A fond fare-thee-well to legendary sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke, who passed away on March 18th at the age of 90. Certainly an influential writer, Clarke was one of the “Big Three” in science fiction writing during his more prolific years, compared to the likes of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Clarke authored many books and stories, but none more well-known then his novel and screenplay 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he collaborated on with an equally legendary Stanley Kubrick. If you have not seen this movie, check it out.
I must confess that I have only read one piece of work by Arthur C. Clarke, that being the short story “The Nine Billion Names of God”, winner of a Hugo Award for Best Short Story. In a one-sentence synopsis, Buddhist monks purchase a (then) cutting-edge computer to quickly compute the true name of God, which they expect will cause the universe to revert. It is still one of my favorite stories to this date, and both aesthetically and technically one of the best-written stories I have experienced. In time, I’d like to read plenty more by this masterful writer. So long, Art!
