Arthur C Clarke Round 21: The C stands for Celeritas. (Nothing can exceed the speed of Clarke.)

[garote]

Dial F For Frankenstein, 1964

The beginning of this tale is the ending to the amusing cult film "Lawnmower Man". If you know the latter, don't bother reading the former. Actually the plot for this story has been so thoroughly rehashed and explored in so many other stories that it's not even worth summarizing here!

Neutron Tide, 1970Oh my god,

Comments

[garote]

Previous episodes:

1. Jun 16, 2011: Part 1 (3)
2. Jun 21, 2011: Part 2 (4)
3. Jul 22, 2011: Part 3 (4)
4. Sep 6, 2011: Clarke On Parade (4)
5. Jan 31, 2012: When Clarkes Attack! (5)

[johnny9fingers]

I used to admire Clarke. Before I knew...

Really not a nice man, especially to young boys. (One of my best friends in the music biz is still trying to find a way to talk to folk in power about the abuse he suffered as a young and vulnerable person by Clarke and accomplices. He's in his 60's now.)

That aside, when it comes to people or emotions his writing is very technical-manual-like. His great short stories (The Sentinel, The Nine Billion Name of God, etc) deal with this because of their compactness. As a general rule the form allows only a succinct or cursory impressionistic take on character in few lines, because the idea is all important, which can disguise some writers limitations, or sometimes even elevate spare prose into the realm of poetry.

He had some good ideas and did some frankly appalling things. And he won a libel action when justly accused of them in print. Ye gods. And folk like Aldiss, Moorcock, and Ballard defended him. It was a different world in them there days.

[garote]

... Sounds exactly like today's world, to me. Recent history is littered with people we admire for some reasons and despise for others!