It seems entirely appropriate that Arthur C. Clarke should have ushered in the millennium with a CNN cyber cast from his home in Sri Lanka.
Much of the technology which made the live video link possible was predicted by the 82-year-old science fiction writer in the days when radios were known as wireless sets and television was still in black and white.
Long before they were invented, mobile phones, geostationary satellites, space stations, the Internet and the worldwide web were all described in Clarke's prescient writing.
Perhaps best known as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, he has devoted a lifetime to creating visions of how man might live in the future. Drawing on a vast store of scientific knowledge and a freeranging imagination, Clarke has explored the further and often improbable reaches of time and space. At the dawn of a new millennium, it is difficult to think of another writer who has so deftly combined cosmic daydreams with such a firm grasp of science and its possibilities.
"Far more has occurred in my lifetime than I ever dreamed of," said the author in a pre-millennial interview with The Irish Times in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. "As for what's going to happen in the next millennium, it's impossible to say, but I would bet on the detection of alien life. It seems totally improbable that there isn't life beyond planet Earth, even if it only takes the form of microbes. Of course, the thought of intelligent life elsewhere is even more exciting - and more probable."
In the final essay of his recently-published Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!, Clarke predicts some of the events we can expect in the 21st century. Included are: the devastation of a city in the developing world by an accidental nuclear explosion in 2009; the landing of the first humans on Mars in 2021; and, in 2023, the cloning from computer-generated DNA of dinosaur facsimiles ("Despite some unfortunate initial accidents, mini-raptors start replacing guard dogs", he adds).
Some might balk at Clarke's tireless self-promotion. His office is not so much a place of work as a shrine to the man at its centre. Certificates, plaques, photographs, awards and honours all attest to the greatness of Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Commander of the British Empire. Yet visitors to his lair (or ego chamber, as it has been described) cannot but be struck by a vitality and energy, all the more surprising in someone so debilitated by post-polio syndrome (he can no longer walk unaided and requires a wheelchair to move any distance).
Most of those in the futurism business thrive on misanthropic scare-mongering and the peddling of loony doomsday scenarios. What is endearing about Clarke is his optimism and his faith in the human species. Introducing his list of 21st century predictions with the proviso that "no one can predict the future", Clarke writes: "Optimism about the future is always desirable; it may help to create a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Clarke's view of technological progress is not unremittingly benign, yet he does believe that it makes our lives richer and enhances our potential for happiness.
"Think of the Middle Ages and the days before the invention of anaesthetics," he suggests. "Of course, our advances in science can be misused and even our greatest inventions can be two-edged. Take agriculture. Where would we be without it? Yet agriculture is responsible for the destruction of our forests and the creation of deserts."
Born into a farming family in Somerset, England, shortly before the end of the first World War, Clarke grew into a teenage aficionado of crystal sets and Meccano before taking his first job in the civil service. During the second World War, he worked in the RAF on radar-guided blind landing systems for aircraft.
His great breakthrough came in 1945, with his contribution to Wireless World of a paper outlining how satellites might relay messages around the world, transforming telecommunications. The man who won an Oscar nomination for his screenplay of 2001 describes this early article as "the most important thing I ever wrote".
At a time when many eminent scientists rubbished the notion of space travel, the young Clarke was convinced that man would eventually land on the moon. He was not, however, convinced that this would necessarily happen in his own lifetime.
"Often it has been more interesting to see where (and why) I went wrong," he writes in his preface to Greetings, "than where I happened to be right."
Clarke moved to Sri Lanka in 1956. Despite the outcry which his alleged sexual orientation attracted in the British tabloid press, he still lives in Colombo and enjoys the status of a valued local resource. Long hours of writing are punctuated by wobbly games of table tennis and lunches at the Colombo Swimming Club.
In 1968, he and the film director Stanley Kubrick created the world of 2001, probably the most popular and enduring of all cinematic space fantasies. His book and screenplay portray a space flight during which Dr Heywood Floyd scans the latest reports in Earth's electronic newspapers on his "foolscap-sized notepad".
"Switching to the display unit's shortterm memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines . . ."
Clarke is more adept at using computers and surfing the Internet than most men half his age. Yet, for one whose work has foreshadowed much of the communications revolution, he is surprisingly ready to admit to its pitfalls.
"It's a bit scary the amount of time we're spending on computers," he says. "I'm also worried about the impersonality which now characterises our communications, but, on the whole, I prefer to consider the positive aspects. I like to think of the possibilities of creating global friendships and electronic tribes across the world. Perhaps this can help remove the poison of nationalism, which is one of the great curses of our time."
Despite his increasing infirmity, Clarke rejects the science of cryogenics and notions of endlessly prolonged life. And, despite his long tenure in a Buddhist culture, he says he cannot accept the idea of reincarnation ("an attractive thought, but there are inherent storage problems"). So, what plans does he have for the 21st century? "Well, don't tell anyone", he says, "but I'm already booked into the first five-star space hotel . . ."
