Arthur C. Clarke died on March 18, 2008 at the age of 90.

His Life: Childhood

Clarke first discovered science fiction at the age of twelve, when he encountered the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. Te encounter soon became an "addiction," that "During my lunch hour away from school I used to haunt the local Woolworths in search of my fix, which cost threepence a shot, roughly a quarter today."

The young Clarke then began nurturing his love for the genre through the books of such English writers as H. G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon. He started writing his own stories for a school magazine while in his teens, but was unable to continue his schooling for lack of funds.

His Life: London and the RAF

In 1941, in "what was probably the single most decisive act of my entire life," he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. En route to becoming a radar instructor in a new system called Ground Controlled Approach, Clarke taught himself mathematical and electronics theory.

After the war, Clarke entered college and obtained a degree in physics as well as pure and applied mathematics. Upon graduation, he spent two years as an assistant editor for a technical journal.

But with publication of the novel Childhood's End (1953) and The Exploration of Space, which in 1952 was the first science book ever chosen as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, Clarke began earning enough money to pursue writing full time.

His Life: Marriage and Sri Lanka

In 1954 Clarke wrote to Dr Harry Wexler, then chief of the Scientific Services Division, U.S. Weather Bureau, about satellite applications for weather forecasting. Of these communications, a new branch of meteorology was born, and Dr. Wexler became the driving force in using rockets and satellites for meteorological research and operations.

In December, 1954, Clarke first visited Colombo, Sri Lanka (at the time called Ceylon) and in 1956 he emigrated to Sri Lanka where he still lives in 2005.

In 1954 Clarke started to give up space for the sea. About the reasons, he said: "I now realise that it was my interest in astronautics that led me to the ocean. Both involve exploration, of course - but that's not the only reason.

When the first skin-diving equipment started to appear in the late 1940s, I suddenly realized that here was a cheap and simple way of imitating one of the most magical aspects of spaceflight - weightessness." Arthur ready to dive in 1992

His Life: The film and book: 2001

Clarke's best-known novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was the result of four years of work on both the film version and the book. Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick began working on the project when the late filmmaker sought a suitable basis for making the "proverbial good science fiction movie," as Kubrick described it. They finally settled upon Clarke's 1951 short story "The Sentinel," and developed it" not [into] a script, which in [Kubrick's] view does not contain enough of the visual and emotional information necessary for filming, but a prose version, rather like a novel,"

Clarke himself admitted in Focus on the Science Fiction Film that both versions "did something that the other couldn't have done." Clarke went on to write several sequels, including 2010: Odyssey Two and 2061: Odyssey Three.

His Books:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The story of 'Island in the Sky' centers around a young man, who, after brilliantly winning a space-related competition, requests a vacation on a space station as his prize. It is written with Arthur C. Clark's obvious knowledge of science, but moves at a page turning rate througout the entire narrative. The short novel gives a realistic possiblilty of work and play in future space, hightened with constant excitment and action. Charater development is very good, as are the not-overdone (but still awsome) visual descriptions.

When a celebrated science fiction writer takes to space on his first trip to Mars, he stumbles upon Mars' most carefully hidden secrets and threatens the future of the entire planet!

The time: 200 years after man's first landing on the Moon. There are permanent populations established on the Moon, Venus and Mars. Outer space inhabitants have formed a new political entity, the Federation, and between the Federation and Earth a growing rivalry has developed. Earthlight is the story of this emerging conflict.

On the moon an enigma is uncovered. So great are the implications of the discovery that, for the first time, men are sent out deep into the solar system. But before they can reach their destination, things begin to go wrong. Horribly wrong.

2001: A Space Odyssey shocked, amazed, and delighted millions in the late 1960s. An instant book and movie classic, its fame has grown over the years. Yet along with the almost universal acclaim, a host of questions has grown more insistent through the years, for example: who or what transformed Dave Bowman into the Star-Child? What alien purpose lay behind the monoliths on the Moon and out in space? What could drive HAL to kill the crew? Now all those questions and many more have been answered, in this stunning sequel to the international bestseller.

Arthur C.Clarke's space saga contines in 2061, when an Earth vessel landing on Halley's Comet marks the beginning of another confrontation between Heywood Floyd and David Bowman - or whatever Bowman has become - a newly independent HAL and the unseen alien power that controls the destiny of Earth.

Now approaching the millennium, the light of Lucifer is extinguished and for the second time in four million years, the Monolith awakes. The limitless power of an alien technology has decided what part humanity must play in the evolution of the galaxy.

Awards: Hugo and Nebula

In 2130, a new celestial body is discovered heading toward the Sun. Earthlings name this object "Rama" -- a vast cylinder, about 31 miles long and 12 miles across, with a mass of at least ten trillion tons. The spaceship Endeavor, directed by Commander Bill Norton, lands on Rama and has three weeks to explore its hollow interior. Inside the vessel they discover a completely self-contained world -- a world that has been cruising through space for perhaps more than a million years.

Years ago, the enormous, enigmatic alien spacecraft called Rama sailed through our solar system as mind-boggling proof that life existed -- or had existed -- elsewhere in the universe. Now, at the dawn of the twenty-third century, another ship is discovered hurtling toward us. A crew of Earth's best and brightest minds is assembled to rendezvous with the massive vessel. They are armed with everything we know about Raman technology and culture. But nothing can prepare them for what they are about to encounter on board Rama II: cosmic secrets that are startling, sensational -- and perhaps even deadly.

By the twenty-third century Earth has already had two encounters with massive, mysterious robotic spacecraft from beyond our solar system--the incontestable proof of an alien technology that far exceeds our own. Now three human cosmonauts are trapped aboard a labyrinthine Raman vessel, where it will take all of their physical and mental resources to surviv. Only twelve years into their journey do these intrepid travelers learn their destination and face their ultimate challenge: a rendevous with a Raman base--and the unseen architects of their galactic home. The cosmonauts have given up family, friends, and possessions to live a new kind of life. But the answers that await them at the Raman Node will require an even greater sacrifice--if humanity is indeed ready to learn the awe-inspiring truth.

After the appearance of a spaceship, Rama, a second craft arrives, destined to house a group of colonists. But, the colony has become a dictatorship. Nicole Wakefield, condemned to death, escapes to an island called New York, and is forced to flee to the corridors inhabited by octospiders.

Her code name is Sparta. Her beauty veils a mysterious past and abilities far surpassing those of a normal human. For she is more than human, Sparta is a product of advanced biotech engineering. Now she wants to find the memories that have been hidden from her.

1885, the North West Frontier. Rudyard Kipling is witness to a British army action to repress a local uprising. And to a terrifying intervention by a squadron of tanks from 2137. Before the full impact of this extraordinary event has even begun to sink in Kipling, his friends and the tanks are, themselves flung back to the 4th century and the midst of Alexander the Great's army. Mankind's time odyssey has begun. It is a journey that will see Alexander avoid his premature death and carve out an Empire that expands from Carthage to China. And it will present mankind with two devastating truths. Aliens are amongst us and have been manipulating our past and our future. And that future extends only as far as 2137 for that is the date Earth will be destroyed. This is SF that spans countless centuries and carries cutting edge ideas on time travel and alien intervention. It shows two of the genre's masters at their groundbreaking best.

Returned to the Earth of 2037 by the Firstborn, mysterious beings of almost limitless technological prowess, Bisesa Dutt is haunted by the memories of her five years spent on the strange alternate Earth called Mir, a jigsaw-puzzle world made up of lands and people cut out of different eras of Earth’s history. Why did the Firstborn create Mir? Why was Bisesa taken there and then brought back on the day after her original disappearance? Bisesa’s questions receive a chilling answer when scientists discover an anomaly in the sun’s core–an anomaly that has no natural cause is evidence of alien intervention over two thousand years before. Now plans set in motion millennia ago by inscrutable watchers light-years away are coming to fruition in a sunstorm designed to scour the Earth of all life in a bombardment of deadly radiation. Thus commences a furious race against a ticking solar time bomb. But even now, as apocalypse looms, cooperation is not easy for the peoples and nations of the Earth. Religious and political differences threaten to undermine every effort. And all the while, the Firstborn are watching...

Here is the compelling story of the launching of Prometheus -- Earth's first true spaceship -- and of the men who made it happen.
Dirk Alexson: Chronicler of the greatest space adventure of all time, he was chosen to immortalize the incredible story of the men and their heroic mission.

Sir Robert Derwent: Direct-General of Interplanetary -- London Headquarters for the international space-flight project -- he was the man who got the mission off the ground and into the pages of history.

Professor Maxton: The world's leading atomic engineer, he designed the huge ship's drive units and he waited with the rest of the world to see if the project would be a success.

Alvin, the only child for many centuries born in what is believed to be the only city left on Earth, leads a renaissance. Man is reclaiming the Earth, but evil has also returned.

"Childhood's End" is an appropriate title as it references the end of humanity's childhood. The Overlords are on a quest to condition the people of Earth for it's new role in the order of the Universe. Current humanity will not be able to handle what is asked of them, but through the generations they can be evolved to be prepared to take their next step. "Childhood's End", in the space of a mere 224 pages tells the stories of the different steps of this evolution in an episodic manner that is rich in detail and profound in meaning.

t has taken a long time, but humankind has won its battle against the sea. Now, professionals harvest plankton with which to feed the world, but like space, the sea has not yielded all its secrets, and men such as Franklin, the protagonist of this tale, will never rest until all its fathomless mysteries have been challenged.

Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar; for millennia its protective dome shutout the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rules the stars. But then, as legend had it, The invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man. A Unique to break through Diaspar's stifling inertia, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders.

Time is running out for the passengers and crew of the tourist-cruiser "Selene", incarcerated in a sea of choking lunar dust. On the surface, her rescuers find their resources stretched to the limit by the pitiless and unpredictable conditions of a totally alien environment.

Late one night (in the world of the future), a giant cargo hovership makes an emergency landing somewhere in the middle of the United States, and an enterprising citizen named Johnny Clinton stows away on it. In the space of only a few hours the craft crashes into the Pacific Ocean. The sole survivor is Johnny, whose life is saved by the "People of the Sea"--dolphins. A school of these fantastic creatures guides him to an island on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. There Johnny becomes involved with the work of a strange and fascinating research laboratory, learns skindiving and survives a typhoon--only to risk his life again, immediately afterwards, in a cliff-hanger of a climax!

During World War II, as an RAF officer, Arthur C. Clarke was in charge of the first radar 'talk-down' equipment, the Ground Controlled Approach, during its experimental trials. His novel GLIDE PATH is based on this work.

The year is 2276. On the world of Titan, an outer planet of Saturn, Duncan Mackenzie and many other colonists are about to leave their homeland for bicentennial celebrations on Earth. But for Duncan, the journey is also a delicate mission for himself, his family and the future of Titan.

Awards: Hugo and Nebula

In the 22nd century visionary scientist Vannevar Morgan conceives the most grandiose engineering project of all time, and one which will revolutionize the future of humankind of space: a Space Elevator, 36,000 kilometres high, anchored to an equatorial island in the Indian Ocean.

This far-reaching, spine-tingling adventure stretches from the dawn of time to the distant future, from the edges of the universe to the vast depths of the sea. At the bottom of the ocean, an alien creature is dormant. But the time has come for it to awaken. And as it stirs, its power will be unleashed on the planet--and trigger the dawn of human extinction.

Gregory Benford expands Arthur C. Clarke's novella, Against the Fall of Night, into a novel-length adventure set billions of years in the future about human destiny among the stars.

A hundred years after the sinking of the Titanic, two of the world's most powerful corporations race to find a way to raise and preserve the doomed luxury liner. The quest to uncover the secrets of the wreck and reclaim her becomes an obsession . . . and for some, a fatal one.

In the year 2110 technology has cured most of our worries. But even as humankind enters a new golden age, an amateur astronomer points his telescope at just the right corner of the night sky and sees disaster hurtling toward Earth: a chunk of rock that could annihilate civilization. While a few fanatics welcome the apocalyptic destruction as a sign from God, the greatest scientific minds of Earth desperately search for a way to avoid the inevitable. On board the starship Goliath Captain Robert Singh and his crew must race against time to redirect the meteor form its deadly collision course. Suddenly they find themselves on the most important mission in human history--a mission whose success may require the ultimate sacrifice.

Thirty years after the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake killed his family, Lewis Crane has become the world's top seismologist, determined to protect people from his parent's fate. But in a world controlled by Chinese corporations and split by racist and religious strife, many don't want him to succeed.

From the legendary Arthur C. Clarke, in collaboration with Michael Kube-McDowell of Star Wars fame, comes a chilling day-after-tomorrow thriller. Jeffrey Horton of Terabyte Laboratories is the brilliant, driven and idealistic scientist responsible for the discovery of the Trigger. It was an accidental discovery. When Horton fired up his prototype analogue of a laser it triggered all nearby explosive material. In that moment, an end to the power of the gun became feasible. In future, a firearm - or a bomb - could be made powerless to harm the innocent. The Trigger might even mean an end to war. Patriotism dictates that Terabyte hands over the science to the Pentagon. Idealism demands the invention be given to the whole world, regardless of politics. But in a world where violence has reached epidemic proportions, too many people have a stake in the business of violence to give peace a chance. Clarke and McDowell offer a startling vision of the future in which the fate of humankind depends on who controls THE TRIGGER.

'Space is what keeps everything from being in the same place. Right?' With these words Hiram Patterson, head of the giant media corporation OurWorld, launches the greatest communications revolution in history. With OurWorld's development of wormhole technology, any point in space can be connected to any other, faster than the speed of light. Realtime television coverage is here: earthquakes and wars, murders and disasters can be watched, exactly as they occur, anywhere on the planet. Then WormCams are made to work across time as well as space. Humanity encounters itself in the light of other days. We witness the life of Jesus, go to the premiere of Hamlet, solve the enigmas that have baffled generations. Blood spilled centuries ago flows vividly once more - and no personal treachery or shame can be concealed. But when the world and everything in it becomes as transparent as glass and there are no more secrets, people find new ways to gain vengeance and commit crime, and Hiram Patterson finds new ways to keep his Machiavellian schemes secret.

Based on the recent sensational proof of Fermat's Theorem 350 years later by a young British mathematician, Andrew Wiles, THE LAST THEOREM charts the story of Ranjit Subramanian, a man fascinated by Fermat's Last Theorem - so simple that anyone can understand it, yet not proved for more than three centuries. Ranjit learns about the Indian mathematical genius Ramanujan (1887-1920) and discovers a three-page proof of the Last Theorem: this might even be Fermat's own proof. The discovery of the Theorem wins Ranjit the Fields Medal - and the attention of the NSA cryptography branch. However, Ranjit soon finds himself drawn by physics rather than cryptography, as there have been some spectacular advances in fusion technology. And these in turn lead to a plasma drive that can open up the Solar System ...