Nine Billion and One.
Arthur C. Clarke has passed away. If I believed in Gods, he would be one of them.
Clarke was a very major SF author for me. Still is. Indeed, as a precocious teen, I read everything I could get my little hands on. Fountains of Paradise. Childhood’s End. 2001. Rendezvous with Rama. Imperial Earth. All were just amazing to me. And, of course, there are the countless short stories, too. If it was available in a bookstore in the early ’80s, then I read it at some point.
Childhood’s End is still one of my favorite books. You can’t beat the big reveal of the Overlords. That is how it is done.
He will be missed.
(Odd fact: I actually went so far as to refuse to read Asimov for a while because I had some strange notion that they were bitter rivals, and Clarke was my man. I have no idea where I came up with that goofy idea, but there you go. C’mon, I was 11! Of course, I rectified it soon enough, and they share equal space on my bookshelves now, fear not.)
UPDATE:
There is a good article here.