Geek Squad has always tried to be as dorky as possible.. its their brand.

Um, you want to provide any references for such a serious allegation? Sri Lankan police cleared Clarke of any wrong-doing 10 years ago: [news.bbc.co.uk]

I have a feeling the Geek Squad have seen (and possibly copied, maybe even reported) their share of child porn over the years.

Asimov was the only relatively sane member of the "Big Three." I think Jackson is onto something and that this is a way for them to get more porn off their customers computers.

I have read Clarke's books for years and hadn't heard that. I have wondered what the hell he was doing in Sri Lanka, though.
@Dweezil: Is the other of the "Big Three" Heinlein? Cause he was batshit.

What they say about Clarke is true, and the parts of him that are worth celebrating are very much so. That there are other parts, and those worthy of condemnation is also true, but pick your time and place. Did you have the balls to say this while he was alive?

I'm a little confused here. This article presents this quotation as fact, but I've read the Clarke adamantly denied ever making it any other statements that the Mirror published, and that the Mirror actually published a retraction later regarding the interview. Is there a good source for clearing this up?

I believe the british newspapers who wrote the articles stating he liked them really young and later was cleared of all charges and the papers had to apologize adn retract the story. Unless of course you're getting your info from some other reference material I'm not privy too...

Quote from wiki (I know is far from perfect), "On 26 May 2000 he was made a Knight Bachelor[18] "for services to literature" at a ceremony in Colombo.[19] The award of a knighthood had been announced in the 1998 New Year Honours,[20] but investiture of the award had been delayed, at Clarke's request, because of an accusation, by the British tabloid The Sunday Mirror, of paedophilia, which was, however, found to be baseless by Sri Lankan police and retracted by the paper soon after.[21][22][23][24][25][26]"

This is the first I've heard of his alleged paedophilia or any sympathy of the kind. I just read his Wikipedia article, and there is no mention of any such thing. A link to the source would be greatly appreciated. Anyways, their prim intent [besides pure $$$] is to celebrate his artistic legacy, which is certainly one worth celebrating.

I'm going to take this one step further than nobuggin did. Hey, Mr. Thomas, unless your sources are better than the Irish Times (scroll about halfway down the page), you've just committed character assassination of the recently dead. I realize that that is the Gawker Media formula, but it's repellent nevertheless.

That article is completely misleading, and I'm disgusted that Consumerist would post it without bothering to fact-check a piece calling someone a pedophile. Those statements were indeed published (incorrectly) by the Sunday Mirror, but Sri Lankan authorities investigated the matter and found the claims to be totally baseless, which forced the Mirror to print a retraction of their claims.
I can't find an original copy of the retraction, but here is an Australian newspaper mentioning it.
[www.news.com.au],22049,23401032-5016574,00.html

For a website that prides itself on unveiling the lies of big companies, I'm severely disappointed that Consumerist would call one of the greatest authors of our time Pedophile without doing any research on the subject.
Shame on you.

The Greek Squad?

Apparently Gawker has no journalistic integrity. The claims were denied and the Mirror issues a retraction. Any amount of fact checking shows this.

Hell you can find the reference on his own Wikipedia entry. See footnote 22, [www.scifi.com]

The author of this story should be ashamed and apologize.

Lame, Owen. He's hardly noted. He was cleared of all charges years ago (BBC link not working, here is the Google cache of it):

[209.85.173.104]

Arthur C Clarke was my hero. I've read nearly all of his books.

WTF "noted pedophile"? I'd never heard that, and was quite taken aback to see it. Seriously, this needs to be corrected, and soon.

The noted pedophile part is well known in the community.

Of course the Sri Lankan authorities don't care - the age of concent is 13 there.

[www.google.com]

I'm a little outraged by this. This article is grossly incorrect. Regardless of any accusations, Mr. Clarke is a noted science fiction author who has made a great contribution to the genre, and should not be slandered like this, especially in the wake of passing. It seems the only reason this is worth noting is because the Geek Squad is honoring him, and the logic goes that nothing they do can possibly be right.

Please remove this from the site.

First tubgirl on Kotaku and now this? Agreeing with wolfzero, retract posting and issue and apology.

@joebob2: Well known "in the community"? Which community is that?

It would be fairer to say, wouldn't it, that rumors of Clarke's pedophilia have been around for a long time. Okay, why are they around? Because they're true, or because they're plausible and amusing?

If they're true, why not add some value by posting some evidence? The Google search you tried to post, for the age of consent in Sri Lanka, could only convince someone of the accusations' plausibility, not their truth.

Incidentally, Interpol reports that the age of consent in Sri Lanka has been 16 since 1998. Apparently, it was 12 before that. Yuck. But still not enough, in and of itself, to sustain the accusation of pedophilia. Somebody might well have other reasons for living in Sri Lanka. Like the beaches, or the food, or being Sri Lankan.

Mike Jackson was innocent too. He was never convicted and there was no evidence. As for Clarke retiring in a region that sells children into the sex industry does'nt suggest that he was averse to the practice. Whatever no one will ever no either way. I hear the beaches and food are great but that's not the reason old rich men go there.

Attacking the recently deceased... really classy... I guess that the journalistic high-road isn't for everyone.

This is shocking! A clear lapse in journalistic credibility!

Mr. Clarke is from England. It's paedophile, with an 'A'.

Fact check much idiot?

Ooh, Valleywag. Speaking truth to power. You scions of muckraking hard-nosed journalism. Did Meghan Asha stay in tonight?

@wolfzero: Yeah, those charges were cleared, owen.

This was apparently supposed to be a dig at the Geek Squad for its hypocrisy (rooting out child porn on its customers computers while celebrating a supposed pedophile on the other). But even if these pedophilia charges are true, they're hardly so widely known that someone should be mocked for not knowing about them. I'm a pretty big sci-fi fan and would never have made this connection. There may be a lot of reasons to make fun of the Geek Squad, but this isn't one of them, and it's outside of the boundaries of good taste to use a man's recent death to do so.

By the way, the headline is also misleading. Geek Squad is hardly "celebrating" his death -- they are commemorating it.

This story deserves a front page, top banner header retraction. Not some small note at the bottom of the article, or a deletion of the article. This site needs to apologize to Mr. Clarke's family and the readers for this crap.

You can't go around labeling people pedophiles with no proof, especially when newspapers have been forced to retract this nonsense in the past.

I don't get all the "he was cleared of the charges" outrage, given that he was never actually charged with anything. Might this help clear some things up:
[gawker.com]

@Landru: Yeah, the big three are Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke. Heinlein was literally a basket case (although in my opinion The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is the best book written by any of them, so he wins) and I have no doubt Clarke was piddling kids. Who the fuck goes to Sri Lanka if it's not to have sex with kids? It's like paying for a plane ticket and a trip to a hotel on the beach in Hawaii so you can use their WiFi connection.

This article is lame in the extreme. Recycling a 20+ year old disproven allegation of the recently dead? Pathetic! And @Raincoaster, you are actually taking the word of a random person on a web site about this? That is hardly proof of anything.

How nice that people can hide behind their keyboards and post bullshit like this with impunity.
Did any of you shit-for-brains KNOW any actual proven FACTS?
I didn't think so. Sit down and shut the fuck up. When you have written half of the books or gotten half the recognition, then MAYBE your pissy opinions will amount to a speck of shit.

you know I was watching the BBC and they were doing a huge memorial thing too...does that make them evil?

Arthur C. Clarke was a great author, and no allegations were ever proven true. You know a lot of great people in history were supposed child molesters....this article is pure garbage just blindly trying to make the geek squad look bad

shame on you valleywag.

oh btw memorializing and celebrating are totally not the same thing

@doctor_cos: I love how all you freakish little nerds come out of your hiding places (rooms in your mothers house with anime wallscrolls and 40k figurines laid about, no doubt) whenever someone desecrates one of your holy nerd lords. The guy lived, in Sri Lanka for fucks sake, with a young boy for years. What the fuck do you retards think he was doing?

@Dweezil: no idea, do you?

BEST BUY SUCKETH

@realist.com: I'm going to take a guess here and say it involved him teaching the kid what "jizz jizz in you" means.

@DreadPirate: How do you know that's a random person? Because they comment on blogs? That's a person with whose remarks and record I am familiar and with whose veracity I am satisfied. He may be a stranger to you, but he's a stranger with a track record to me.

Bad form, calling him a pedophile when the investigation determined the claims were unfounded and the original paper that published them printed a retraction.

But at least you made it clear that you have no integrity.

Sweet! Owen's buying drinks tomorrow!

@Tallanvor: He fucked kids, the end. Will you people go back to Consumerist already and complain about nice old men asking to see your receipts and OH GOD A BIG BOX TO SHIP A SMALL ITEM?

@mgiampapa:
Did you just mention Gawker and journalistic integrity in the same sentence? You are new around here, aren't you?

@pattisod:
Arthur C Clarke moved to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1956.

He was in his 30s back then. He wasn't rich and he wasn't old.

You would be surprised to know that people move to foreign countries for all sorts of reasons that don't include sex with underage boys.

@Dweezil: The only reason you can think of to live on a tropical isle is boning its children? You inhabit a small and impoverished world, my friend.

It seems rather important to you to believe that Clarke was a pedophile, even though the only evidence is that "everybody knows it." As for me, I don't have any particular feelings about the man, pro or con; I just have this nutty attachment to critical thinking. You know, believing things when there's actual evidence. But don't mind me; I realize that my attitude is outmoded.

who cares if he was recently deceased? it's still true. the whole recently deceased thing is bogus anyway, that's how you end up rewriting history so the post-reagan generation thinks ronnie was a great president instead of a neofascist.

a child molester is a child molester, no matter how far into the future you travel.

Won't someone please think of the children! Thank god Dweezil is here to remind us, and insult geeks, otaku, their mothers, Consumerist readers and the entire nation of Sri Lanka (admittedly, some are easier targets than others).

j0e - "It's still true"? And your proof for this would be what, exactly? I haven't seen anything in this thread that would come close to proof. Just baseless accusations from you, Dweezil, and other morons.

@j0e: what? were are you pulling this crap...do you think they exhumed the body to preform a second burial of the guy to make it "seem" like he is recently deceased. your augment makes no sense.

I never ever read the guys work, all I am post is that once again, gawker, posts untrue liable on the net' and morons believe it as if it is legitement "News".

All that i know IS true is that 1. He is dead and 2. The allegations of him being a child moles