Arthur C Clark Goes Supernova

What an amazing talent he was. 

Science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died aged 90 in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, it was confirmed tonight.

Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30am after suffering breathing problems, his personal secretary Rohan De Silva said.

“Sir Arthur passed away a short while ago at the Apollo Hospital [in Colombo]. He had a cardio-respiratory attack,” he said.

His valet, W. K. M. Dharmawardena, said funeral arrangements would be finalised after his close family returned to the island from Australia.

Mr Dharmawardena said Clarke’s condition had begun to deteriorate in recent weeks and he had been in hospital for the past four days.

The visionary author of over 100 books, who predicted the existence of satellites, was most famous for his short story "The Sentinel," which was expanded into the novel on which Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" was based.

He was also credited with inventing the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality.

Clarke was the last surviving member of what was sometimes known as the "Big Three" of science fiction alongside Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.

If you haven't read any of Arthur C Clark's works, you've missed a lot.