Some of Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s most famous works include Childhood’s End, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rendezvous with Rama and Fountains of Paradise, Sir Arthur’s literary legacy is much broader and far-reaching. He authored over a hundred books and over a thousand short stories and essays.
Selected Novels
Some of Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s most famous novels include:
- The Sands of Mars (1951)
- Islands in the Sky (1952)
- Against the Fall of Night (1953)
- Childhood’s End (1953)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1961)
- Rendezvous with Rama (1972)
- The Fountains of Paradise (1978)
- The Hammer of God (1994)
- Time’s Eye (2003, with Stephen Baxter)
Short Stories
Sir Arthur wrote over a thousand short stories and essays. Some of his most prominent short works are:
- “The Awakening” (1942): an early look at the possibilities of cryogenics.
- “The Sentinel” (1948): later expanded into the film 2001, co-written with Stanley Kubrick, for which Sir Arthur shared an Oscar nomination for best screenplay.
- “The Nine Billion Names of God” (1953): The winner of the “retrospective Hugo”, given out in 2004.
- “Dial F for Frankenstein” (1964): the inspiration for British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee to invent the World Wide Web in 1989.
- “The Steam-Powered Word Processor” (1986): A humorous look at the works of Victorian inventor, “Reverend Charles Cabbage”, keen to build a machine that will write his sermons for him.
Non-Fiction
Sir Arthur’s non-fiction demonstrated his expertise in a wide variety of topics, especially those concerning space travel. A few examples of his non-fiction work include:
- Interplanetary Flight (1950)
- The Exploration of Space (1951)
- The Making of a Moon: The Story of the Earth Satellite Program (1957)
- The Challenge of the Sea (1960)
- The Coming of the Space Age (1967)
- Mysterious World (1981)
- Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography (1988)
- Macroshift: Navigating The Transformation To A Sustainable World (1997)
- Sri Lanka: The Emerald Isle (2000)