>>7983763
Childhood's End was good and inspired a lot of thngs, like Evangelion.

His prose is bad.

>>7983766
His prose early on wasn't great, like a lot of pulp-era sci-fi writers, but have you read any of his late-career books? It gets better.

2001, Rama, The City and the Stars, Childhoods End, all ultra original/insightful sci fi

>>7983763
Like a lot of SF writers - great ideas, shit prose.

"The City and the Stars" is my favorite by him.

Echoing above comments about his books often having good premises. He doesn't do enough with them though. City and the Stars is built on an interesting idea (what would life be like if tech developed so much human endevour becomes pointless), but then turns into a pretty standard adventure story. The endless 'hard SF' passages are difficult to get through as well; re-read Rama recently and was staggered at the length of the tedious musings on how gravity and weather might work in an artifical world. Obvs worth a read if youre a SF reader though.

>>7983763
A lot of his stuff could have been greater but he didn't flesh out the ideas enough.

The main problem I have with Clark is, as many before me have mentioned, his prose. It is, to put it plain: Boring as fuck. His ideas are often above average, but terrible executed. This is not only true for Clark, but also for the main body of Sci-Fi writers. You never read for the prose or for the plot, but simply for the idea. The worst example is Ringworld, which not only is terrible written, but which main idea turns out to be utter shit as well.

>>7985884
Examples of good sci-fi prose?

I like Gibson and Peter Watts - and Burroughs, if you allow him.

^good prose...

I love Iain M. Banks and to a lesser extent Alasdair Reynolds.

amazing ideas, a real visionary.

>>7985892
Poul Anderson is at times worth reading. The Strugatsky brothers and Stanislaw Lem are masters of the genre.

>>7985892
I like Bradbury, which is sure to be met with derision.

>Gibson
I'm reading Neuromancer currently, and I love his diction.