Is Clarke a good writer?

So, Clarke.

I never found what was good about him. Every time I tried reading his fiction, horribly poor writing hurt my perception. I never ever though he was anything popular, though; but lo(l) and behold, he's dead and now it seems he was very, very loved by the hugest of audiences.

So... was he really good? I only read some random short stories, nonsensically written and on nonsensical subjects, like the one where buddhist monks were calculating all the names of God with a modern computer, and when they were done the STARS STARTED TO SHUT OFF OH MAN SO AMAZING XD .

What is some of his best stuff? I wanna see where the awesome lies. I really wouldn't mind finding myself another awesome writer, seriously. I'm not doing this to read a bit and then scream "I TOLD YOU SO! HE SUCKS FOR REAL!" I just never found anything good in whatever I read by him, but, really, that might have only been because I never really looked.

His actual prose was not brilliant, but the ideas he brought to Sci-fi in his works were fresh new and actually quite entertaining.

2001, his most famous novel by a long chalk, is not as exciting a book as the premise might suggest (on a spaceship the computer goes mentalist and there's a mysterious object/force that speeds up evolution the ship is heading towards...). But then ACC's strength was writing about ideas in a way that would not have occurred to you at first.