Arthur C. Clarke – He Will Be Greatly Missed

Arthur C. Clarke, author of many great SF novels and stories, including Childhood’s End and Rendezvous With Rama, which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel, has passed away in Sri Lanka.

From Times Online:

Science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died aged 90 in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, it was confirmed tonight.

Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30 a.m. after suffering breathing problems, aide Rohan De Silva said.

He was the visionary who predicted communication satellites and the last living member of the “Big Three” in SF literature; contemporaries Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov being the other two.

Clarke has always been one of my favorite writers, following close behind Heinlein. He wrote the short story, “The Sentinel,” which was developed into the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick, which is the seminal SF classic, and received a Hugo Award for Best Film in 1969.

He was not just a visionary writer, but one of the best that ever lived.

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