In Memoriam Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Posted by Colin Harvey Mar 19, 2008

The last of the Giants of Golden Age SF passed away in the early hours of March 19, in Sri Lanka. There will be a profile of him posted later this week. This isn’t the forum for a biography. Even an article doesn’t have the space to do ninety years of life justice.

The very first adult book that I read was Earthlight, (for Clarke) a minor novel; yet containing one important detail – that in space, sound does not carry. It taught me a very early lesson; that sometimes the truth is less popular than lies. For what it said was that all the TV shows with whooshing spaceships were there for one important reason, and one reason only; dramatic effect.

Years came and went, and Clarke fell out of fashion, but as I’ve grown older I’ve realized that what appears to be an absence of style is in itself a style, and I’ve returned to the words of my old friend (although, sadly, I never met him) with more tolerant eyes. I’ve been reading his Collected Stories on and off for months–one shouldn’t hurry through a man’s life—and the story I’ve reached is the novelette version of…Earthlight.