’ve is spilled milk, don’t you agree? Ditto on the Merlin arc of Amber, Miramon.
14 Chris // Mar 20, 2008 at 4:04 pm
My unkind suggestion wasn’t that no one was doing these franchise books (whether they’re Amber, Foundation, Dune, Star Trek, or what have you), but that no one should. Rather than finding someone more suited to the task, they should find people less suited.
Or, to put it another way, if Brust were to take over Amber, who would take over Dragaera?
Brust, being an excellent writer, is in the midst of the “doing your own thing” I mentioned. And whether he’d say it or not, I as a neutral party can say happily say that I love the first Amber series, but I love reading Vlad just as much. And if I had to choose (which thankfully I don’t), I’d much rather have Brust telling more Vlad stories with his own brilliance, than telling Amber stories and trying to imitate Zelazny’s brilliance.
15 kit // Mar 20, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I would have to agree with Chris on this topic. There may be better or worse people to take over a franchise, but why should they? I can understand the desire to have someone finish the last book of a series if, for instance, an author dies with it partly finished and notes for its completion at hand. But this whole tendency of a person’s offspring or followers to keep whoring out a setting after the creator is gone is sad to me.
Then again, something like Star Trek: the Next Generation had some of its best moments with Roddenbury taking less of a hands-on approach, so you see what I get for making blanket statments.
16 Bawrence // Mar 20, 2008 at 7:43 pm
No one has disagreed with Chris. It shouldn’t have happenned with neither Roger Zelazny’s nor Fritz Lieber’s work, but since in each case it *did* happen better writers should’ve been employed. Surely Betancourt & Bailey have either figured out or been told that they’re each in way over their heads by now.
17 Chris // Mar 21, 2008 at 11:46 am
Bawrence@16: I think I understand your position: having done it, why did they do it poorly? Why not do it well? And is it too late to start?
My question boils down to this: how do you identify better writers?
The only way I know is through their published work, and then it’s too late–they’re already doing something better suited to their talents than emulating someone else would be. If they can get published telling their own stories, why would they choose to tell someone else’s? (Well, money, I suppose, if their books weren’t selling well.)
18 skzb // Mar 21, 2008 at 1:31 pm
::Bwarence::16:: Neil Gaiman would have been an outstanding choice if one wanted to continue Amber. But Roger said he didn’t want anyone else writing Amber stories; Neil and I chose to respect his wishes.
19 Bawrence // Mar 21, 2008 at 2:30 pm
If only mr. Betancourt had been so respectful.
20 Ravensilver // Mar 23, 2008 at 3:13 am
Seems that while Mr. Brust and Mr. Gaiman were willing to respect Mr. Zelazny’s wishes, the publisher (or the inheritors of Zelazny’s estate) was not. Pity that those kind of wishes are never put down in the kind of writing that could be used to actually stop the endless continuations of great series. >.<
21 Robert // Mar 23, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Steven–I figure now is as good a time as any to tell you this. As much as I LOVE the Taltos books (my favourite series of fantasy novels, indeed), my favorite book of all-time is AGYAR. Before the house-fire, I had several copies on hand. Always extras to lend out and not worry if they got returned or not (more often than not, they wouldn’t), always being sure to keep one on hand for myself.
Perhaps it’s because it’s a vampire novel, and yet the word (in English) isn’t mentioned at all, not once. Perhaps it’s the passage about discipline. Perhaps it’s everything about it.
AGYAR has left a very indelible mark upon me. I just wanted to thank you for the story, before it was too late to let you know that you made as much of an impression on me as Clarke made on you (if I may be so bold).
-Robert, looking out the window at a Minnesota spring day, covered in snow.
22 reesa // Mar 23, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I always insist that the Big Three have a Silent Fourth, Theodore Sturgeon. And I bet at least Heinlein would have agreed that Ted should have been listed with the rest of them. I haven’t read enough Bradbury to weigh in on that vote.
23 skzb // Mar 23, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Thanks much, Robert. I’m frankly rather pleased with that one; it’s always nice to hear it worked for someone else.
24 Ryan // Mar 25, 2008 at 2:49 am
Sadly, I have read not one Arthur C Clarke story in my life.
Bradbury, Asimov, Heinlein, Zelazny – I’m at about 90% saturation. Various authors – mainly SciFi from the 30s to the 50s – I’ve read every scrap of parchment that my greedy little fingers can grasp. *Henry Kuttner is the only name that jumps to mind
It shall be a strange experience, post humorously examining the man’s legacy. The voices of current authors shall underlie every subplot, leaving me to wonder whether each idea was plundered by Clarke from some unknown soul, as it was from him.
25 Slickriptide // Mar 28, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Wow! I had completely forgotten about _The Nine Billion Names of God_, but just seeing the title was enough to bring the entire story back to me, even though it’s been decades since the one time I read it. Clarke was a great writer, no doubt about it. I enjoyed his stuff, and it almost always gave me something to think about afterwards. I was sad that he finally passed on.
I liked much Asimov’s stuff. Heinlein, I can take or leave. I acknowledge his greatness primarily because he affected so many other people.
While I’d put Bradbury at the top of the list someplace, I’m not sure he considers himself a sci-fi writer. While I enjoyed _The Martian Chronicles _ and the other space-themed books/stories, my favorite Bradbury is _Something Wicked This Way Comes_. That book is a much better example of “Bradburyness” than the ostensibly sci-fi stories.
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