the Ian Fleming of the Indian Ocean

The fact that Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick succeeded in disturbing the crap out of me as a five-year-old (with the release of "2001") made me ponder the life of the former upon his recent death... What makes a man move to Sri Lanka? After a fairly normal British upbringing, he served during WWII in that end of the military that was involved in the development of radar communication... This may have fed his fascination with science fiction and the promises of technology that later served as the basis of his extensive, lifelong work as a writer.

Apparently the man was a big atheist, and while on the one hand openly offended by religion, on the other was quite caught up in ideas about the paranormal. No real contradiction there, I can only say I'm jealous of the man who in the 1950's decided to move to Sri Lanka because he liked the ocean and was inspired by living in a tropical paradise... I actually don't really know the whole story of how Arthur C. Clarke became Arthur C. Clarke, but it seems pretty cool so if any one has any interesting details please share.