The actual composition took exactly twenty days, a record I have never since approached. “It was written in July, 1947, during my summer vacation as a student at King’s College, London. And yet its quiet manner, a tale of men and women working together to reach out into the unknown, is one that has stayed with me for over forty years. Prelude is not a book of the same calibre of 2001. I had actually come to his work through his short stories, such as The Star (1955) and The Nine Billion Names of God (1953), before finding a copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in my school library. This was one of the first of Sir Arthur’s novels that I read, though not the first. It is perhaps fitting that, on the centenary birthday of Sir Arthur, I re-read and review Sir Arthur’s first published novel, Prelude to Space.*

Clarke also won the Nebula Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1972, 19, the Hugo Award of the World Science Fiction Convention in 19, and in 1986 became Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America. Campbell Award for his novel Rendezvous With Rama. 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. Sir Arthur Charles Clarke was one of the most important and influential figures in 20th century science fiction.

Prelude to space by arthur c clarke