Of all the great science-fiction authors, he was my favorite.  Of all the great science-fiction universes I have wandered through, his were the only ones I would have actually wanted to live in.

Sci-fi guru Sir Arthur C. Clarke dies

Pioneering science fiction writer and visionary Arthur C. Clarke, best known for his work on the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

He died of heart failure doctors linked to the post-polio syndrome that had kept him wheelchair-bound for years.

Marking his "90th orbit of the sun" in December, the prolific British-born author and theorist made three birthday wishes: For E.T. to call, for man to kick his oil habit and for peace in Sri Lanka.

Clarke was born in England on December 16, 1917, and served as a radar specialist in the Royal Air Force during World War Two.

He was one of the first to suggest the use of satellites orbiting the earth for communications, and in the 1940s forecast that man would reach the moon by the year 2000 — an idea experts at first dismissed as rubbish.

Gravity was drawing him home again, as through the centuries its invisible hand had shaped the
trajectory of the Fountains of Paradise.  But he had created something that gravity could never
recapture, as long as men possessed the wisdom and the will to preserve it. 
-Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise.