ARTHUR C. CLARK died a couple of days ago and I've been looking for an excuse to mention him here. This will do:

Many writers remember the first Clarke book they read, and the profound effects his work had on them.

"My friends and I read Clarke and talked about his fiction with the awe of rabbinical students falling in love with Torah and Talmud," said Orson Scott Card, author of many science fiction novels, including "Ender's Game." "Inarticulate with youth, we would say things like, 'Wasn't it cool when ...' But we were responding to the experience of religious awe, which Arthur C. Clarke's fiction inspired in us."

Although Clarke is no longer with us, his work will live on, Card said.

Indeed. Also, SF writer Charles Stross said:

"All of us come to an end eventually, and at 90 years of age Sir Arthur had decent innings," he said. "But I'm still saddened: Along with Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, he pretty much defined science fiction for those of us of a certain age, and news of his death signals the end of an era, far more than the end of one man."

The last of the giants is gone. Requiescat in pace and ad astra per aspera.