[ASTRO] Re: John's Ultimate Trip... (Clarke, actually)D

[Michael Kepler <kepler@metro1.com>]

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WARNING: No Astro-Content, unless Sci-Fi in general counts as relevant.

On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Mike Simpson wrote:

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> 
> At 08:51 PM 11/4/98 -0800, mookie wrote:
> >For the Humble Opinion File, I think
> >Clarke is good but over-rated.

I mean as a writer of fiction, not as a
scientific thinker, or anything else.  He has
always been weak at drawing fully fleshed-out
characters.  Most of his works are good solid
hard sci-fi, but are also fairly cold and
sterile works of fiction.  He is prone to extended
exposition as well, a pitfall of much hard sci-fi
(and my astro-list posts).
His talents were more suited to non-fiction than
fiction.

I found some of his later works particularly disappointing.
I'm currently forcing myself to slog through Rama II.  I could
write half a book about what is wrong with that book. 
So why an I reading it?  I don't know.  I wanted so badly
to like it. I think I'm just digging through all the
horseshit because I think there must be a pony in there
somewhere.  I blame his co-author more for this one
anyway.

3001 started out genuinely fresh and engaging, with the
experiences of the ressurected Frank Poole obviously a
thinly-veiled representation of Clarke himiself dealing
with issues of growing old, but unfortunately it starts
going downhill rapidly after the first few chapters.

> Well, he did invent the stationary-orbit sattelite.

Or, more properly, geo-synchronous(sp?) orbits.
He had a great mind for science and a fantastic imagination.
I'm not even saying he was bad at writing fiction, just not
nearly as good as many say he is.

> 
> 
> I bet Sri Lanka was a beautiful place to die.
> RIP
> 

I didn't know Clarke has passed away.  I'm sorry
to hear that.  I hope he was wrong about the lack of
an afterlife and I hope that there is a place in
the afterworld for those who don't beleive in it.

Mookie



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