During my hiatus due to festive times, the centenary anniversary of a great writer came and went: Arthur C Clarke. As a teenager, I was enthralled by his science-fiction tales that tasted of science. And anyone involved in the screenplay of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey deserves a mention any day of the year.
In the article duly linked above, there is an honest summary of his failings as well as his strengths. I am tempted to position him as a man trapped in his times: the 40s-60s were hardly the high point for female emancipation in the mainstream media. This lets him off the hook and in my heart I want to. His stories kept my up late into the night as turned page after page engulfed by his words.
My head is less forgiving. If he could envisage alien species using black obelisks to communicate to us from beyond the stars, surely he could imagine planet Earth where half the population were treated the same as the other half of the population. Apparently not.
