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From: cshea@dcdu.com (Christopher Shea)
Subject: Re: Happy Birthday, HAL 9000!
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In article <32D91BF9.3055@pacbell.net>, "Michael P. Walsh"
<mp_walsh@pacbell.net> wrote:

>tomlinson wrote:
>> 
>>
>> 
>> (Interjection of bile:  Clarke, ever since _2001_, has dined out on
>> his reputation as futuristic prophet and sage every time the new
>> year rolls around.  December and January issues of such rags as
>> _Discovery_ and _TiReD_ write reverent articles in praise of the
>> master.  I don't think that anyone would give a rat's ass about
>> Arthur C. Clarke, had he never met and worked with Stanley
>> Kubrick.  In fact, I'm tempted to conclude that HAL was entirely
>> Kubrick's invention; many elements of _2001_ are derivative of
>> Clarke's short stories, but HAL was not.)
>> ---
>---
>---
>Arthur C. Clarke's reputation would have been secure if he had never
>met Stanley Kubrick.  As a scientist, Clarke was the first person to
>describe the use of synchronous orbits for communication satellites.
>
>Of course, he is more famous as a science-fiction author and he was
>regarded as a master of that art, probably before Kubrick was out
>of diapers.  I don't believe that Clarke had any real contact with
>the motion picture industry before 2001.
>
>However, after registering this complaint about your comment about
>Clarke, I am somewhat in agreement with you.  One the places that
>Clarke has not done very well at is in predicting advances in
>computer technology.  If you read one of his properly highly acclaimed
>short stories "Superiority" he has a computer system much like those
>in use today filling a space battleship with excess parts carried in
>an accompanying space liner.
>

This is a problem as old as science fiction, and hardly restricted to
Clarke.  Read some SF from before World War II, and you'll see Mars
colonies, commonplace space travel, contact with aliens, und so weiter,
predicted for the '70s or '80s.

>But please hold the bile when referring to Arthur C. Clarke, a real
>grand master of science-fiction, perhaps the best currently alive.

Now if he'd only stop cranking out those useless Rama sequels with Gentry
Lee ...

-- 

Christopher Shea
cshea@dcdu.com, 74007.1375@compuserve.com
That's ChrisTOPHER, not Chris, dammit.
