He is past Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society, a member of the Academy of Astronautics, the Royal Astronomical Society, and many other scientific organizations.Īuthor of over fifty books, his numerous awards include the 1961 Kalinga Prize, the AAAS-Westinghouse science writing prize, the Bradford Washburn Award, and the John W. He is best known for the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he co-created with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.Ĭlarke was a graduate of King's College, London where he obtained First Class Honours in Physics and Mathematics. He spent the first half of his life in England, where he served in World War Two as a radar operator, before emigrating to Ceylon in 1956. Wodehouse Patricia Highsmith Ray Bradbury Raymond Carver Richard Bausch Richard Ford Sherman Alexie Sherwood Anderson Stephen King Stuart Dybek T.Sir Arthur Charles Clarke was one of the most important and influential figures in 20th century science fiction. Scott Fitzgerald Flannery O'Connor Frank O'Connor George Saunders Grace Paley Guy de Maupassant Haruki Murakami Henry James Isaac Babel James Joyce James Thurber John Cheever John O'Hara John Updike Jorge Luis Borges Joyce Carol Oates Junot Díaz Kate Chopin Langston Hughes Leonard Michaels Leo Tolstoy Lorrie Moore Maeve Brennan Maile Meloy Mary Gaitskill Mary Robison Nathaniel Hawthorne Neil Gaiman O. Popular Authors on SSMT Agatha Christie Alice Munro Ambrose Bierce Amy Hempel Ann Beattie Anton Chekhov Arthur Conan Doyle Barry Hannah Bernard Malamud Carson McCullers Clarice Lispector Donald Barthelme Edgar Allan Poe Edna O'Brien Edward P. “Then what do they expect us to do? Commit suicide?”Īs always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter to the Short Story Magic Tricks Monthly Newsletter to get the latest short story news, contests and fun. Indeed, the very idea is something like blasphemy.” The human race will have finished what it was created to do, and there won’t be any point in carrying on. “Well, they believe that when they have listed all His names - and they reckon that there are about nine billion of them - God’s purpose will be achieved. When I told him that we were on the last cycle he asked me, in that cute English accent of his, if I’d ever wondered what they were trying to do. Well, this time he seemed rather excited, or at least as near as he’ll ever get to it. You know the way he drops in every afternoon to watch the sheets roll out. “- but old Sam’s just come clean with me.

“Sure - we know what the monks are trying to do.

And your head explodes.Īnd that’s quite a trick on Clarke’s part. Then you find that the crux of the problem is some monks using technology to acquire knowledge about their faith. That’s the way art frames the ideas most often at least. They are opponents, right? Knowledge and faith can’t mix. Science and religion get paired up a lot. The Nine Billion Names Of God by Arthur C.

The nine billion names of god