Tributes paid to ‘visionary’ Clarke

Arthur C Clarke, the visionary science fiction writer who died on Tuesday at his home in Sri Lanka, had correctly predicted a future of moon landings, mobile phones, communication satellites and the internet. His regret - according to a farewell message to friends he made on his 90th birthday - was that he never saw any evidence of extraterrestrial life.
 
Scientists and writers today paid tribute to Clarke, whose novels included 2001: A Space Odyssey - famously filmed by Stanley Kubrick - Childhood's End and Imperial Earth. The astronomer Patrick Moore, a friend of Clarke's since the 1930s, described him as "a great visionary, a brilliant science fiction writer and a great forecaster". Science fiction author Terry Pratchett praised Clarke as an author who "put some science into science fiction".

"Most notably," Pratchett told Radio 4’s Today programme, "I think he was probably the first science fiction writer to break out of the science fiction ghetto. He became a national treasure like Patrick Moore."

In 1998 Clarke was knighted and Prince Charles travelled to Sri Lanka for the ceremony. But it was postponed amid unsubstantiated allegations of paedophilia based on unguarded remarks Clarke made to two visiting British journalists. Clarke vigorously denied the claims. Clarke had moved from Britain to Sri Lanka in 1956 because he was keen to do more marine diving. He said it was the closest he could get to the weightlessness of space. ·