Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS (16 December 1917–19 March 2008) was a British science fiction writer, science writer and futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host.
How dare he change the symbols for evil used by Christianity for hundreds of years and iconoclasticize them into order, truth, and peace? He did dare, in a small, powerful, prescient novel published in 1953–Childhood’s End–, taking place in the year 19–. In 1968 came 2001: A Space Odyssey–filled with myth, archetypes, rituals–and IBM and HAL. An odyssey by the master artisan who writes a sequel to Homer’s story of the wanderer. Then, among others, Rendezvous with Rama (1972); 2010: Odyssey Two (1982); and 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997).
Arthur C. Clarke opens up the possibilities of gaining or losing: souls or history, in speculative fiction in the spirit of Jonathan Swift. He writes of trade-offs for survival. He speculates upon the worlds of peace, the new/next Golden Age.
As much as Milton or Bosch, he has a vision. But he is sometimes, not unlike Teilhard de Chardin, showing evolution continuing, not stopping with the human, which may be a missing link. Man is moving toward the Omega Point.
One looks to Clarke–SERIOUSLY–for metamorphosis, for mysticism, for the awareness of the fragile beauty surrounding [us] earthlings.
Memories of a Time 