Editorial
Never Grow Up, Never Stop Growing

Arthur C. Clarke embarkedon his final odyssey last week, having given us classic short stories such as "The Star" and "The Nine Billion Names of God," novels such as Childhood's End and Rendezvous With Rama, the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and so much more—such as the concept of satellites placed in geosynchronous orbit, without which most modern communication would not exist, and I'd be out of a job.

Clarke was the last of my childhood science-fiction gods to die. When I first started reading SF, I had three of them—Isaac Asimov (who left us in 1992), Robert Heinlein (who passed in 1988) and Arthur C. Clarke—and I elevated them that way long before I learned that they were collectively known as The Big Three within the field. (I thought of them that way before I even knew there was a field or a fandom, when my only exposure to SF was what I was given by an uncle or picked up in libraries and bookstores.)

They were the writers I read and reread. They were also the writers whom, when I first thought I might become a writer, I wanted to be. As far as I was concerned, they were science fiction. At the time, they also each seemed to represent a different facet of SF.

Isaac Asimov was the brain. He represented a future of intellect, one in which people could analyze and talk their way out of problems. His stories were puzzles riddled with wit, and in view of his nonfiction, he seemed to know everything.

Robert Heinlein was the heart. His stories were powered by passion, by men of action engaged in adventures, doing what needed to be done. And though I eventually realized that his male/female relationships left a lot to be desired, his characters were the ones who seemed as if they could actually lust after each other.

How to honor the soul of SF

And then there was Arthur C. Clarke, who was the soul. Through his eyes I could see the universe as one filled with magic. Of all these three, he was the one who best put on paper the fabled sense of wonder. And even though he did not believe in God (in his instructions on how to commemorate his passing, he wrote, "Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral"), he managed to inspire a religious awe at what science could comprehend and science fiction could create.

Why was Clarke able to convey that? I think we can find the answer in the words he chose to be engraved on his tombstone:

"Here lies Arthur C. Clarke. He never grew up and did not stop growing."

Clarke's body may have weakened as he aged, but his spirit never calcified. He was always curious, always exploring, always imagining the ramifications of humanity's forward march.

We can see so far today only because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Clarke was definitely one of them. We are all indebted to him, and were extremely lucky to have had him with us for so long.

The best way for us to honor his life, I think, is by trying ourselves to live that final message of his, the one now carved in stone, each day in any way we can.

Never grow up.

Never stop growing.