The day after Science Fiction Age was canceled, I resigned my position at Sovereign Media and moved on a few weeks later to a company called CommTek, where I became the editor of the magazine Satellite Orbit. When it came time to write my first editorial, who should pop into my mind but Arthur C. Clarke.

Why?

Satellite Orbit was a massive (around 300 pages per issue) TV programming guide for owners of C-band satellite dishes, those 8-10″ foot behemoths which were the only sort of satellite available for the general public in the days before DirecTV. Which meant that if not for Clarke—who after all, invented the geosynchronous satellite—the magazine wouldn’t have even existed.

I e-mailed Clarke to tell him so, and he was kind enough to reply, which resulted in this editorial. (Click through twice to view it in readable form.) It appeared in Satellite Orbit‘s June 2000 issue.

Just one more example of the many ways in which we’re all interconnected. Not only did Clarke give me a love of science fiction—but he also gave me a job!