The last of the Big Three has died. Science Fiction author Arthur C. Clarke passed away early Wednesday morning local time in Sri Lanka. For years Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov made up the “Big Three” of Science Fiction writing. Over a career spanning decades Clarke wrote close to 100 books and many more stories and articles most notably Childhood’s End and 2001: A Space Odyssey. George Roddenberry credited Clarke’s work as inspiration for the original Star Trek. Universally loved and appreciated, he will be missed. Check out the Full Diagnosis to read Isaac’s Asimov‘s essay about his friend from his autobiograpy I. Assimov.
I could go into great detail about the career of Arthur C. Clarke, but I thought it more prudent to let one of his closest friends and peers tell you about the man he knew. This short piece is taken from Isaac Asimov‘s autobiography I. Asimov.
In 1946, however, a British writer, Arthur C. Clarke, began to write for ASF [Astounding Science Fiction], and he, like Heinlein and van Vogt (but unlike me), was an instant hit.
By 1949, the first whisper of Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov as “the Big Three” began to be heard. This kept up for some forty years, for we all stayed alive for decades and all remained in the science fiction field. In the end, we all three considered large advances and found our books on the best-seller lists. (Who would have though it in the 1940’s?)
Arthur Charles Clarke was born toward the end of 1917 in Great Britain. He is another science fiction writer who has been thoroughly educated in science and he did extremely well in physics and mathematics.
He and I are now widely known as the Big Two of science fiction. Until early 1988, as I’ve said, people spoke of the Big Three, but then Arthur fashioned a little human figurine of wax and with a long pin.
At least, he has told me this. Perhaps he’s trying to warn me. I have made it quite plain to him, however, that if he were to find himself the Big One, he would be very lonely. At the thought of that, he was affected to the point of tears, so I think I’m safe.
I’m very fond of Arthur, and have been for forty years. We came to an agreement many years ago in a taxi which, at the time, was moving south on Park Avenue, so it is called the Treaty of Park Avenue. By it, I have agreed to maintain, on questioning, that Arthur is the best science fiction writer in the world, though I am also allowed to say, if questioned assiduously, that I am breathing down his neck as we run. In return, Arthur has agreed to insist, forever, that I am the best science writer in the world. He must say it, whether he believes it or not.
I don’t know if he gets credited for my stuff, but I am frequently blamed for his. People have a tendency to confuse us because we both write cerebral stories in which scientific ideas are more important than action.
Many a young woman has said to me, “Oh, Dr. Asimov, I don’t think your ‘Childhood’s End’ was up to your usual standard” I always answer, “Well, dear, that’s why I wrote it under a pseudonym.”
Childhood’s End, by the way, was the first science fiction book my dear wife, Janet, read. I Robot by her future husband, was only second. But neither of us wins top place in her literary affections. her favorite science fiction writer is Cliff Simak, and I think that shows good taste.
Arthur and I share similar views on science fiction, on science, on social questions, and on politics. I have never had occasion to disagree with him on any of these things, which is a credit to his clear-thinking intelligence.
There are, of course, some differences between us. He is bald, is over two years older than I, and is not nearly as good-looking. But he’s pretty darned good for second-best.
From the start Arthur was interested in science fiction and in the more imaginative aspects of science. He was an early devotee of rocketry and, in 1944, was the first to suggest, in a serious scientific paper, the use of communication satellites.
He turned to the writings of science fiction, and his first published story in an American magazine was “Loophole” in the April 1946 ASF. He was instantly successful.
Arthur cheerfully admits that when he was a schoolboy he was called “Ego” by his mates. However, he is an incredibly bright person who writes fiction and nonfiction with equal ease. Despite his ego, he is an extremely lovable persona and I’ve never heard a bad word seriously advanced against him, although I have said lots of bad words against him unseriously – and vice versa. He and I have the same mock-insult relationship that I have with Lester del Rey and with Harlan Ellison. I find that women are often perturbed by our banter. They don’t seem to understand male bonding in which the remark “Howdy, you ornery ole hoss thief” translates into “How are you, my dear and charming friend?”
Well, Arthur and I do the same, but, of course, in formal English to which we endeavor to introduce a soupcon of wit. Thus, when a plane crashed and roughly half the passenger survived, it turned out that one of the survivors had kept calm during the perilous attempts to land by reading an Arthur C. Clarke novel and this was reported in a news article.
Arthur, as is his wont, promptly xeroxed five million copies of the article and sent one to everyone he knew or ever heard of. I got one of them, and at the bottom of the copy he sent me, he wrote in his handwriting, “What a pity he didn’t read one of your novels. He would have slept through the whole wretched ordeal.”
It was work of a moment to send Arthur a letter which said, “On the contrary, the reason he was reading your novel was that if the plane did crash, death would come as a blessed release.”
I suspect that Arthur is one of the wealthiest of the magazine science fiction writers, for he has written a number of best-sellers and been involved with several motion pictures, including the first of the big science fiction movie spectaculars, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
He once briefly married, but ever since he has lived a comfortable bachelor life. at one time, he was an ardent scuba diver and, indeed, almost got killed on one of his dives.