prodigious vs. prolific

Greetings.

I recently got into an argument with a scottish friend of mine (I am
american) about the use of prodigious. I used it as a synonym for
prolific. In describing the author Philip K. *** I said he was
prodigious as he had written many novels and hundreds of short stories.
He "corrected" me saying "you mean, prolific", to which I responded
they *can* mean the same thing.

We bet on it. 10 euros. I went online and found hundreds of examples of
people using the phrase "prodigious author" followed by the reason they
were prodigious -- they had written many books, articles, what have
you.

On wordreference.com I found this definition:

3. extraordinary in bulk, quantity, or degree : ENORMOUS

So obviously it can refer to quantity, not just quality as he was
telling me. But then, according to this definition, an author can't be
prodigious but his output can.

Anyway, I thought I'd throw the question to the floor. What do you all
think?

Thanks!
Bob

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