Arthur C Clarke died today.

I'm gutted. Properly gutted. I've just heard on Newsnight that Arthur C Clarke died today. He was ninety.

He was my favourite author. I think I've read pretty much everything he wrote, and in the case of some of his novels I've re-read them several times.

Rendezvous with Rama will always remain my all time favourite book. I've lost count of how many times I've read it, and I'll probably read it again this week. I'm really hoping they make the film that has been mentioned and make a good job of it. If Zodiac is anything to go by David Fincher may well be the perfect director for the project.

Arthur C Clarke was a visionary and a thinker. I never met him, though I would have loved to have done. The thing with books is they can touch you and inspire you. In many ways he inspired me to want to write. That magical "sense of wonder" he portrayed was inspiring. That quality is rarely pulled off to perfection in science fiction and he pulled it off on a regular basis, and made it look easy. For my part, if you can miss a total stranger, I'll miss Arthur C Clarke.