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Of course, Sir Arthur was there at the beginning of my reading sf - even before: those bits in the TV series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World where he said all the stuff about bigfoot and leprechauns and Atlantis was actually nonsense. I vaguely recall thinking he was wrong, or on the wrong programme, but I would have been in short trousers and wanted to believe. Then I read Bradbury and Wyndham and Smith and Asimov and Clarke, and I soon realised there was that triumvirate of stars: Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke. To be honest, Clarke was the one I had the weakest feelings for - I came to dislike Asimov, and had love-hate with Heinlein, a guilty pleasure. Clarke I neither loved or loathed.
Initially I think I read as much of his non-fiction as his fiction: Report on Planet 3 and Profiles of the Future, but I did read 2001: A Space Odyssey and watched and was puzzled by the film, a film which is easier to admire than like. I read Rendezvous with Rama, possibly in a EFL edition, and wondered at a volume having such a ripe for sequel ending that lacked a sequel. They followed, of course, co-written with Gentry Lee if I recall, and one of them began with the dialogue "Papa?" (or was it "Nicole?") which meant I fell off the book at the first word. I have a pile of his 1970s and other work awaiting my attention. The thought struck me at some point - maybe studying Childhood's End how there was a contradiction at the heart of so many of his novels between rationality and the transcendent which appears to be God or godlike: the idea of the infinite, to paraphrase Descartes.
When editing Vector I communicated with him a couple of times - affecting yeah they're only authors attitude much of the time, I was genuinely thrilled to get an email from the father of international communications. I don't remember what it was about - I know there was something I asked for a contribution to, but this was politely declined. I remember putting together - I guess with Gary S. Dalkin - a special issue marking his 80th birthday in 1997. That's more than a decade ago.
By then I would have been on the Arthur C. Clarke Award jury, and now of course I am part - a fairly inactive part it feels - of Serendip, the steering group set up to deal with the award post-Rocket Publications (Sir Arthur's legal existence, publication-wise - in the UK) and longer term, for when he was no longer around. But I think we did think he would be with us forever. In a sense he will be, of course. To Jupiter and beyond infinity.
"He felt no regrets as the work of a lifetime was swept away. He had laboured to take men to the stars, and in the moment of success the stars-the aloof, indifferent stars-had come to him. This was the moment when history held its breath, and the present sheared asunder from the past as an iceberg splits from its frozen, parent cliffs, and goes sailing out to sea in lonely pride."
Initially I think I read as much of his non-fiction as his fiction: Report on Planet 3 and Profiles of the Future, but I did read 2001: A Space Odyssey and watched and was puzzled by the film, a film which is easier to admire than like. I read Rendezvous with Rama, possibly in a EFL edition, and wondered at a volume having such a ripe for sequel ending that lacked a sequel. They followed, of course, co-written with Gentry Lee if I recall, and one of them began with the dialogue "Papa?" (or was it "Nicole?") which meant I fell off the book at the first word. I have a pile of his 1970s and other work awaiting my attention. The thought struck me at some point - maybe studying Childhood's End how there was a contradiction at the heart of so many of his novels between rationality and the transcendent which appears to be God or godlike: the idea of the infinite, to paraphrase Descartes.
When editing Vector I communicated with him a couple of times - affecting yeah they're only authors attitude much of the time, I was genuinely thrilled to get an email from the father of international communications. I don't remember what it was about - I know there was something I asked for a contribution to, but this was politely declined. I remember putting together - I guess with Gary S. Dalkin - a special issue marking his 80th birthday in 1997. That's more than a decade ago.
By then I would have been on the Arthur C. Clarke Award jury, and now of course I am part - a fairly inactive part it feels - of Serendip, the steering group set up to deal with the award post-Rocket Publications (Sir Arthur's legal existence, publication-wise - in the UK) and longer term, for when he was no longer around. But I think we did think he would be with us forever. In a sense he will be, of course. To Jupiter and beyond infinity.
"He felt no regrets as the work of a lifetime was swept away. He had laboured to take men to the stars, and in the moment of success the stars-the aloof, indifferent stars-had come to him. This was the moment when history held its breath, and the present sheared asunder from the past as an iceberg splits from its frozen, parent cliffs, and goes sailing out to sea in lonely pride."
