I'm working on a book review right now of an excellent (and only) complete biography of Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the great science fiction writer/scientific speculation guru, best known, in popular spheres, for his collaboration with Stanley Kubrick for the enigmatic and groundbreaking film
2001: A Space Odyssey. Neil McAleer's biography is called
Visionary: The Odyssey of Sir Arthur C. Clarke. My review will soon appear in
When Falls the Coliseum, so I won't say much here, outside of the fact that I am finding the book extremely interesting and insightful -- especially as a guy who teaches science fiction literature.
Clarke was an amazing force in shaping scientific thought (and action), not just through his fiction but through his non-fiction writing and personal appearances.
One section from the book really strummed a sour chord in me, because the incident in it is, as far as I'm concerned, the perfect example of the worst possible kind of normally functioning person in our modern world. It is people like the technician in the excerpt below who cloud the skies and keep the planes of the intelligence and the enthusiasm grounded. It is people like this who slow the essential work that humanity needs to do in order to save itself. (I know I sound dramatic, but -- damn it, I feel this way about shallow people. It is this kind of apathy and one-dimensionality that I try to fight against, every day, in the classroom.)
