Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (born
December 16 1917) is a
British author and
inventor, most famous for his
science-fiction novel
2001: A Space Odyssey, and for collaborating with director
Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. Clarke is known by fans as one of the "Big Three" of science fiction, a triumvirate which also includes
Robert A. Heinlein and
Isaac Asimov.
Clarke was born in
Minehead in
Somerset,
England, and as a boy enjoyed stargazing and enthusiastically read old American science-fiction magazines (
pulp magazines, many of which made their way to England in ships with sailors who read them to pass the time). After secondary school, and studying at
Richard Huish College, Taunton he was unable to afford a university education and got a job as an
auditor in the pensions section of the
Board of Education.
During the
Second World War, he served in the
Royal Air Force as a
radar specialist and was involved in the early warning radar defence system which contributed to the RAF's success during the
Battle of Britain. He retired in the rank of
Flight Lieutenant. After the war, he obtained a first class
degree in mathematics and physics at
King's College, London.
In the postwar years Clarke became involved with the
British Interplanetary Society and served for a time as its chairman. His most important contribution may be the idea that
geostationary satellites would be ideal
telecommunications relays. He first proposed this in a paper privately circulated among the core technical members of the BIS in
1945. The concept was published in
Wireless World in October of that year. (See below.) Clarke has also written a number of non-fiction books decribing the technical details and societal implications of rocketry and space flight. The most notable of these may be
The Exploration of Space (1951) and
The Promise of Space (1968).
Clarke's first professional sale was in 1946 to
Astounding Science Fiction: the still memorable short story "Rescue Party". Along with his writing, Clarke worked briefly as Assistant Editor of
Science Abstracts (1949) before devoting himself to writing full-time from 1951. Clarke also contributed to the
Dan Dare series, and his first three published novels were for a juvenile audience.
In 1951, he wrote "
The Sentinel" for a
BBC competition. Though the story was rejected, it changed the course of Clarke's career. Not only the basis for
2001,
The Sentinel introduced a more mystical and cosmic element to Clarke's work. Many of Clarke's later works feature a technologically advanced but prejudiced mankind being confronted by a superior alien intelligence. In the cases of
The City and the Stars,
Childhood's End, and the
2001 series, this encounter produces a conceptual breakthrough that accelerates humanity into the next stage of its evolution.
In 1953 Clarke met and quickly married Marilyn Mayfield, a twenty-two year old American
divorcee with a young son. They separated permanently after six months, although a divorce was not finalized until 1964.
[McAleer, Neil. "Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography", Contemporary Books, Chicago, 1992. ISBN 0809237202]He has lived in
Sri Lanka since 1956, immigrating when it was still called
Ceylon, first in
Unawatuna on the south coast, and then in
Colombo. Clarke holds citizenship of both the
UK and
Sri Lanka [
1]. He has long been an avid scuba diver and a member of the
Underwater Explorers Club, and this tropical island allowed him to visit the ocean year-round. It also inspired the locale for his novel
The Fountains of Paradise, in which he describes a
space elevator. This, he figures, will ultimately be his legacy, more so than
geostationary satellites, once space elevators make space shuttles obsolete.
Early in his career, Clarke had a fascination with the
paranormal, and has stated that it was part of the inspiration for his novel
Childhood's End. He has also said that he was one of several who were fooled by a
Uri Geller demonstration at
Birkbeck College. Although he has long since dismissed and distanced himself from nearly all
pseudoscience, he still advocates research into purported instances of
psychokinesis and other similar phenomena.
Following the release of
2001, Clarke became much in demand as a commentator on science and technology, especially at the time of the
Apollo space program. The fame of
2001 was enough to get the
Command Module of the
Apollo 13 craft named "Odyssey".
He signed a three-book publishing deal, a record for a science fiction writer. The first of the three was
Rendezvous with Rama in 1973, which won him all the main genre awards and has spawned sequels that, along with the
2001 series, formed the backbone of Clarke's later career.
In 1975, his short story
The Star was not included as prose in a new high school
English textbook in
Sri Lanka because of concerns that it might offend
Roman Catholics, although it had been selected. The textbook caused controversy because it replaced
Shakespeare's work with that of
Bob Dylan,
John Lennon, and
Isaac Asimov.
In the 1980s Clarke became well known to many for his television programmes
Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World and
Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers.
In 1986, Clarke provided a grant to fund the prize money (initially £1,000) for the
Arthur C. Clarke Award for the best science fiction novel published in Britain in the previous year. In 2001 the prize was increased to £2001, and its value now matches the year (e.g., £2005 in 2005).
In 1988, he was diagnosed with
post-polio syndrome and has since needed to use a wheelchair most of the time.
Clarke was
knighted in 2000. Clarke's health did not allow him to travel to
London to receive the honour personally from the
Queen, so the
United Kingdom's
High Commissioner to
Sri Lanka awarded him the title of
Knight Bachelor at a ceremony in
Colombo. An allegation of
pedophilia against Clarke soon thereafter caused speculation that the knighthood might be rescinded, but the accuser did not follow through on his allegations, which are now generally considered to have been spurious.
Sir Arthur is currently the Honorary Board Chair of the
Institute for Cooperation in Space, founded by
Carol Rosin, and serves on the
Board of Governors of the
National Space Society, a
space advocacy organization originally founded by Dr.
Wernher von Braun.
He was the first Chancellor of the
International Space University, serving from 1989 to 2004, and Chancellor of
Moratuwa University,
Sri Lanka, from 1979 to 2002.
An
asteroid is named in Clarke's honour,
4923 Clarke, as is a species of
ceratopsian dinosaur,
Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei, discovered in
Inverloch in
Australia. The
2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter is named in honor of Sir Arthur's works.
He survived the
tsunami caused by the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, but lost his diving school on
Hikkaduwa to it.([
2] [
3])
In 2005 he lent his name to the inaugural
Sir Arthur Clarke Awards â€" dubbed "the Oscars for Space". His brother attended the awards ceremony, and presented an award specially chosen by Arthur (and not by the panel of judges who chose the other awards).
On
14 November 2005 Sri Lanka awarded Arthur C. Clarke its highest civilian award, the Lankabhimanaya
(Pride of Lanka) award, for his contributions to science and technology and his commitment to his adopted country.
Clarke's work is marked by an optimistic view of science empowering mankind's exploration of the solar system â€" an obvious influence of the work of
Olaf Stapledon. His early published stories would usually feature the extrapolation of a technological innovation or scientific breakthrough into something that helps resolve a human dilemma. The first manned mission to the moon (
Prelude to Space), the colonization of
Mars (
The Sands of Mars) and life aboard a space station (
Islands in the Sky) were all genre SF mainstays. Clarke's background as a technical writer showed in the early novels as a deliberate documentary style, and his characters reflect Clarke's experience by being mostly military or civil service types. Despite this, Clarke's style was open to humour and a degree of whimsy which salted its propagandist tone regarding scientific advancement with a sting in the tail.
A recurring type of character is found in
The Lion of Comarre,
The City and the Stars,
The Road to the Sea, and other works. A young man in a superficially
utopian society becomes dissatisfied and restless and seeks to expand his horizons, thereby discovering the underlying decadence of his own society.
The Sentinel (1948) introduced a religious theme to Clarke's work, a theme that he later explored more deeply in "The Star". His interest in the paranormal was influenced by
Charles Fort and embraced the belief that mankind may be the property of an ancient alien civilization. Surprisingly for a writer who is often held up as an example of hard science fiction's obsession with technology, three of Clarke's novels have this as a theme.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke's first venture into film was the Stanley Kubrick-directed
2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick and Clarke had met in 1964 to discuss the possibility of a collaborative film project. As the idea developed, it was decided that the story for the film was to be loosely based on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", written in 1948 as an entry in a BBC short story competition. Originally, Clarke was going to write the screenplay for the film, but this proved to be more tedious than he had estimated. Instead, Kubrick and Clarke decided it would be best to write a novel first and then adapt it for the film upon its completion. However, as Clarke was finishing the book, the screenplay was also being written simultaneously.
Clarke's influence on the directing of 2001: A Space Odyssey is also felt in one of the most memorable scenes in the movie when astronaut Bowman shuts down
HAL by removing modules from service one by one. As this happens we witness HAL's consciousness degrading. By the time HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song
Daisy Bell. This song was chosen due to a coincidence when in 1962 Clarke visited his friend and colleague John Pierce at the
Bell Labs Murray Hill facility. A remarkable
speech synthesis demonstration by physicist
John Larry Kelly, Jr was taking place at the time. Kelly was using an
IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech. His voice recorder synthesizer
vocoder reproduced the vocal for
Daisy Bell, with musical accompaniment from
Max Mathews, creating one of the most famous moments in the history of Bell Labs. Arthur C. Clarke was so impressed that he later told Kubrick to use it in this climactic scene.
[Bell Labs: Where "HAL" First Spoke (Bell Labs Speech Synthesis website)]Due to the hectic schedule of the film's production, Kubrick and Clarke had difficulty collaborating on the book. Clarke completed a draft of the novel at the end of 1964 with the plan to publish in 1965 in advance of the film's release in 1966. After many delays the film was released in the spring of 1968, before the book was completed. The book was credited to Clarke alone. Clarke later complained that this had the effect of making the book into a
novelisation, that Kubrick had manipulated circumstances to downplay his authorship. For these and other reasons, the details of the story differ slightly from the book to the movie. The film is a bold artistic piece with little explanation for the events taking place. Clarke, on the other hand, wrote thorough explanations of "cause and effect" for the events in the novel. Despite their differences, both film and novel were well received. [
4] [
5] [
6]
In 1972 Clarke published
The Lost Worlds of 2001, which included his account of the production and alternate versions of key scenes. The "special edition" of the novel
A Space Odyssey (released in 1999) contains an introduction by Clarke, documenting his account of the events leading to the release of the novel and film.
2010
In 1982 Clarke continued the
2001 epic with a sequel,
2010: Odyssey Two. This novel was also made into a film,
2010: The Year We Make Contact, directed by
Peter Hyams for release in 1984. Due to the political environment in America in the 1980s, the novel and film present a Cold War theme, with the looming tensions of nuclear war. The film was not considered to be as revolutionary or artistic as
2001, but the reviews were still positive and it has earned over 40 million dollars since its release in North America. [
7]
Clarke's
email correspondence with Hyams was published in 1984. Titled
The Odyssey File: The Making of 2010, and co-authored with Hyams, it illustrates his fascination with the then-pioneering medium and its use for them to communicate on an almost daily basis at the time of planning and production of the film. The book also includes
Clarke's list of the best science-fiction films ever made.
Most of Clarke's essays (from 1934 to 1998) can be found in the book
Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! (2000). Most of his short stories can be found in the book
The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001). Another collection of early essays was published in
The View from Serendip (1977), which also included one short piece of fiction, "
When the Twerms Came". He has also written short stories under the pseudonyms of
E. G. O'Brien and
Charles Willis.
Clarke's most important contribution may be the idea that
geostationary satellites would be ideal
telecommunications relays. He proposed this concept in a paper titled "
Extra-Terrestrial Relays â€" Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?", published in
Wireless World in October 1945. The
geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke Orbit in his honour.
However, it is not clear that this article was actually the inspiration for the modern telecommunications satellite.
John R. Pierce, of
Bell Labs, arrived at the idea independently in 1954, and he was actually involved in the
Echo satellite and
Telstar projects. Moreover, Pierce stated that the idea was "in the air" at the time and certain to be developed regardless of Clarke's publication. Nevertheless, Clarke described the idea so thoroughly that his article has been cited as
prior art in judgements denying patents on the concept.
It is also true that Clarke was not the first to publish the basic idea. It is found in
Hermann Oberth's
1923 book
Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen (
The Rocket into Interplanetary Space), among other places,
[Basics of the Geostationary Orbit (T. S. Kelso)]*Clarke is the president of the
H. G. Wells fan club.
*Most of Clarke's later work from 1988 onwards was ghost-written by
Gentry Lee, Mike McQuay, and others, although Clarke's name is still given as the first author on the covers.
*
Neil Hannon from
The Divine Comedy (band) wrote a song called "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World" on the album
Victory for the Comic Muse.
*Clarke had a brief relationship with
C.S. Lewis in the mid-40s in which they would often meet in bars in the Oxford area to discuss science fiction. Clarke, after Lewis' death, voiced great praise for him, saying the
Ransom Trilogy was one of the few works of science fiction that could be considered literature.
Novels
*
Prelude to Space (1951)
*
The Sands of Mars (1951)
*
Islands in the Sky (1952)
*
Against the Fall of Night (1953)
*
Childhood's End (1953)
*
Earthlight (1955)
*
The City and the Stars (1956)
*
The Deep Range (1957)
*
A Fall of Moondust (1961)
*
Dolphin Island (1963)
*
Glide Path (1963)
*
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
*
The Lion of Comarre & Against the Fall of Night (1968)
*
Rendezvous with Rama (1973)
*
Imperial Earth (1975)
*
The Fountains of Paradise (1979)
*
2010: Odyssey Two (1982)
*
The Songs of Distant Earth (1986)
*
2061: Odyssey Three (1988)
*
A Meeting With Medusa (1988)
*
Cradle (1988, with
Gentry Lee)
*
Rama II (1989, with Gentry Lee)
*
Beyond the Fall of Night (1990,
Gregory Benford)
*
The Ghost from the Grand Banks (1990)
*
The Garden of Rama (1991, with Gentry Lee)
*
Rama Revealed (1993, with Gentry Lee)
*
The Hammer of God (1993)
*
Richter 10 (1996, with
Mike McQuay)
*
3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)
*
The Trigger (1999, with
Michael P. Kube-McDowell)
*
The Light of Other Days (2000, with
Stephen Baxter)
*
Time's Eye (2004, with Stephen Baxter)
*
Sunstorm (2005, with Stephen Baxter)
Omnibus editions
*
Across the Sea of Stars (1959, including
Childhood's End,
Earthlight and 18 short stories)
*
From the Ocean, From the Stars (1962, including
The City and the Stars,
The Deep Range and
The Other Side of the Sky)
*
An Arthur C. Clarke Omnibus (1965, including
Childhood's End,
Prelude to Space and
Expedition to Earth)
*
Prelude to Mars (1965, including
Prelude to Space and
The Sands of Mars)
*
An Arthur C. Clarke Second Omnibus (1968, including
A Fall of Moondust,
Earthlight and
The Sands of Mars)
*
Four Great SF Novels (1978, including
The City and the Stars,
The Deep Range,
A Fall of Moondust,
Rendezvous with Rama)
*
The Space Trilogy (2001, including
Islands in the Sky,
Earthlight and
The Sands of Mars)
Short story collections
*
The Sentinel (1948)
*
Expedition to Earth (1953)
*
Reach for Tomorrow (1956)
*
Tales from the White Hart (1957)
*
The Other Side of the Sky (1958)
*
Tales of Ten Worlds (1962)
*
The Nine Billion Names of God (1967)
*
Of Time and Stars (1972)
*
The Wind from the Sun (1972)
*
The Best of Arthur C. Clarke (1973)
*
Tales From Planet Earth (1990)
*
More Than One Universe (1991)
*
The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2000)
Non-fiction
*
Interplanetary Flight; an introduction to astronautics. London: Temple Press, 1950
*
The Exploration of Space. New York: Harper, 1951
*
The Coast of Coral. New York: Harper, 1957 â€" Volume 1 of the
Blue planet trilogy*
The Reefs of Taprobane; Underwater Adventures around Ceylon. New York: Harper, 1957 â€" Volume 2 of the
Blue planet trilogy*
The Making of a Moon: the Story of the Earth Satellite Program. New York: Harper, 1957
*
Boy beneath the sea, Photos by Mike Wilson. Text by Arthur C. Clarke. New York: Harper, 1958
*
The Challenge of the Space Ship: Previews of Tomorrow's World. New York: Harper, 1959
*
The Challenge of the Sea. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960
*
Profiles of the Future; an Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible. New York: Harper & Row, 1962
*
Glide Path. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963
*
The Treasure of the Great Reef. New York: Harper & Row, 1964 â€" Volume 3 of the
Blue planet trilogy*
Voices from the Sky: Previews of the Coming Space Age. New York: Harper & Row, 1965
*
The Promise of Space. New York: Harper, 1968
*
Into Space: a Young Person's Guide to Space, by Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Silverberg. New York: Harper & Row, 1971
*
Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations. New York: Harper & Row, 1972
*
The Lost Worlds of 2001. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1972
*
The Odyssey File (1984) with Peter Hyams
*
1984, Spring: a Choice of Futures. New York: BallantIne Books, 1984
*
Ascent to Orbit, a Scientific Autobiography: The Technical Writings of Arthur C. Clarke. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1984
*
Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography. London: Gollancz, 1989
*
How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village. New York : Bantam Books, 1992 â€" A history and survey of the communications revolution
*
By Space Possessed. London: Gollancz, 1993
The Snows of Olympus - A Garden on Mars (1994, picture album with comments)
Fractals: The Colors of Infinity (1997, narrator)
Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! : Collected Works 1934-1988. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999
*
From Narnia to a Space Odyssey: The War of Letters Between Arthur C. Clarke and C.S. Lewis (2003) with C. S. Lewis
The Coming of the Space Age; famous accounts of man's probing of the universe, selected and edited by Arthur C. Clarke.
*
"The position was one which, even a hundred years ago, would have seemed unthinkable, but the catastrophic political and social changes of the last century had all combined to give it a certain inevitability. With the failure or weakening of its three great rivals, Buddhism was now the only religion that still possessed any real power over the minds of men." (This is taken from his 1957 science fiction novel, "
The Deep Range"- a hundred years from when he wrote the novel)
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic."*
Clarke's three laws*
science fiction:
authors â€"
novels â€"
short stories â€"
television shows*
Arthur C Clarke's List of the best Science-Fiction films of all time*
Clarketech*
Spaceguard*
Religious ideas in science fiction*
Arthur C. Clarke books*
Arthur C. Clarke short stories
*
ArthurCClarke.net : fan community & discussion site*
Where Is Everybody? : an
essay by Arthur C. Clarke on
SETI*
God, Science, and Delusion Free Inquiry magazine interview Volume 19, Number 2
*
Interview for The Onion (February 2004)
*
The Motif of First Contact in Arthur C. Clarke's SF Works, by
Zoran Živković*
Sir Arthur C. Clarke links & image archive *
Clarke's 1945 Communication Satellite Idea*
Institute for Cooperation in Space*
The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation*
Sir Arthur Clarke Awards 2005*
Spike Magazine Interview*
The Sundial on a Novel Concept includes image of Clarke at the inaugaration of the Sundial
Moratuwa University 1996
*
Memoirs of Science Abstracts' editorial staff — by Arthur C. Clarke
*
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE BSAC references Clarke as a member
*
The Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse, Devon Island, Nunavut (NASA Haughton Mars Project)
