Here's another:

UK News Electronic Telegraph
Friday August 2 1996, Issue 441

Clarke, the doyen of science fiction, pens final space odyssey
By Matthew Chance in Colombo

ARTHUR C CLARKE, the author and space-age prophet, has written what he expects will be his last blockbuster novel and signed the biggest publishing deal in the history of science fiction.

3001: The Final Odyssey has been snapped up by the New York publishers Random House for an undisclosed amount. But, according to Clarke, the deal "runs into nine figures, including the cents".

Wrapped in a colourful sarong and confined to a wheelchair in his Sri Lankan home, where he has lived since 1952, the 79-year-old took just three months to complete the closing volume of a celebrated series of futuristic dramas.

His collaboration in the 1960s with the film-maker Stanley Kubrick produced the influential and highly praised 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was later released as a novel. A sequel 2010: Odyssey II, also filmed, was met with rather less critical acclaim in 1982. A third novel in the series, 2061, was released five years later.

"3001 has come at a time of renewed interest in space, the unknown, the insecurity of the future," Clarke told The Daily Telegraph in his Somerset burr, still detectable after more than 50 years in Sri Lanka.

"My agent is already dealing with more than 80 film offers, including one attractive proposal from Turner Broadcasting. Spielberg is also very interested. But for this novel, Kubrick will have first refusal," he added.

In daily contact with the world's top scientists and thinkers via the Internet, the doyen of science fiction writers has been heralded as a new age guru for his often prophetic words.

In his 20s as a RAF flight lieutenant, he invented the concept of satellites in stationary orbit above the earth beaming telephone signals and television pictures around the globe.

It might seem ordinary now, when more than 4,000 satellites hang above the Earth, but Clarke wrote down his ideas in 1945, splitting the scientific community of the period.

In true Clarke spirit, 3001: The Final Odyssey has its own share of predictions and technological dreams that may well become a reality in the years to come.

"I am personally astounded by the series of coincidences that have punctuated my work on this book," said Clarke.

"The manuscript was already finished when I heard that the Galileo space telescope was beaming back to Earth the first ever pictures of Ganymede, the largest moon of Jupiter, which is where the story in 3001 takes place," he said.

Set more than 1,000 years in the future, 3001 also speaks of a Soul-Catcher micro-chip that can accommodate the essence of humanity, human life immortalised to be "down-loaded" from computers at will. Recent findings by a team of British researchers appear to suggest such a chip could one day be produced.

Cyber-warfare is another theme addressed in the new book, an increasingly real threat involving the enforced control of computers that Clarke insists "could bring the United States to its knees within minutes, and destroy an enemy with its own computerised weapons". President Clinton signed an executive order funding research into this field less than a month ago, according to Clarke.

It is not easy to dismiss a man who backs up his projections and theories with a solid understanding of science.

He received a first class physics degree from Kings College London after the Second World War and is an enthusiastic amateur scientist at his Colombo home.

A determined campaigner on social issues, he has for years been an opponent of the international tobacco industry. He has also spoken out against the 13-year civil war in Sri Lanka, his adopted home, which has left more than 50,000 dead.

But Clarke has made his biggest impact using just one machine: his typewriter. His short stories and novels have, in the words of one commentator, "provided humanity with the cultural impetus to explore other planets. "He hasn't just predicted the future, he has moulded it."