March 18, 2008

• One of the greatest writers (and humans) in the history of man and this is the best fpp you can come up with? egad.
• Wow. And Anthony Minghella died today too, shockingly young at 54. And Captain Birds Eye. *runs out of .*
• What a loss of an imagination.
• "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that..." .
• I didn't realize he had post-polio syndrome. That's got to bite; you think you've lived through something and then it comes back to haunt you decades later.
• Would now be a appropriate time to bring up the allegations?
• No. .
• Captain Bird's Eye is dead???? And it's too late to bring up the allegations now.
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• "One of the greatest writers (and humans)" Er, look, he was a visionary. He did a lot of great stuff and wrote some awesome fiction, but he was no saint, because no human being is, ok? He was a fairly good human, as far as they go. Let's not get into that kind of over the top lauding.
• He lived a great life. He will be missed.
• I thought that Rendez-vous With Rama was simply incredible when I read it as a kid. The sequels, and well, pretty much the entire 2001 series after the movie, not so much, but still. Rama. Whoa. I remember something about him being the first writer to hand in a book to his publisher on a floppy disc. An entire book on a floppy disc! Imagine! Godspeed, Mister Clarke.
• Well, 2010 was better than 2001, and 2061 was OK, with the Captain Smith parallels, but then 3001 just lost me totally. I gave him plenty of chances, though. All because of Rama. That rocked. I'll shut up now.
• One of the greatest writers (and humans) in the history of man and this is the best fpp you can come up with? egad. I was mostly speechless when it happened =(
• well I am very sad to hear that, although he led a full, and incredibly important life....
• Let's not get into that kind of over the top lauding. Hank, you're really not one to speak on the subject.
• :-(
• OK, I didn' know that Clarke wrote "The Nine Billion Names of God". Fuck, that was brilliant...
• OK, I didn' know that Clarke wrote "The Nine Billion Names of God". Fuck, that was brilliant... Agreed. My favorite though is The Star, which you can read in its entirety here.
• *cries*
• 2001 was required reading in one of my college classes, and I was instantly captured. It is probably safe to say it re-sparked me addiction to reading. I'll miss him. I recommend Prelude to Space (a random bookstore purchase that I enjoyed) as well.
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• I met him once, at Luunicon in 1979, an event to which I made a negligible organisational contribution. I couldn't think of anything to say to him that wouldn't sound stupid.
• . Likewise re Rama, I read that book twenty-one years ago and it still pops in my head once in a while. Y'know, when Douglas Adams passed, I (like many others) set my phone's greeting to "Don't Panic!" w/ an appropriate graphic. Maybe it's time to update that now... "I'm sorry Dave, but \n Don't Panic!"
• Damned crappy news. Many of his short stories have been my all-time favorite reads (I must read Tales from the White Hart a least once a year, for example). For the life of me, I always think of The Ultimate Melody whenever I get a bad case of earworm. My grandfather introduced me to his works when I was too young to comprehend his visionary ideas - - but they surely had an influence on me as I grew older.
• Three Laws of Robotics: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Nuff said.
• Um, that was Isaac Asimov. A real Clarke quote "This is the first age that's ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one"
• ARGH!!!!! *slits throat Hey, I read a lot as a kid--much of it is all muddled. What can I say? Arthur C. Clark formulated the following three "laws" of prediction: 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I had to look it up, but dammit, I KNEW he had three laws of somethin'!
• It is traditional to remark on the fact that Clarke foresaw the communications satellite; it is not traditional to remark that he also foresaw tourist ships cruising through the deep seas of dust on the moon's surface. Personally, I think the errors are possibly more interesting than the accurate predictions. SF is not prophecy. I wish the media would stop saying things like "a little-known writer who shot to fame when his novel 2001: a Space Odyssey was transformed into a brilliant film".
• And now Paul Schofield. Will everybody creative and talented stop dying PLSKTHX
• I just saw A Man for All Seasons for the first time, about two weeks ago. Mr. Schofield had me in tears. RIP. In other news, the less-distinguished but craftsmanlike Ivan Dixon is dead at 76.
• And Philip Jones Griffiths, Vietnam photojournalist.
• Can we talk about the allegations now? Because I don't know what they are.
• All the info can be found here
• Pedophilia, rocket88. Claim is that he had sex with underage boys in Sri Lanka.
• what is up with your abrasive 'tude in this thread, Argh? have you been personally wronged my Mr. Clarke's death or something?
• Wasn't he cleared of these allegations? Or is it "cleared"?
• He was sufficiently cleared to get his knighthood, anyway, which had been held up by the imbroglio.