When I first started reading science fiction, my gods were three:

Isaac Asimov.

Robert Heinlein.

And Arthur C. Clarke.

Those were the writers I read and reread. Those were also the writers whom, when I first thought I might become a writer, I wanted to be. As far as I was concerned, they were science fiction.

In my late teens, when I began to rebel, I found a new set of gods. Once more, there were three of them:

Roger Zelazny.

Samuel R. Delany.

And Harlan Ellison.

Now that the last of my first set of gods has departed for a new odyssey, and I pause to mourn as many of us are doing today, I also find myself thinking that those entering science fiction today must have their own set of living gods, for the ones I began with must surely seem as ancient as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells did to me by the time I got around to reading them.

I won’t even begin to attempt to fill in those new names today, just say that even as I mourn the passing of Arthur C. Clarke, I also celebrate that continuum of which we all are a part.

We can only see so far today because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Clarke was definitely one of them. We are all indebted to him, and were extremely lucky to have had him with us for so long.

I never thought I’d come face to face with Robert Heinlein again—after all, SFWA’s first Grand Master passed away in 1988—but thanks to an old liquor ad and another envelope collage from , I did.

I don’t know what the U.S. Postal Service thought about it, but I loved it. (However, I’m not the one who had to decipher the address.)

Click on the image at right to see more clearly what Paul felt I felt about the encounter.

Maybe if I start hitting that Kinsey Blended Whiskey, I’ll get a chance to see Heinlein a little more often …