Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur Charles Clarke (December 16, 1917 - March 19, 2008) was a British science fiction writer, futurist, and science communicator, born in Minehead, Somerset. He served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War as a radar specialist, then earned a first-class degree in mathematics and physics from King's College London. In 1945 he proposed the concept of geostationary communications satellites -- an idea significant enough that the geostationary orbit is sometimes called the Clarke Orbit. In 1956 he relocated permanently to Sri Lanka, where he was also an avid scuba diver who discovered underwater archaeological sites.

Clarke became one of the 'Big Three' science fiction authors alongside Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein, and was widely nicknamed the 'Prophet of the Space Age.' His best-known work is 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), developed alongside Stanley Kubrick's film of the same name, which spawned a series of Space Odyssey novels. Other major works include Childhood's End (1953), Rendezvous with Rama (1973), and The Fountains of Paradise (1979); he won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards over his career.

Late in life, Clarke collaborated with Stephen Baxter on A Time Odyssey, a trilogy -- Time's Eye (2003), Sunstorm (2005), and Firstborn (2007) -- that Clarke described as an 'orthoquel' to the original Space Odyssey series: a parallel story rather than a direct sequel or prequel. Clarke died in Colombo in March 2008, shortly after Firstborn was published.