Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke died. I don't consider myself a rabid fan of his (I haven't even read 2001), but I own one of his books. I still haven't even read the whole thing, which makes me feel weird for saying he has had an enormous impact on my imagination and the way I approach writing.

My first encounter with Mr. Clarke's writing was a story called "The Nine Billion Names of God". It was in one of my lit textbooks, though it was not assigned reading for the class. I was flipping through the book to get to the forgettable classic I was required to read that night and the title caught my eye. The author's name looked familiar, but I didn't know where I'd seen it before. I decided to give the story a go.

Obviously I wouldn't be writing this if I hadn't been mesmerized. The story was short, but the characters all had the kind of depth that lit professors gush over. On top of that, and probably the reason it wasn't included in my class, the events that took place were a few levels beyond ordinary. This wasn't another politically-charged story about a guy who experiences the same things I go through every day -- this was an exploration of our assumptions about reality, played out in some unnamed mountains, with an unspecified religious order and a couple technicians from a computer company. It was different from the drivel that is force-fed to English majors. It was fresh. I wanted more.

Of course, school being what it is, I soon found myself swimming in papers and readings and forgot about the concept of "leisure reading." It was more or less an accident that I stumbled upon the massive tome of Clarke stories. As I said before, I haven't read the entire book. The thing is huge, and I had some other things I wanted to read -- things that fit more neatly in my backpack. What I did read, though, was amazing. It's been over a year now... I hope I can find that book when I move.