Rendezvous With Osiris
Posted on | March 19, 2008 at 6:41 am | 4 Comments
Arthur C. Clarke, “hard” science fiction writer and author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, passed away yesterday at the age of 90. Though I admired what he was able to do: bring a sense of real science to the genre (despite detours into weird and quasi-mystical elements like the monolith in 2001), I was not a huge fan and haven’t read a lot of his books. There was no doubt he was hugely influential and an imaginative guy.
I did read 2001 and one or two of its sequels, which I enjoyed more than the original book. I never did read Childhood’s End, which a lot of my friends recommended. So, aside from a few short stories, the only other work of his that I can remember reading was Rendezvous With Rama. I read it as part of a science fiction class in high school taught by a teacher serving time who was teaching as part of his work release program. He was a big science fiction fan, although I frequently disagreed with his tastes and analysis. I did a book report on Rama, and from what I remember, he gave me a bad grade on it, saying that I totally got the theme wrong. Which was probably true, but hey, I wasn’t a very good reader back then. And who cares about the theme anyway when you’re that age? You just want a good page-turning read. Which Rama was, despite the fact that, like with most Clarke books (I hear), there’s no real antagonist in the story. All conflict came from Man Facing The Unknown, and there wasn’t any clear-cut answers or explanations. That kind of thing is entertaining once in awhile, but I’m not into a steady diet of it. I want some juicy villains or conflicts of emotion. I did like the “reveal” at the very end of Rama, even though it sort of made the thing into a shaggy dog story. (I never read the sequels.)
So, anyway, here’s to you, Mr Clarke. I hope your own final journey into the unknown gave you some concrete answers, and you didn’t just end up in some big white room and turn into an embryo.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 38°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Spiderwebs” (No Doubt)
- “Don’t You Feel Small (Original Mix)” (Moody Blues)
- “The Joke” (The Connells)
- “The Queen Of Eyes” (Soft Boys)
- “Sunday Afternoon” (The 88)
- “Horrible Day” (Frank Black)
- “Family Affairs” (Fay Ray)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “christian ways to punish misbehaved kids”.
Comments
4 Responses to “Rendezvous With Osiris”
March 19th, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
What do you suppose ever happened to that teacher? My recollection of that class was that he wasn’t a very good teacher but that may be colored by the fact that he gave us a test that I think everyone flunked and that gave me a B in his class that messed me up for valedictorian. I think that class was what stopped Peter F. from being top of the class also. Bitter…? Oh, just a tad.
March 19th, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
I think I heard he got sent back to the slammer for writing more bad checks. He was an interesting and enthusiastic guy with a passion for SF, but I didn’t think he was that great of a teacher and his views were dogmatic. I remember being bitter about the grade I got in that class also, especially seeing as I was so much into the subject matter.
March 22nd, 2008 @ 3:50 am
> I did like the “reveal” at the very end of Rama
That’s a signature of Clarke’s writing – the very last line often throws the whole rest of the story into a new light.
The ‘2001′ sequels were pretty good (though they did de-mystify the monolith more than I would have liked); the ‘Rama’ sequels were co-written with another author (like many of Clarke’s later works) and are stylistically different in ways most fans found off-putting.
AC Clarke was probably my favorite writer of non-funny fiction, but he left behind a great body of work that’s worth digging into. And he more or less invented communications satellites. Not a bad run.
March 23rd, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
But did he invent the Internet? I thought not.