A tribute to one of my favorite authors, Arthur C. Clarke...

I remember watching "2001: A Space Odyssey" back when I was maybe nine or 10 years old -- the movie was a collaboration between futurist/science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick.

Actually, now that I'm trying desperately to remember details, I think my very first introduction to Clarke's work was the Peter Hyams film 2010: The Year We Make Contact, which was released in 1984. Mom and I went to see it in a theater in Brooklyn Center; I'm actually kind of sure I know exactly which theater it was (it's since been turned into a cheap theater). Anyway, we both thought it was good, but we were also both thoroughly confused. And then I must've found the original movie and book, and that's how it all started. I know that at one point I had this VHS copy of the film that someone had dubbed for me -- the quality was remarkably awful. Nevertheless, I watched it over and over. I also had a beat-up old paperback copy of Clarke's novel, which was written while he and Stanley were working on the project.

The following is from Clarke's "The Lost Worlds of 2001":

"When I met Stanley Kubrick for the first time, in Trader Vic's on April 22, 1964, he had already absorbed an immense amount of science fact and science fiction, and was in some danger of believing in flying saucers; I felt I had arrived just in time to save him from this gruesome fate. Even from the beginning, he had a very clear idea of his ultimate goal, and was searching for the best way to approach it. He wanted to make a movie about Man's relation to the universe -- something which had never been attempted, still less achieved, in the history of motion pictures. Of course, there had been innumerable 'space' movies, most of them trash. Even the few that had been made with some skill and accuracy had been rather simpleminded, concerned more with the schoolboy excitement of space flight than its profound implications to society, philosophy, and religion."

One of the things the book version does, which has been criticized, is "spell out" what happens in the film version, which is full of metaphor and remarkably open to multiple interpretations. I believe Clarke and Stanley both viewed the two versions as "variations on a theme," an idea which Clarke seemed to always return to. (e.g. The recently released "Time Odyssey" series, co-authored with Stephen Baxter, takes themes from the original Odyssey in different directions.)

The next thing I did (of course) was read Clarke's "2010: Odyssey Two," which was the basis for Hyams' film -- I believe I was in fifth grade at the time. As I recall, shortly after closing the book and doing that thing when you finish reading something where you kind of look up and stare at nothing, my friend Brian Short came over and asked if I was done and if he could borrow it. (Yeah, we were those kids in grade school that would actually read stuff that wasn't "required"...) After that, I read "2069: Odyssey Three" and "3001: The Final Odyssey" as they were released, when I was in junior high and just out of college, respectively.

Somewhere during that period I started reading other books by Clarke, notably "The Songs of Distant Earth" (which I believe Clarke considered his finest work) and "Rendezvous With Rama." (note to self: check out this album sometime...) Right around the time I started working for Novartis I started collecting and reading the sequels to "Rama" and also read "Time's Eye," the first installment of Clarke and Baxter's "Time Odyssey."

I think what really attracted me to these books was the amazing sense of wonder and imagination Clarke had, and yet they also seemed to have a "realistic" basis. He would come up with these amazing, far out ideas but they always seemed based on at least theoretical science. It's like, don't be afraid to dream, but dreaming outside of the context of any actual possibility of the dream coming true doesn't make sense, you know?

What I really just wanted to say was that this was a guy that was like a friend to me, for a pretty big chunk of my life. Back when I was a socially awkward little kid with no interest in sports, I found his books fascinating. While I was doing crap temp jobs and wondering where the hell my life was going, his books offered a great sense of escape. And now that all the pieces seem to have fallen into place better than I'd ever hoped they would, I still have his last book to read, "Firstborn," which is the final chapter of the Time Odyssey and was published in December 2007. Farewell, Sir Arthur.

Clarke's 90th birthday reflections

From "Lost Worlds of 2001":

"And while I am on this subject, I would like to demolish one annoying and persistant myth, which started soon after the movie was released. As is clearly stated in the novel (Chapter 16), HAL stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. (No, I'm not going to explain that, except to say that it gets the best of both worlds in computer design.) However, about once a week some character spots the fact that HAL is one letter ahead of IBM, and promptly assumes that Stanley and I were taking a crack at that estimable institution.

As it happened, IBM had given us a good deal of help, so we were quite embarrassed by this, and would have changed the name had we spotted the coincidence. For coincidence it is, even if the odds are twenty-six cubed, or 17,576 to 1. (Just checked by HAL Jr., the beautiful 9100A calculator that my friends at Hewlett-Packard gave me at Christmas 1969.)"