@Stephen Stockwell: We’ll resolve this one via our private emails and the phone, I think. Folks have seen enough of our spat so far…

Stilgherrian writes: Re. “Remembering the Space Age: Arthur C Clarke dead at 90″ (yesterday, item 5). OK, I screwed up. The Kubrick/Clarke film 2001: A Space Odyssey was originally planned for a 1966 release, but there were delays. I was, indeed, released in 1968.

Any target.

You could have called me out on the unsubstantiated pedophilia allegations without spitting…but it seems that just wouldn’t be as much fun for you — the same sort of fun a big kid has while going around the classroom giving smaller kids dead arms. Because he can.

So here you are, king of your electronic castle, where at some point almost every day we’ll all get to watch you patting yourself on the back for whichever name-dropable name you’re rubbing shoulders with and snickering at your latest, overblown online street fight dressed up as intellectual rigor. Surely you don’t think we need more of this sort of grandstanding on the internet? Or have I got it all wrong and you’re actually fighting the good fight?

Don’t ever get into cocaine.

And my apologies to the late Sir Arthur and anyone else between me and the Magna Carta who has ever had something unproven about them suggested as fact in public. I should always look before I leap, but for now, I hope the adrenal giddiness passes soon, Stil.

No need to search for the relevant articles, they’re already linked from the Wikipedia entry for Arthur C Clarke. We even have that much-needed denial as required under the Stockwell Doctrine, as well as this report.

I’m all for fearless inquiry, yes my Dear Friend. I’m also for rigorous thinking, human rights and the rule of law. And as a Dear Friend, you get roasted more quickly.

I do like “The Stockwell Doctrine”, though. Sounds like a good title for a thriller.

@Tekla: Thanks very much for the pointer.

I haven’t done my homework.
But I’m recalling a bulletin, probably on a commercial network, from about 4 or 5 years ago when Clarke’s arrest over this issue took place. From memory, Sir Arthur didn’t deny the allegations, but — more tellingly — his underlying attitude to the issue was one of ’so what?’ indifference. And I’ll search for the relevant articles later.

As for the different axes of looking at Clarke’s life and work, Mr. Gherrian, that sort of compare/contrast was precisely the sort of thinking that my post was aimed at provoking. I’d thought fearless inquiry, debate and such like was what your blog was all about. So it’s depressing to read you think I’m doing nothing more than playing “Good Guy/Bad Guy”.

Oh well.

Of course, now that Clarke is dead and cannot sue for libel, all sorts of information might emerge. Stand by.

That said, if the allegation were true, why would we have to “reconcile” that with our admiration for his work? Different axes of measurement, surely? Can we not like one aspect of a person’s life while disliking another?

Surely as a sophisticated media-savvy gentleman, Stephen, you can hold an opinion of someone which is more nuanced than “Good Guy” or “Bad Guy”?

I’m not boned up on science literature or most of those authors you mention, Stil, but I absolutely place Clarke in that realm of throw-out-the-square-altogether-type sci-fi visionaries (such as the also-late Douglas Adams and whoever the fuck came up with the concept of the Daleks) who helped introduce ordinary sorts like me to The Big Questions about our humble place in the universe.

The scale of the man’s thinking is belied by the simple common sense of his hypotheses. That’s not contested. But surely the real take-home coffee table subject for tonight is how we reconcile our admiration and respect for Sir Arthur C. Clarke with his admitted history as a pedophile.

Anyone?

Clarke was one of a wave of post-WWII SF writers who were of a certain generation. Most are already dead — I’m thinking of Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov. Clarke’s one of the last left. Ray Bradbury is still around though.

(I realise that two recent deaths hardly warrants the phrase “dropping like flies”, but at least be thankful that I didn’t use that irritating “in as many weeks” device favoured by commercial news channels…)

On a pedantic note, you say 1966 but the wikipedia article you linked to says 1968. So does IMDB.