Arthur C. Clarke’s Centenary

December 2017 marks the centenary of the birth of a British science fiction pioneer, Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific author and visionary who anticipated the moon landings and the use of telecommunications satellites, he is perhaps best known for his association with Stanley Kubrick’s seminal psychedelic sci-fi film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

With an interest in mystery, science and space travel from childhood, Clarke became a keen fan of science fiction in his adolescence, when he avidly read the emerging American magazines such as Amazing Stories and Astounding Stories. His collection of these early sf publications totalled several hundred, before being dispersed during his travels in World War Two. In 1936, Clarke had moved from Somerset to London, where he worked in the Civil Service as an auditor at the Board of Education – he lived firstly at Newport Square, Paddington, and then from 1938 at 88 Gray’s Inn Road, Bloomsbury, where he shared a flat with his friend and fellow science fiction fan, Bill Temple. Already an active member of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS), of which he was eventually to become Chairman, Clarke wrote to Sam Youds that, given the flat’s spacious rooms and central location, “no doubt many SFA [Science Fiction Association] and BIS meetings will gravitate here eventually.” The address 88 Gray’s Inn Road shortly became the Society’s headquarters. It was also here that Clarke, now writing in earnest (though primarily non-fiction), met fellow enthusiasts, including several influential figures in the formative years of UK science fiction. Among the visitors were E.J. Carnell and Walter Gillings, John Wyndham (then known as John Benyon Harris) and Maurice Hanson, editor of the UK’s first fanzine, Novae Terrae; Carnell, Clarke and Hanson were co-editors from the November 1937 issue, and it was the former who re-named it as New Worlds on becoming sole editor in 1939.

Walter Gillings, Arthur C. Clarke & E. J. Carnell at Leeds, 1937

Clarke was a delegate at what has been described as the world’s first science fiction convention, in January 1937 at Leeds, West Yorkshire, together with Carnell, Gillings, Hanson and the author Eric Frank Russell. It was at that meeting that it was decided to designate Novae Terrae as the official publication of the SFA. Clarke’s first published short story, ‘Travel by Wire!’ appeared later that same year in a fan magazine, Amateur Science Stories, edited by another of the convention attendees, Douglas W.F. Mayer at Brunswick Terrace, Leeds 2. Clarke’s wartime work in the RAF on a classified radar project, the prototype Ground Control Approach system, introduced him to the potential of micro-waves and radar. He prided himself on basing his fiction on scientific fact and anticipating developments in technology, notably the exploration of the moon and the launch of geostational orbital satellites for telecommunications. After the War, Clarke consolidated his scientific credentials by taking a degree in physics, pure mathematics and applied mathematics at King’s College, London.

His 1948 short story, ‘The Sentinel’, originally submitted (unsuccessfully) for a BBC competition, was later adapted by the American Director Stanley Kubrick as 2001: A Space Odyssey – Clarke worked extensively with him on the preparation and writing, having been installed in New York’s famous Chelsea Hotel as early as 1964. Kubrick had abandoned the traditional screenplay; instead, as Michel Chion relates, he “decided to write a novel with Clarke that would serve as the basis for making the film.” As the production became ever more protracted, Clarke’s 2001 ‘novelisation’ was published separately, after the film’s release, to be followed by various sequels: 2010 (also filmed, in 1984), 2061 and 3001. He also gained wider recognition from well-received works such as Childhood’s End, The City and the Stars and Rendezvous with Rama.

Arthur C. Clarke with astronaut Neil Armstrong, 1970

Clarke moved to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1956, where he pursued a long-standing interest in deep-sea diving, but maintained his position as the UK’s best-known science fiction practitioner. The 1969 Moon landing, which Clarke had long predicted and regularly incorporated into his work, reinforced the scientific basis of his fiction, together with developments in telecommunications satellites. His status was confirmed by a knighthood in 1998 and, in his later career, lending his name to various TV shows investigating well-known mysteries and paranormal phenomena: Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World (1980), Arthur C. Clarke’s World of Strange Powers (1985) and Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious Universe (1994). He died in March 2008.

Photographs from the 1937 Leeds Convention were taken by Harold Gottliffe, and reproduced with thanks to his daughter, Jill Godfrey, and Rob Hansen, whose site is an invaluable resource on the history of UK science fiction fanzines.

Science Fiction-Music Interconnections: 2001 and other Space Oddities

The English author Arthur C. Clarke, one of the delegates to the world’s first science fiction convention, speculated in his short story ‘The Sentinel’ (submitted for a BBC competition in 1948) about the existence of a mysterious pyramid on the Moon. This edifice was apparently to be activated as a transmitter to project signals across the Galaxy in the event of its discovery; the implication being that both Earth and Moon had received ‘visitors’ in the distant past. The story formed the basis of one of the most celebrated science fiction films of the 1960s – released even before Neil Armstrong’s famous first steps on the moon – and, simultaneously, inspired a less celebrated song.

American band the Byrds had already shown an interest in science fiction themes in songs such as ‘Mr Spaceman’ and ‘CTA-102’; their principal songwriter Roger McGuinn was one of the first musicians to invest in the newly-available Moog modular synthesiser, which he purchased at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival. McGuinn had previously been known as Jim, but after a flirtation with the Subud spiritual movement, its founder Bapak advised him to change his name on the basis that it would better “vibrate with the universe.” Bapak sent Jim the letter ‘R’ and asked him to send back ten names starting with that letter; as McGuinn relates, “I was into science fiction so I picked Rocket and Retro and React... Roger was the only proper name in the whole bunch of words I chose and the guru thought I was mad.” In 1968, the newly-renamed McGuinn then adapted Clarke’s ‘The Sentinel’ as ‘Space Odyssey’, with co-writer Robert J. Hippard, the lyrics relating how “in nineteen and ninety-six we ventured to the moon... here we saw the pyramid, it looked so very strange”, to the accompaniment of a futuristic sound-scape generated by the Moog synthesiser.

  

Meanwhile, American Director Stanley Kubrick, having also been inspired by ‘The Sentinel’, was filming a version which eventually bore the title 2001: A Space Odyssey on its release in 1968. Clarke was involved in the screenplay, incorporating elements of several of his other short stories, and re-wrote his original concept into a novelisation to accompany the film; in both, the pyramid had now become an enigmatic monolith. The project even incorporated designs and drawings first used in the Soviet propaganda sci-fi film Nebo Zovyot [The Sky Calls]. While 2001 was widely acclaimed for its ambitious scope, special effects and striking imagery, Kubrick rejected the score commissioned and composed by Alex North in favour of stirring classical music, notably the ‘Blue Danube Waltz’ by Johann Strauss and Richard Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’.

After the 1969 moon landing, before the Space Age gradually faded from the wider public consciousness, there was another spate of space-themed hit singles (alongside numerous failed attempts to cash in on the space-craze), including the apocalyptic imagery of Zager and Evans’ American number 1 ‘In the Year 2525.’ The most successful, critically and commercially, of these opportunistic efforts was undoubtedly David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’. The tale of Major Tom’s doomed excursion to the stars, released only days before the Apollo landing, accompanied by exotic mellotron and stylophone instrumentation, remains perhaps the pinnacle of space-themed popular music, coinciding perfectly with man’s last ‘giant leap.’

Engineering Fiction: Literature and Science in Interwar Britain

‘Engineering Fiction: Literature and Science in Interwar Britain’ is the title of a talk that was given by Dr Charlotte Sleigh (University of Kent) on 20 March 2015, as part of the University of Oxford’s Literature and Science Research Seminar Series (available to watch here and below). Her topic chimes with several previous SF Forward posts, including Futures Past, Part 2 and Part 4.

In the video, Sleigh describes the development of SF fandom between 1930 and 1950, covering the founding of fanzines such as Novae Terrae in 1936 (later to become New Worlds), the world’s first SF convention in Leeds and the founding of the London Branch of the Science Fiction Association with the involvement of writers such as Arthur C. Clarke.

 
Her particular area of interest is in the culture of the fans themselves, with an emphasis on the circulation of stories and reviews in their fanzines. Described unfavourably by C.S. Lewis as the fiction of engineers, Sleigh modifies this title for her talk (also the subject of a forthcoming book), to explore how the SF fan’s identity was created and performed on the page. She explains that many of these fans shared a fascination with science and engineering (although few worked professionally in scientific fields) but their identification with science was bolstered through writing. As Clarke himself once wrote in an early essay for Novae Terrae, ‘science-fiction authors have actually influenced future development to no small extent, and when space is eventually crossed […] science-fiction will have played an enormous part in the final accomplishment’. Sleigh’s theory is that by participating in the writing cultures of fanzines, fans believed they were participating in the work of science.

She ends with a reading of Star Begotten by H.G. Wells, which along with Sugar in the Air by E.C. Large and Star-Maker by Olaf Stapledon, was one of the most exciting books for SF fans in 1936-7. The story, she suggests, mirrors the way in which SF fans constructed themselves as a social group; the idea of martian rays altering human evolution is both a reflection and a fictional cause of why they felt like outsiders but also superior to those around them.

Thanks to Dominic Berry for drawing my attention to this talk.