I wish I had a long remembrance of Mr. Clarke, but I don’t. I’ve read much of his short stories, a couple novels, but, aside from 2001 and a collection of shorts (which included The Sentinel, the pre-cursor to 2001), I always found the person of Mr. Clarke more interesting than his writing. His
That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy his writing. In fact the opposite was often true. But his stories, while solid sci-fi, never reached me like the work of other writers (such as Isaac Asimov or Robert Forward).
He did make a wonderful spokesman for the hard core of science fiction and inspired many writers and scientists and will be conspicuously absent from the community. Best wishes and condolences to his family and friends.