Visionary: The Odyssey of Sir Arthur C. Clarke

370 Pages·2012·2.63 MB·English

by  Neil McAleer

SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE:
ODYSSEY OF A VISIONARY
Neil McAleer
Copyright
SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE:
Odyssey of a Visionary
Copyright © 2013 by Neil McAleer
Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2013 by RosettaBooks LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages
in a review.
Electronic edition published 2013 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York.
Cover jacket design by Terrence Tymon
ISBN Acrobat edition: 9780795332982
For who, in that unthinkable future when I am dead, will read? The printed page was just a
half-millennium’s brief wonder, Erasmus’s and Luther’s Gutenberg-Perfected means of
propagating truth, Or lies, screw-pressed one folio at a time.
From the poem, “The Author Observes His Birthday,”
—John Updike, 2005, published 2006
Also by Neil McAleer:
The Cosmic Mind-Boggling Book
The Body Almanac
Earthlove: A Space Fantasy
The Mind-Boggling Universe
The OMNI Space Almanac
Space Shuttle: The Renewed Promise
Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography (1992)
Woodcut of Halley’s Comet 684 A.D published in Nuremberg Chronicles in 1493
The comet of 1682 in the August skies over Cambridge: From this passage, young Edmund Halley recorded his
data on seven nights and years later forecast the unnamed comet’s date of return: 1758.
To Fred Clarke
For his faith, encouragement, and friendship;
To John C. Sherwood
For his fine editing skills and contributions to this edition’s text;
To Barbara and Jim McAleer, my late parents,
Who gave me a love for books.
Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.
Edward Young
Yet somewhere under starlight or the sun My father stands.
W.B. Yeats
From the great deep to the great deep he goes.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Contents
Preface
Foreword by Walter Cronkite
Foreword by Ray Bradbury
1 Earth, 1917
2 Moonward from Somerset
3 Terrestrial Inspirations
4 Ego in London
5 Into the Royal Air Force
6 The Promise of Space
7 New Shores
8 Writer, with Wife
9 Toward Southern Stars
10 Around the World to Ceylon
11 Space Age Dreams
12 The Space Circuit
13 Down to Earth
14 Silver Linings
15 Paralysis
16 Return to Great Basses
17 The Genesis of 2001: A Space Odyssey
18 A Cosmic Classic
19 The Lunar Age Begins
20 Man on the Moon
21 Jetting for the Future
22 Set of the Sails
23 The Space Elevator: After the Laughing Stops
24 From Sri Lanka to Titan
25 Perturbations in Time
26 Transits, Eclipses
27 Odyssey’s Return
28 World Telecommunications Year
29 Nineteen Eighty-Four
30 A Near and Distant Earth
31 Borrowed Time
32 Threescore and Ten
33 New Lease on Life
34 A Solo Novel and Sundry Pieces
35 Into the 1990s
36 Last Years of the 20th Century
37 Arthur Ambiguous
38 2000: The Prelude Year
39 The Longest Year: The Real 2001
40 Into the 21st Century
41 Witness to Tsunami
42 2001: The View from 2010
43 The Final Years
44 Two Media One Last Time (And a 90th Birthday Party)
45 Earth 2008: Last Days
Afterword: Letter from Tom Hanks
Acknowledgments
Sources: Selected Interviews and Endnotes
Arthur C. Clarke Predictions and The Emerging Future
Last Page…Final Words
About the Author