Yesterday I blogged about the Asimov I read as a kid. Alongside the Asimov I was reading from about 10 on were the dozens of Arthur C. Clarke short stories and novels that filled my young years with wonder. Today I woke up to find that he has died, aged 90.

Clarke - with Asimov and Heinlein - was one of the big three that powered science fiction through its golden age of the forties and fifties. His fiction was never short of a big idea but he always tried to express it through accessible characters. On a Saturday my parents would head to the local shops to buy fruit and vegetables, and meat. While they were doing that I was scouring our local library for new SF to read. The yellow covered Gollancz classics were always easy targets, but that's a story for another time. I read a lot when I was a kid and I read fast but I had a rule that I could only take out books I could carry in one hand. Quite often there was an Arthur C. Clarke book smongst them.

The list of his achievements speak for themselves: 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Nine Billion Names of God, Rendezvous with Rama, The Fountains of Paradise, The Songs of Distant Earth... I always enjoyed his short stuff more than his novels (though there is one where Brisbane is the capital of a world government, which I smile at).

The last book of his I read was probably 3001: The Final Odyssey, which came out 10 years ago. But I'm on holidays and might excuse myself from my World Fantasy Award reading and packing for Swancon to reread some old short story favourites.