Who is Arthur C Clarke and what is his involement with 2001 a space odyssey.

  Arthur C. Clarke –

Like Asimov, Clarke was a true master of hard science fiction. He received degrees in both mathematics and physics from King's College in London.

His first professional sale was in 1946 in Astounding Science Fiction magazine. Clarke's first great work was 1953's "Childhood's End" but he took the Sci-Fi world by storm with 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey".

Spanning eons, the film was built on themes of human evolution, space travel, and the perils of artificial intelligence. 1972's

"Rendezvous with Rama" was the only science fiction novel I was ever assigned to read in my High School AP English class. It is the story of massive alien spaceship that enter Earth's solar system and the eventual exploration of the ship.

The book won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel as did 1979's "The Fountains of Paradise".


Clarke would go on to write three sequels to Odyssey and three sequels to Rama. It's difficult to assign just how much influence Clarke had.

You can trace almost any disastrous encounter with artificial intelligence and first contact with aliens, back to his works. In 1987, the Arthur C. Clarke Award was established for the Best Science Fiction novel first published in the UK. In 2005, the Sir Arthur C. Clarke Award was established for notable contributions in space exploration.