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Arthur C. Clarke

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Sir Arthur C. Clarke
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Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (born December 16 1917) is a British author and inventor, most famous for his science-fiction novel , and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. Clarke is one of what is known by fans as the "Big Three" of science fiction, which also includes Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.

Contents

Biography

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 as ballast in ships). 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.

His 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] — 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 his article was actually the inspiration for modern telecommunications satellites. 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. However, 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 patents on the concept have been denied on the grounds of prior art.

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. He has been chairman of the British Interplanetary Society and a member of the Underwater Explorers Club. His work is marked by its optimistic view of science empowering mankind's exploration of the solar system and an obvious influence was the work of Olaf Stapledon.

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 [link]. Sri Lanka 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 for 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 it was felt 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.

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 UK High Commissioner to Sri Lanka awarded him the title of Knight Bachelor at a ceremony in Colombo.

He is currently the Honorary Board Chair of the Institute for Cooperation in Space, founded by Carol Rosin and 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 tsunamis of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, but lost his diving school on Hikkaduwa ([link] [link]).

In 2005 he lent his name to the inaugural Sir Arthur Clarke Awards — 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.

Themes, style, and influence

Clarke's early published stories would usually feature the extrapolation of a technological innovation or scientific breakthrough that assists the resolution of 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 introduced a religious theme to Clarke's work. 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.

Adapted screenplays

2001: A Space Odyssey

Clarke's first venture into film was the Stanley Kubrick-directed . 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, which is perhaps the most recognised scene in the film. This song was chosen because in 1962 Clarke was coincidentally visiting friend and colleague John Pierce at the Bell Labs Murray Hill facility at the time of a remarkable speech synthesis demonstration by physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr who created one of the most famous moments in the history of Bell Labs by using an IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech. Kelly's voice recorder synthesizer vocoder recreated the song Daisy Bell, with musical accompaniment from Max Mathews. 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 the novel 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. [link] [link] [link]

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 (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, '. This novel was also made into a film, ', 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. [link]

Clarke's mail correspondence with Hyams was published in 1984. Titled , 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.

Essays and short stories

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.

Trivia

Partial bibliography

Novels

Omnibus editions

Against the Fall of Night in Startling Stories.
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Against the Fall of Night in Startling Stories.

Short story collections

Non-fiction

Quotes

See also

Cited references

External links

 

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