Master Wordsmith Reaches The End

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, one of the greatest Sci-Fi authors and most forward-sighted minds of any generation, died yesterday at the age of 90.

I remember a really iffy Halloween Made-For-TV-Movie from a decade or so ago called Without Warning. It had the Mom from Malcolm In The Middle (Jane Kaz-something) and venerable retired news floater Sander Vanokur as anchorpeople at a fictional news outlet describing meteor strikes that ended up being an interplanetary invasion. Neat little story in the War Of The Worlds and Special Bulletin vein.

Anyway...one of the experts they cut away to in the story...live from his home in Sri Lanka...was Arthur C. Clarke. And he was fun to watch in the show. I remember being impressed that they'd gotten Vanokur in the beginning, but even more so that Clarke had been contracted to appear. Anything he stamped his approval on was going to be fun.

His books speak for themselves, and who among us didn't watch the movie 2001 and wonder how much deeper it was going to get?

Second star to the right, Arthur, and straight on 'til morning...