I have to admit that Arthur C. Clarke was one of the authors I classified in my younger days as "way too scientific" for me--(Tom Clancy is another, even now). I tend to go more for fantasy (LOTR, Doug Adams, etc.), but I liked Rendezvous with Rama even so, having always enjoyed a good mystery.

I would venture to suggest that it wasn't so much where Clarke was coming from as it was where you (collectively) were at the time you discovered him. I think no one would say that his imagination and ideas were less than stellar...

Lin