One of the giants of science fiction has died:
Arthur C. Clarke, 90, the world-famous science-fiction writer, futurist and unofficial poet laureate of the space age, died of a respiratory ailment March 18 at his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Mr. Clarke co-wrote, with director Stanley Kubrick, the screenplay for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which is regarded by many as one of the most important science fiction films made. A prolific writer, with more than 100 published books, he was praised for his ability to foresee the possibilities of human innovation and explain them to non-scientific readers.
The most famous example is from 1945, when he first proposed the idea of communications satellites that could be based in geostationary orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground.
Some scoffed, but the idea was proved almost a generation later with the launch of Early Bird, the first of the commercial satellites that provide global communications networks for telephone, television and high-speed digital communication. The orbit is now named Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union.
I have been a science fiction buff for 40 years, and Clarke was among the first I read. From 2001 to Childhood’s End to Rendevous with Rama, he opened my mind up to a world of possibilities and wonder. Just within the last year, I read his series co-authored with Stephen Baxter entitled A Time Odyssey, which seeks to do for time what he did for space in 2001 (the titles are Time’s Eye, Sunstorm, and First Born, and I highly recommend them). There’s a lot about Clarke’s worldview to argue with, but as a story-teller who blended serious scientific thinking with engaging plotting, he was unsurpassed. No one, with the possible exception of Isaac Asimov, had a greater impact on the development of the genre. He will be missed.
Posted by David Fischler 
