Arthur C. Clarke has passed at the age of 90, leaving us with over 60 years’ worth of exceptionally high-quality short stories, novellas, essays, novels, and technical non-fiction. One of the most telling things I ever heard said about his work was that if he’d been consistent in his treatment of religion in his work, he might well have started one. Most people will talk about Childhood’s End, The Sentinel, and The City and the Stars as examples of this. Personally, though, I think that his short stories “The Star” (which I seem to recall was made into an episode of the new Twilight Zone series back in the ), “The Nine Billion Names of God,” “No Morning After,” and especially, “The Possessed,” offer something that the novels don’t–a peek into a quirky sense of humor about the relationship of sentient beings with the universe. In fact, I think that for all the 55-gallon drums of ink that have been spilled writing about Clarke’s oeuvre, his sense of humor doesn’t get nearly as much play as you would expect, given how much of it seems to have gone into his work, and that’s a shame, as it’s one of those exceptional, quintessentially British senses of humor that simply don’t come along often enough.
It’s a good thing he had a sense of humor, too. Clarke lived long enough to see himself proved wrong on multiple predictions, (my favorite is that by the 1960s, apes would replace humans as house hold servants—temporarily, at least; “…of course, eventually, our super chimpanzees would start forming trade unions and we’d be right back where we started.”). He also saw several predictions come true that might have wished hadn’t—I’m thinking of “Death and the Senator,” again, and “I Remember Babylon”—he may have missed an entire medium (the Internet), but he was spot on with the message (the increasing prevalance of pornography). On the other hand, he also saw a communications network that far outstripped anything he could have imagined in his 1945 Wireless World article that discussed the theoretical possibility of of using geostationary satellites as communications relays. Of course, predicting the future is always a crapshoot, as Sir Arthur himself pointed out when he noted that “If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong.”
Clarke also had a way of delivering a message—humourous or not—that not only packed a punch, but stayed with you. “Dog Star” is a deeply moving tribute that anyone who has lost a beloved pet can appreciate. And for over twenty years now, I’ve thought that “Death and the Senator” is the best presentation of the law of unintended consequences that anyone could ask for—and that it ought to be required reading for all Congresscritters. Clarke’s work will not only make you think, but you’ll enjoy the experience.
So, let’s raise a glass to Sir Arthur, and thank him for his work and his theological restraint. The go get yourself a copy of Tales of Ten Worlds or The Fountains of Paradise, and enjoy your space odessey.
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