RE: Arthur C Clark bids goodbye
03-19-2008, 04:17 AM (This post was last modified: 01-11-2018, 02:48 PM by Bob Schroeck.)
03-19-2008, 04:17 AM (This post was last modified: 01-11-2018, 02:48 PM by Bob Schroeck.)
Over on the Hero System boards, someone posted about this. I'm copying my replay here as well.
Robert Heinlein
Isaac Asimov
Arthur C Clarke
Those three men were commonly thought of as "the three grand old men of Sci Fi", or some other sobriquet similar.
Some would herald Bradbury as one of them. Others dispute that (as above).
It's not that they were one and all the oldest or the first. It's that between the three of them, they did more to popularize Science Fiction, and more importantly, to popularize SCIENCE itself, to the generation that came after them.
Many many young engineers who worked on the Apollo program and later the Shuttle programs cited one or more of them as inspiration. Asimov himself was almost as well known for his NON-fiction science books and essays as for his Science Fiction stories.
I look at them this way.
Heinlein made science and space travel look adventurous and fun. Sparking younger imaginations. When you were a kid, you wanted to live in Heinlein's worlds. You knew things could be fantastic because he made you believe it.
Asimov, the perfect science teacher, explained things most clearly and could hold your interest in doing so. If you had him as a science teacher in high school, you'd want to DO things with the understanding he gave you.
Clarke may have been the one with the most ambitious ideas though. His stuff was the sort of thing that made you stop, put the book down for a moment, and think about the implications to the mind and perhaps even the soul. He's the College professor that turns your world upside down.
Now they are all gone. Is the world poorer for their passing? Not as long as their work endures. And not as long as we remember.
Sir Clarke would probably have thought of a prayer for him to be foolish. (Though I'll say one anyway.)
But I think he would have greatly respected the continuity of memory. So I will say - I will remember you sir. And I will pass on that memory to MY next generation so that they remember you as well.
Quote:Originally Posted by FenrisUlf
Is anyone even left from the Golden Age of SF, or have they all left this life?
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Robert Heinlein
Isaac Asimov
Arthur C Clarke
Those three men were commonly thought of as "the three grand old men of Sci Fi", or some other sobriquet similar.
Some would herald Bradbury as one of them. Others dispute that (as above).
It's not that they were one and all the oldest or the first. It's that between the three of them, they did more to popularize Science Fiction, and more importantly, to popularize SCIENCE itself, to the generation that came after them.
Many many young engineers who worked on the Apollo program and later the Shuttle programs cited one or more of them as inspiration. Asimov himself was almost as well known for his NON-fiction science books and essays as for his Science Fiction stories.
I look at them this way.
Heinlein made science and space travel look adventurous and fun. Sparking younger imaginations. When you were a kid, you wanted to live in Heinlein's worlds. You knew things could be fantastic because he made you believe it.
Asimov, the perfect science teacher, explained things most clearly and could hold your interest in doing so. If you had him as a science teacher in high school, you'd want to DO things with the understanding he gave you.
Clarke may have been the one with the most ambitious ideas though. His stuff was the sort of thing that made you stop, put the book down for a moment, and think about the implications to the mind and perhaps even the soul. He's the College professor that turns your world upside down.
Now they are all gone. Is the world poorer for their passing? Not as long as their work endures. And not as long as we remember.
Sir Clarke would probably have thought of a prayer for him to be foolish. (Though I'll say one anyway.)
But I think he would have greatly respected the continuity of memory. So I will say - I will remember you sir. And I will pass on that memory to MY next generation so that they remember you as well.