Arthur C. Clarke, March 19, age 90: The visionary science
fiction writer was born in England, though he lived in Sri Lanka from
the 1950s onward, and died there. One of his early, influential short stories,
1951's "The Sentinel," grew into the idea for his and Stanley Kubrick's
... morefilm masterwork, "2001: A Space Odyssey." He became interested in space during
World War II, when the Royal Air Force worked on developing radar. He wrote
extensively on the idea of communications satellites, but he never patented the
idea, and in the '60s he wrote of the subject, "How I Lost a Billion Dollars in
My Spare Time." He had been in declining health in recent years, but on his 90th
birthday, last December, he released a videotape to his fans, saying that he
still believed in intelligent life beyond Earth, and that he wished for peace in
his troubled adopted homeland. Not all his masterpieces were long or serious; he
wrote a 10-word story for Wired magazine: "God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.'
The universe ceased to exist."
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