Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90

[Board Game Geek]

Linky Here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7304004.stm

What with the death of Gary Gygax on March 4th, and now Arthur C Clarke on March 19th, it seems the Ides of March have got it in for the Geek Community.

I would suggest the board close for the rest of the month for 2 reasons.

1) In memory of the 2 influential men above
2) So all the geeks on the board can go in to hiding until March is over.

Ah well, nn all.

[Diver]

The loss of another great mind.

[Churchill]

Ah well.

At least the little Sri-Lankan Servant Boys are safe now.

[Diver]

Ah well.

At least the little Sri-Lankan Servant Boys are safe now.

At 90 I think they must have been pretty safe anyway

[Marina]

What a bummer. (and I mean the situation, Churchill!) Now Clarke will miss the film of his book "Rendezvous with Rama". Filming is apparently complete, but there's still a shed load of special effects to edit and the film isn't due out until early next year. Should be a real cracker, unless the Yanks completely cock it up and sentimentalize the whole thing.

[KathyWoolfe]

What a bummer. (and I mean the situation, Churchill!) Now Clarke will miss the film of his book "Rendezvous with Rama". Filming is apparently complete, but there's still a shed load of special effects to edit and the film isn't due out until early next year. Should be a real cracker, unless the Yanks completely cock it up and sentimentalize the whole thing.

I didn't think the book was all that good, but then it's been years since I read it.

[Marina]

I didn't think the book was all that good, but then it's been years since I read it.

It does leave a lot "up in the air", which some people may find dissatisfying. For example, you never meet any aliens (not the ones who built the ship anyway). But then the whole thing is _meant_ to be mysterious and unfathomable, which is probably how something like that would be in real life.

The sequels ("Return to Rama" I think one was called ?) wasn't as good, but then if memory serves Clarke co-authored those with Lee Gentry, which IMHO tended to make the plots turn to mush (although whether it's fair to blame Gentry for that, and not Clarke's advancing years or just having two authors, is hard to say).

[Jog On]

It does leave a lot "up in the air", which some people may find dissatisfying. For example, you never meet any aliens (not the ones who built the ship anyway). But then the whole thing is _meant_ to be mysterious and unfathomable, which is probably how something like that would be in real life.

The sequels ("Return to Rama" I think one was called ?) wasn't as good, but then if memory serves Clarke co-authored those with Lee Gentry, which IMHO tended to make the plots turn to mush (although whether it's fair to blame Gentry for that, and not Clarke's advancing years or just having two authors, is hard to say).

The last one is called “Rama revealed”. It’s been on my bookshelf for about 6 years now, I enjoyed rendezvous a lot but found the second one quite hard work. I had a lot of respect for him until the more unsavoury aspects of his sexual preferences came out.

[moorfield]

Who is Rama ? Was he one of the servant boys too ?

[Churchill]

Who is Rama ? Was he one of the servant boys too ?

Enjoyable books imho.