Author Spotlight: Arthur C. Clarke


English author Arthur C. Clarke is one of the most prominent figures in science fiction. With over 100 novels under his belt, including Childhood’s End and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke influenced modern science fiction.

Clarke was born in Somerset, England. He grew up in a farm, where he enjoyed stargazing, fossil collecting, and reading American pulp magazines. As a teenager, he joined the Junior Astronomical Association and contributed to the society’s journal, Urania. In 1936, he moved to London and worked as a pensions auditor at the Board of Education.

During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force as a radar specialist, which contributed to their success in the Battle of Britain. After the war, he attended King’s College London, where he received a first-class degree in mathematics and physics.

Clarke’s first professional sale as a writer was “Loophole,” a story which appeared in Astounding Science Fictionin April 1946. He also worked as an editor at Science Abstracts, then switched to writing full time in 1951.

His first novella was published in 1948, titled Against the Fall of the Night. He later expanded this into The City and the Stars in 1956. His third novel, Childhood’s End (1953), guaranteed his popularity; and his sixth novel,A Fall of Moondust (1961), is considered a science fiction classic.

Childhood’s End follows a peaceful alien invasion of Earth. The alien arrival brings about utopia and the slow wipeout of human culture and identity. The novel started with a story titled “Guardian Angel.” Childhood’s Endis regarded by many as Clarke’s best work.

A Fall of Moondust tells about a colonized moon in the 21st century, where it is both a tourist destination and a research establishment. After a moonquake occurs, one of the tourist ships becomes trapped under the moon’s surface, with no way of communication and no clear path of rescue. The crew and the passengers must work together to find their way out.

In 1948, Clarke wrote The Sentinel as an entry for a BBC competition. His story didn’t win but later became the basis of one of his most popular works, 2001: A Space Odyssey. The story follows a computer’s voyage to Jupiter after a mysterious black monolith was discovered. The film’s screenplay was cowritten with Stanley Kubrick, the film’s director and producer. 2001: A Space Odyssey wasn’t embraced upon its release but eventually gained a cult following. Clarke later wrote a sequel titled 2010: Odyssey Two, then two more novels titled 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey.

He moved to Sri Lanka in 1956, where he remained for the remainder of his life. By the late 20th century, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein were considered the “Big Three” of science fiction. In 2000, Clarke was knighted for “services to literature” in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

In 1988, he was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome, which caused him to stay in a wheelchair. The diagnosis later led to halting speech, which meant most of his communication came in the form of recorded speech. In 2007, on his 90th birthday, he provided a video in which he said goodbye to friends and fans.

Clarke passed away in Sri Lanka on March 19, 2008. Hours before his death, a massive gamma-ray burst (GRB), which exploded some 7.5 billion years ago, reached Earth. Larry Sessions, a science writer, suggested that the burst be named “The Clarke Event” after the man who contributed so much to opening minds about the cosmos. Clarke was buried in Colombo in traditional Sri Lankan fashion.

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