OT: Clarke (was - Re: Possible customer)

[Fairlight]

With neither thought nor caution, George blurted:
> He died last year, 2008, he was 90 years old.

But his ego lives on via the afterwords/forewords of his books...

He used to be my favourite SF author, seriously.  That changed when I found
someone that didn't pull punches with the science, and who actually had a
grasp on character development.  Let's face it, Clarke was rarely about
character development.  Most of the character development (actually, much
of the text) in later books like Cradle and the Rama series' last three
books was Gentry Lee's doing--Clarke advised on the science, and said as
much in at least one place.

I grew very disenchanted when 2061 essentially was worthless as part of the
series except for the last four chapters.  The quality of his writing went
severely downhill in general at about that time.  And while he may have had
great fun writing 3001 (his first -solo- book in -years-, having let Gentry
Lee write much of the last three Rama books and having just given synopses
to other authors to flesh out into full works [Stephen Baxter, Mike McQuay,
etc.]), it was also a huge letdown that focused yet again on Clarke's
increasingly myopic vision of what would be possible in the distant future,
rather than revolving around the actual plot as much as it should have,
especially for a series' conclusion.

Vintage Clarke was great.  But he definitely faded well before his death,
IMNSHO.  I prefer to remember him for Childhood's End, the first Rama
book, Songs of Distant Earth, and other older works, rather than his later
disappointments and sometimes-disastrous collaborations (*cough* Garden of
Rama *cough* ...the bastard child of the series).  But even then, when you
compare against other authors in the genre, you start to see that Clarke's
science wasn't nearly as hard as other authors', and with lacking character
development, he suddenly starts looking rather a shallow author.

Still...I do have my favourite Clarke treasures that will remain
untarnished.  Just have to accept them for what they are.

mark->