Arthur C. Clarke

British novelist, short-story writer, and essayist

• Born: December 16, 1917
• Birthplace: Minehead, Somerset, England
• Died: March 19, 2008
• Place of death: Colombo, Sri Lanka

Biography

Arthur Charles Clarke was a commercially successful and highly respected contemporary science-fiction writer. Born on December 16, 1917, in Minehead, a coastal town in Somerset, England, he was the oldest of the four children of Charles Wright and Norah (Willis) Clarke. Clarke’s father was a post office engineer and farmer. “My youth,” Clarke recalls, “was spent alternating between the seaside and my parents’ small farm.” Having developed an early interest in science (from reading about dinosaurs), Clarke built a telescope at the age of thirteen and mapped the moon with it. From 1928 to 1936, he attended Huish’s Grammar School, Taunton, and wrote for the school’s literary magazine.

Since poverty prevented his attending college, Clarke worked for the British Civil Service as an auditor from 1936 to 1941. During this time he joined the British Interplanetary Society, becoming its chairman. During World War II Clarke served as a radar instructor in the Royal Air Force, rising to the rank of flight lieutenant. While in the military he wrote several articles on electronics and sold his first science-fiction stories. In an article published in Wireless World (October, 1945), Clarke predicted the development of communications satellites. A veterans grant enabled him to attend King’s College, the University of London, where he received his bachelor’s degree (with first-class honors) in physics and math in 1948. From 1949 to 1951, Clarke was an assistant editor at Science Abstracts, a publication of the Institution of Electric Engineers, London. In 1951 Clarke became a full-time writer.

“My literary interests,” Clarke noted, “are divided equally between fiction and non-fiction.” His first success was an introduction to astronautics, Interplanetary Flight, followed by related works, The Exploration of Space and The Exploration of the Moon. Clarke won esteem as a science writer. Critic Ray Gibbons praised “Clarke’s ability to reduce complex subjects to simple language and his steadfast avoidance of fantasy as a substitute for factual narration.”

Clarke concurrently wrote science fiction. His Prelude to Space was hailed as “a compelling realistic novel of interplanetary flight.” Other works came quickly: The Sands of Mars, Islands in the Sky, Against the Fall of Night, and The Lion of Comarre. A milestone was Childhood’s End, for it placed Clarke in the mainstream of Anglo-American science-fiction writers. Basil Davenport of The New York Times added Clarke’s name to those of “Olaf Stapleton, C. S. Lewis, and H. G. Wells, ”the very small group of writers who have used science fiction as the vehicle of philosophical ideas—not merely ideas about the nature of future society, but ideas about the End of Man.” In 1952, Clarke received the International Fantasy Award for his work. This was the first of hundreds of awards he was to receive throughout his life.

Long interested in underwater exploration and photography, Clarke began, with Mike Wilson, to swim off the Great Barrier Reef of Australia and the coasts of Sri Lanka. These experiences inspired nonfiction works set in the sea, including The Challenge of the Sea, The First Five Fathoms, and, with Mike Wilson, Indian Ocean Adventure and Indian Ocean Treasure—as well as such novels as Dolphin Island and Cradle.

Clarke’s collaboration with Stanley Kubrick on the film and novel 2001: A Space Odyssey was another turning point. Clarke emerged as both a scientist and a storyteller. Clifton Fadiman’s prediction was fulfilled: “Clarke is no mere dreamer. If he roves space, it is with a slide rule in hand.” Three more novels, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, and 3001: The Final Odyssey explored the evolutionary impact of human life in space and completed his groundbreaking story. Encounters with extraterrestrials were discussed, a theme developed in Rendezvous with Rama, winning for Clarke a second Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. The idea of humans living in space inspired Imperial Earth (written for the American Bicentennial), The Fountains of Paradise (which envisioned a vast elevator to the heavens), and The Songs of Distant Earth (an epic of human pilgrims fleeing a dying Earth).

Clarke went on to complete the Rama books in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s with the publication of Rama II, The Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed, all cowritten with Gentry Lee, an engineer at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In this masterfully written series Clarke returned to the metaphysical ideas of works such as “The Nine Billion Names of God” and Childhood’s End, with the final volume integrating science and religion in such a way that God indeed becomes the master-builder of Clarke’s universe. Clarke, in collaboration with Gregory Benford, also returned to the universe of his short story “Against the Fall of Night” with the publication in 1990 of Beyond the Fall of Night, a tale of the culmination of a far-future humanity’s destiny.

Most of Clarke’s published work after the late 1980’s was in collaboration with other distinguished authors and scientists. Although the ideas expressed were distinctly Clarke’s, the writing often lacked his poetic, fluid touch. Critics found them to be of secondary importance in his canon generally. In the early 2000’s, Clarke continued his collaborations, as well as writing articles and essays for various journals.

Clarke was also a futurist, as evidenced in the nonfiction Profiles of the Future and other works. He contended that “anything that is theoretically possible will be achieved in practice, no matter what the technical difficulties, if it is desired greatly enough.” Open-ended in his hopes for humankind, “Clarke’s Law” states, “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

For years Clarke was a popular lecturer in the United Kingdom and the United States. By the mid-1950’s, he had taken residence in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a decision later reinforced by his divorce in 1964 from Marilyn Mayfield. (The couple had been married in 1953.) In 1979 Clarke became chancellor of Moratuwa University. “Baldish” and “bespectacled,” he was fond of diving, photography, and table tennis. In December, 1997, he was knighted, becoming Sir Arthur C. Clarke. A world-class writer, Clarke’s reputation is secure. Godfrey Smith, writing in The New York Times, said, “He writes clear prose which draws its solidity and confidence from his formal scientific training but it is occasionally laced with passages of something like poetry.” Clarke lived in Colombo until his death at age 90 on March 19, 2008.

Bibliography

Blackford, Russell. “Technological Meliorism and the Posthuman Vision: Arthur C. Clarke and the Ultimate Future of Intelligence.” New York Review of Science Fiction 14 (November, 2001): 1, 10-12. Examines Clarke’s visionary predictions in his nonfiction Profiles of the Future and discusses how certain ideas later reappeared in his fiction.

Brull, Steven, and Neil Gross. “The Next World According to Clarke.” Business Week, February 24, 1997, 123-124. Notes that scientists take Clarke’s musings about the future seriously, for Clarke has always blurred the lines between what people dream and what engineers create; notes that many respected scientists, engineers, and writers praise Clarke for infusing science fiction with verisimilitude and helping inspire real-world scientists.

Clarke, Arthur C. Astounding Days: A Science-Fictional Autobiography. New York: Bantam Books, 1989. Although this volume is not really an autobiography, Clarke offers a brief memoir of his youth. He explains how writers and editors of Astounding magazine (later named Analog) first aroused his interest in science fiction and discusses his work on rocketry and radar. Provides a pleasant diversion on Clarke’s background.

Clarke, Arthur C. The View from Serendip. New York: Random House, 1977. Clarke writes with interest of the three s‘s in his life—space, serendipity, and the sea. The twenty-five chapters touch on the events in his life, the people he has met, and the technological advances of the present and the future. A good introduction to Clarke’s wide-ranging interests.

Guterl, Frederick V. “An Odyssey of Sorts.” Discover 18 (May, 1997): 68-69. In this interview, Clarke discusses, among other subjects, the cold-fusion energy revolution and the evidence for life on Mars.

Hollow, John. Against the Night, the Stars: The Science Fiction of Arthur C. Clarke. San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983. Presents an analysis of the major themes found in Clarke’s fiction.

James, Edward. “Clarke’s Utopian Vision.” Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction 34 (April, 2005): 26-33. Analyzes Clarke’s fiction and notes that his apparently utopian futures are often undermined by assertions that humanity’s destiny is in fact tied to the human tendencies toward endless dissatisfaction and questing.

Lehman-Wilzig, Sam N. “Science-Fiction as Futurist Prediction: Alternate Visions of Heinlein and Clarke.” The Literary Review 20 (Winter, 1977) 133-151. The author contrasts the science-fiction works of Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein and asserts that Heinlein is the superior stylist but Clarke is the one who excels in ideas—both technological and philosophical—and futurist vision.

McAleer, Neil. Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1992. Provides a definitive account of Clarke’s career, written with Clarke’s cooperation. Draws on extensive interviews with Clarke’s friends, colleagues, and family members.

Meisenheimer, Donald K., Jr. “Machining the Man: From Neurasthenia to Psychasthenia in SF and the Genre Western.” Science-Fiction Studies 24 (November, 1997): 441-458. Argues that although Clarke works within the tradition of Wellsian science fiction, he also makes heavy use of the elements of the genre Western as established by Owen Wister and Frederic Remington.

Olander, Joseph D., and Martin Harry Greenberg, eds. Arthur C. Clarke. New York: Taplinger, 1977. Collection of nine essays is a good source of textual criticism of Clarke’s fiction. Examines both individual works and his science-fiction writings in general. Supplemented by a select bibliography and a biographical note.

Rabkin, Eric S. Arthur C. Clarke. San Bernardino, Calif.: Borgo Press, 1980. Provides a good short introduction to Clarke’s most important science-fiction works, with brief descriptions of each. Includes biographical information, an annotated bibliography, and a chronology.

Reid, Robin Anne. Arthur C. Clarke: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. General introduction to Clarke’s life and work presents a brief biographical chapter, a discussion of his science fiction in general, and nine chapters devoted to individual novels. Includes bibliography and index.

Samuelson, David N. Arthur C. Clarke: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984. A complete bibliography of Clarke’s works from the 1930’s to early 1980’s.

Slusser, George Edgar. The Space Odysseys of Arthur C. Clarke. San Bernardino, Calif.: Borgo Press, 1978. A brief but provocative commentary on Clarke’s fiction.

Zivkovic, Zolan. “The Motif of First Contact in Arthur C. Clarke’s ’A Meeting with Medusa.’” New York Review of Science Fiction, February/March, 2001, 1, 8-13; 10-17. Examines in detail four Clarke stories that involve humans’ first contact with alien beings: “Report from Planet Three,” “Crusade,” “History Lesson,” and “A Meeting with Medusa.”