Rating: 
Summary: Journey Involving Ape-men, Spacemen, and ET Intelligence
Review: =====>This easy-to-read book (first published in 1968, a year before the first Moon landing) by Sir Arthur C. Clarke is the first installment of his "Odyssey" series of science fiction novels. It is divided into six parts: (1) Primeval Night: six chapters (2) TMA-1: eight chapters (3) Between Planets: six chapters (4) Abyss: ten chapters (5) The Moons of Saturn: ten chapters (6) Through the Star Gate: seven chapters. This novel is classified as science fiction but is so much more. It also has other elements such as the evolution of man, science, astronomy, computer science, extraterrestrial (ET) intelligence, and suspense. Evolution of man is the subject matter of part one of the novel. Here you'll be introduced to ape-men and how they adapt to their environment. Two major ape-men introduced are "Moon-Watcher" and "One-Ear." Science is presented throughout the novel. For example, "A man who weighed one hundred eighty pounds on Earth might be delighted to discover that he weighed only thirty pounds on the Moon. As long as he moved in a straight line at a uniform speed, he felt a wonderful sense of buoyancy." Astronomy is introduced throughout parts two to six. Overall, Clarke gives good descriptions of our solar system, the asteroid belt, Jupiter, and Saturn. All these are presented with a sense of wonder. Computer science is represented by the supercomputer HAL (which stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer). HAL was "the nervous system" of the Earth-built spacecraft 'Discovery' (which was piloted by astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole). "Without [HAL's] supervision, 'Discovery' would be a mechanical corpse." Extraterrestrial (ET) intelligence is represented by the monoliths. A monolith is first encountered by the ape-men. Later, another monolith is encountered on the Moon (where it is called "Tycho Magnetic Anomaly-One" or TMA-1). It is described as a "vertical slab of jet-black material, about ten feet high and five feet wide: it [resembled]...a giant tombstone. Perfectly sharp-edged and symmetrical, it was so black it seemed to have swallowed up the light falling upon it; there was no surface detail at all. It was impossible to tell whether it was made of stone or metal or plastic--or some material altogether unknown to man." A monolith occurs at two more critical times in the novel. Suspense is created when the astronauts have to go up against space, their own computer, and powers beyond human comprehension (presented in part six of the novel). Numerous examples of nature imitating the art in this book can be found. For example, consider the saga of Apollo 13 in 1970. The Command Module, which houses the crew, was called 'Odyssey.' Just after the explosion that caused the mission to be aborted, one of the astronauts radioed back to Mission Control: "Houston, we've had a problem." The words that HAL said to the novel's astronaut Frank Poole regarding a similar event were: "Sorry to interrupt the festivities, but we have a problem." Finally, this novel was written at the same time as the 1968 movie (which has the same title as the novel) was being made. As a result, there is a close parallel between the book and the movie but there are some major differences. In my opinion, a major difference is that the movie leaves out many of the explanatory details found in the novel. Thus, the movie can be difficult to understand. Therefore, I recommend the following: watch the movie first (to get an idea of its sheer wonder and don't worry about the details), then read the novel (to understand the finer details of the movie), and then watch the movie again (to get a greater understanding of what it is attempting to convey). In conclusion, this novel will present you with a unique, mind-bending experience. Don't miss this incredible journey!! <=====>
Rating:
Summary: A fantastic voyage to the stars!
Review: 2001: A Space Odyssey was everything a great science fiction novel should be. The day I started to read this book I found it so engrossing that I finished it the same day! The book does a magnificant job of rendering detailed images to us in mankinds' quest to reach intelligent life. The book touches on so many powerful themes, like man vs. machine, the struggle for survival, and humanity's rise to the space age that one can't help but think about these issues in a whole new light after finishing this great novel. The addicting storyline, along with its pleasant, easy-to-read style will help make this book a favorite of everyone's who can get their hands on it! My personal thanks to Arthur C. Clarke for creating a literary masterpiece that will stand for all of time!
Rating: 
Summary: Cosmic can be boring
Review: Stanley Kubrick got together with Arthur C. Clarke to make "the proverbial good science fiction movie," and then proceeded to sift through Clarke's works for an idea. They settled on "The Sentinel" and a few bits from "Encounter at Dawn." Kubrick could have made Childhood's End into a film, used the same special effects budget, and made a much better movie. As it is, Clarke and Kubrick have created a massive albatross, a "classic," a visual masterpiece on the screen, and one of the most boring books you're likely to read. Clarke is partially to blame, of course, since he is known for writing about big concepts and remarkable speculative technologies, not characters. 2001 is such a part of the culture now, I don't think I'll be blowing any secrets here by revealing plot points. But just in case you haven't seen or read 2001, you have been warned. The book (and the movie--from here on, I'll talk about the book) starts at "the dawn of man," three million years ago, on the African plains. We confront our ancestors, Australopethicus, or whatever they're called. They're starving, vulnerable, and afraid. Then a strange object appears, probes them, and begins to give them ideas. The hominids begin using animal bones as weapons. The object, a black, featureless monolith, disappears, and leaves the hominids to their destiny. The book fast-forwards to our age. The movie does this really well, by using a sight-match between a bone thrown up in the air and then a space station orbiting the planet. The point being, the use of tools became the basis of human evolution. We come to the present, 2001. There is regularly-scheduled traffic to the moon (courtesy of Pan Am, which has disappeared and reappeared in the real world), a space station orbiting the moon, and a complete lunar base. It's all straightforward technological speculation. However, as you read, you find two very obvious things wrong: there are no characters worth considering, and nothing much seems to be happening. The tools seem more interesting than the people. When we come to the Discovery mission, heading for Jupiter, we come across two of the flattest characters known to science fiction: David Bowman and Frank Poole. We almost welcome the presence of the schizophrenic, flat-voiced computer, HAL 9000. HAL makes things interesting by killing people. The flatness of David Bowman becomes useful once he encounters the Monolith. Then the narrative becomes nothing but descriptions of what Bowman sees. Clarke, after all, is best at describing the remarkable and the alien, not for portraying human reactions to them. So by the end, Bowman is transformed by the Monolith, and once again we are looking at another stage of human evolution. The book, anyway, is better at explaining "what the ending means" than the movie is. The visual feast of the movie allowed Clarke to write a successful sequel 20+ years later. The second book is the best of the lot. You might be better off just reading that one, since it summarizes much that is in 2001, and takes off from there. Just because 2001 is a "classic" doesn't mean you have to like it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book from the master
Review: 2001: A Space Odyssey is the quintessential science fiction book, filled with both inspired visions of the future and startling philosophical questions about humanity's place in the cosmos. At the core of the novel is humanity's connection with an alien intelligence. The novel begins with primordial man encountering an alien intelligence--an encounter that would forever change human history. Several thousand years later, evidence of this alien intelligence (a black monolith) is discovered on the moon. The monolith, and its mysterious radio signal directed towards Saturn, compels mankind to initiate an interplanetary journey to the distant planet to uncover the monolith's origins and meanings. Unbeknownst to the human crew, only the ship's onboard computer (the HAL 9000) has full knowledge of the journey's actual mission. The final parts of the novel pit the human crew against the "self-aware" HAL 9000 computer. In a stunning conclusion, the true meaning of the monolith and man's connection to it are both exposed. This is a fascinating book that reads surprisingly quickly. Clarke is masterful in his details and paints vivid pictures for the reader throughout the novel. Beyond the interesting and provocative story-line, 2001 constantly asks the reader to think deeply and philosophically about humanity's place in the universe. Clarke beautifully captures the scientific and intellectual spirit that has driven humanity throughout the ages (from primordial man to intergalactic man). Most people are more familiar with the Stanley Kubrick movie "2001" than with this novel (the novel and screenplay were written at the same time). A careful reading of this book (preferably before seeing the movie) provides invaluable insight into what many perceive as a perplexing and convoluted movie. The novel more clearly explains and connects the plotlines and allows you to more fully appreciate the cinematic masterpiece that 2001 is. This is a great book for anyone interested in science, science fiction, futurism or related subjects. I do believe that the book does hold valuable meaning for general readers as well because of its philosophical roots and because of its place in the annals of science fiction greatness. And for all those people who are confused by the movie, pick this up and read it--it will be sure to shed some light on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: "2001" - A Sci-Fi Tour de Force
Review: Consider that this book was written almost 30 years ago. Consider what has happened in space exploration since then. One can only wonder at how Clarke and Kubrick were able to achieve this. A movie like this had never been attempted on this scale before.
I read this book for the first time, shortly after I saw the movie. This was when it first came out. While Stanley Kubrick's film is a masterpiece on it's own, the book does a great deal to fill in the inevitable blanks in the movie. The movie is unlike anything you have ever seen, very short on dialog, extremely visual. Hence my recommendation that you read the book, then see the movie. It will make more sense. By the way, the movie was among the first real attempts at visual realism with the subject of sci-fi (sorry fellow Star Wars fans, these guys did it first). So well did it succeed, so powerful and detailed were the production values, that it set the standard for sci-fi movies that came after. But, that's a different review.
The book seeks to offer an answer to a few of the most intriguing and fundamental questions of all time; "Who are we, how did we get to be what we are, what will become of us?". It begins with the establishment of a connection between our ape-ancestors and an elemental survival dilemma. How do we survive? The means must exist, yet, we are hopelessly weaker and outnumbered by our ecological competitors. An outside force supplies the seed of an idea and in so doing, launches us toward a chain of events in the unforeseeable future. It is up to us to accept the idea, process it, integrate it into our thinking, and apply it to our problem.
As the future unfolds, mankind's natural desire to explore leads us to a discovery that will end forever the question of our uniqueness in the universe. It is a discovery that is as impossible for us to understand as it was our survival problem millennia ago. Once again, we must grope in the dark, fearful, yet fascinated. Once again, the seed of an answer is supplied. We are riveted by our curiosity and incapable of stepping back from the urge to discover the next fragment of this trail of crumbs being left for us.
The story reaches it's full height with yet another discovery. This is the climactic scene where the chain reaction set off back in the distant past leads to a doorway unlike any other we have stepped through. This is what fans still refer to as the "Ultimate Trip" sequence.
If you traveled millions of miles and millions of years, if you found yourself at a door that was clearly created by someone or something well beyond your understanding, if it were impossible to go back but terrifying to go on, if you knew that to step through this door would lead to unpredictable consequences, and if you had no one but yourself to talk to, would you step across the threshold?
The dialog is minimalist, but, descriptive in the way only a scientist like Clarke can make it. The dry, dispassionate, scientific, narrative makes the conclusion so much more startling. As you put yourself in the cockpit with the main character, David Bowman, himself a scientist-explorer, and watch the limits of your knowledge stretch and shatter into so many motes of dust, like the dust of the ages from which you came, you will know the imprisonment of fascination, the power of knowledge, and the awe of understanding.
Record your final log entry, tighten your harness, check your oxygen. In "2001", you will have to make this choice.
Rating:
Summary: Inspirational
Review: I remember being captivated by the film when I saw it on cable. I'm too young to have seen it in original release. I remember also being completely baffled by it. I stayed up all night trying to figure the movie out. I wished there were a class I could take so that someone could explain the darn thing to me. That summer after seeing the film, I read the book. It explained a great deal. It works well with the movie as Clarke and Kubrick collaborated. I think 2001 is Kubrick's best film. Flash forward about 3 years. I enrolled in college as a Film Studies Major. My very first class showed a film print in the correct aspect ratio of 2001. And we got a lecture about it (not my last one either). So, if ever a book/movie inspired me or shaped my life, it has to be this book.
Rating:
Summary: Cosmic can be boring
Review: Stanley Kubrick got together with Arthur C. Clarke to make "the proverbial good science fiction movie," and then proceeded to sift through Clarke's works for an idea. They settled on "The Sentinel" and a few bits from "Encounter at Dawn." Kubrick could have made Childhood's End into a film, used the same special effects budget, and made a much better movie. As it is, Clarke and Kubrick have created a massive albatross, a "classic," a visual masterpiece on the screen, and one of the most boring books you're likely to read. Clarke is partially to blame, of course, since he is known for writing about big concepts and remarkable speculative technologies, not characters. 2001 is such a part of the culture now, I don't think I'll be blowing any secrets here by revealing plot points. But just in case you haven't seen or read 2001, you have been warned. The book (and the movie--from here on, I'll talk about the book) starts at "the dawn of man," three million years ago, on the African plains. We confront our ancestors, Australopethicus, or whatever they're called. They're starving, vulnerable, and afraid. Then a strange object appears, probes them, and begins to give them ideas. The hominids begin using animal bones as weapons. The object, a black, featureless monolith, disappears, and leaves the hominids to their destiny. The book fast-forwards to our age. The movie does this really well, by using a sight-match between a bone thrown up in the air and then a space station orbiting the planet. The point being, the use of tools became the basis of human evolution. We come to the present, 2001. There is regularly-scheduled traffic to the moon (courtesy of Pan Am, which has disappeared and reappeared in the real world), a space station orbiting the moon, and a complete lunar base. It's all straightforward technological speculation. However, as you read, you find two very obvious things wrong: there are no characters worth considering, and nothing much seems to be happening. The tools seem more interesting than the people. When we come to the Discovery mission, heading for Jupiter, we come across two of the flattest characters known to science fiction: David Bowman and Frank Poole. We almost welcome the presence of the schizophrenic, flat-voiced computer, HAL 9000. HAL makes things interesting by killing people. The flatness of David Bowman becomes useful once he encounters the Monolith. Then the narrative becomes nothing but descriptions of what Bowman sees. Clarke, after all, is best at describing the remarkable and the alien, not for portraying human reactions to them. So by the end, Bowman is transformed by the Monolith, and once again we are looking at another stage of human evolution. The book, anyway, is better at explaining "what the ending means" than the movie is. The visual feast of the movie allowed Clarke to write a successful sequel 20+ years later. The second book is the best of the lot. You might be better off just reading that one, since it summarizes much that is in 2001, and takes off from there. Just because 2001 is a "classic" doesn't mean you have to like it.
Rating:
Summary: Journey Involving Ape-men, Spacemen, and ET Intelligence
Review: =====> This easy-to-read book (first published in 1968, a year before the first Moon landing) by Sir Arthur C. Clarke is the first installment of his "Odyssey" series of science fiction novels. It is divided into six parts: (1) Primeval Night: six chapters (2) TMA-1: eight chapters (3) Between Planets: six chapters (4) Abyss: ten chapters (5) The Moons of Saturn: ten chapters (6) Through the Star Gate: seven chapters. This novel is classified as science fiction but is so much more. It also has other elements such as the evolution of man, science, astronomy, computer science, extraterrestrial (ET) intelligence, and suspense. Evolution of man is the subject matter of part one of the novel. Here you'll be introduced to ape-men and how they adapt to their environment. Two major ape-men introduced are "Moon-Watcher" and "One-Ear." Science is presented throughout the novel. For example, "A man who weighed one hundred eighty pounds on Earth might be delighted to discover that he weighed only thirty pounds on the Moon. As long as he moved in a straight line at a uniform speed, he felt a wonderful sense of buoyancy." Astronomy is introduced throughout parts two to six. Overall, Clarke gives good descriptions of our solar system, the asteroid belt, Jupiter, and Saturn. All these are presented with a sense of wonder. Computer science is represented by the supercomputer HAL (which stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer). HAL was "the nervous system" of the Earth-built spacecraft 'Discovery' (which was piloted by astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole). "Without [HAL's] supervision, 'Discovery' would be a mechanical corpse." Extraterrestrial (ET) intelligence is represented by the monoliths. A monolith is first encountered by the ape-men. Later, another monolith is encountered on the Moon (where it is called "Tycho Magnetic Anomaly-One" or TMA-1). It is described as a "vertical slab of jet-black material, about ten feet high and five feet wide: it [resembled]...a giant tombstone. Perfectly sharp-edged and symmetrical, it was so black it seemed to have swallowed up the light falling upon it; there was no surface detail at all. It was impossible to tell whether it was made of stone or metal or plastic--or some material altogether unknown to man." A monolith occurs at two more critical times in the novel. Suspense is created when the astronauts have to go up against space, their own computer, and powers beyond human comprehension (presented in part six of the novel). Numerous examples of nature imitating the art in this book can be found. For example, consider the saga of Apollo 13 in 1970. The Command Module, which houses the crew, was called 'Odyssey.' Just after the explosion that caused the mission to be aborted, one of the astronauts radioed back to Mission Control: "Houston, we've had a problem." The words that HAL said to the novel's astronaut Frank Poole regarding a similar event were: "Sorry to interrupt the festivities, but we have a problem." Finally, this novel was written at the same time as the 1968 movie (which has the same title as the novel) was being made. As a result, there is a close parallel between the book and the movie but there are some major differences. In my opinion, a major difference is that the movie leaves out many of the explanatory details found in the novel. Thus, the movie can be difficult to understand. Therefore, I recommend the following: watch the movie first (to get an idea of its sheer wonder and don't worry about the details), then read the novel (to understand the finer details of the movie), and then watch the movie again (to get a greater understanding of what it is attempting to convey). In conclusion, this novel will present you with a unique, mind-bending experience. Don't miss this incredible journey!! <=====>
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking sci-fi featuring more science than fiction
Review: For most sci-fi fans, it is impossible to read Clarke's novelization of "2001" without calling up scenes from Kubrick's movie. Unlike nearly all books inspired by movies, however, many readers will find that Clarke's fiction enriches, rather than retreads, familiar ground. In particular, the novel more fully explains the purpose of the monoliths and the movie's ambiguous--and to many, bizarre--ending. Those who complain about the book's datedness win the argument on purely literal grounds. The year 2001 has come and gone, and many of the "advances" in the book (and the movie) seem quaint, while humanity's adventures in space have, for the most part, stalled. Nevertheless, what is remarkable about Clarke's book is not the technology, which was doomed to obsolescence within a decade, but rather the science. Reading "2001" reminds us that, while our industrial innovations may have departed from the expectations of the late 1960s, the principles on which our technology is based and the astrophysics that informs our worldview have altered relatively little. Indeed, the novel in many spots reads like a science book, and this impression is underscored by Clarke's journalese, which ranges from informative to didactic. ("It was true that the Special Theory of Relativity had proved to be remarkably durable." "That pinpoint of incandescence must be a White Dwarf--one of those strange, fierce little stars, no larger than the Earth, yet containing millions of times its mass.") Even the attempts at characterization are reportorial: "Like all his colleagues, Bowman was unmarried; it was not fair to send family men on a mission of such duration." Heywood Floyd, David Bowman, and even Hal (the mutinous computer) are inarguably one-dimensional. Yet, none of this seems inappropriate, since Clarke--and Kubrick--clearly decided to forego traditional features of storytelling (character, plot, etc.) in favor of pure, extravagant speculation. Instead, Clarke has fully developed his true protagonists: science as a discipline and human progress as a whole.
Rating: 
Summary: The all-time classic
Review: There is not much that can be said about 2001 that hasn't been said already. It is, of course, a classic among classics, a story that begins three million years in the past and ends in what was, at the time Clarke and Kubrick developed the story, the near future. The background is well known: Stanley Kubrick wanted to make the proverbial "good science fiction movie," and to achieve this goal, he and Clarke collaborated to develop a screenplay based partly on some of Clarke's earlier short stories (The Sentinel, among others). Clarke then wrote the novel from the screenplay.
I must admit that I've never really liked 2001 all that much, to be honest. The "problem" with the movie is that you cannot today avoid knowing that you're watching something that was made in the 1960s. Most of the movie is set in the future, but it feels like the past. In the book, the annoying thing is that Clarke's style of writing (which usually works so well) is too brief and abrupt, and the ending doesn't satisfy. On the other hand, I do like the beginning, with Moon-Watcher and the early hominids struggling for survival, and I also like the idea of mankind being essentially the creation of an unknown alien intelligence. But I can't escape the feeling that the story should have been more "fleshed out." And, like I said, the ending, when Bowman is transformed into Star-Child, is not satisfying and even a bit disturbing, even if the story in this way does come full-circle at the very end. Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing idea, but somehow it just doesn't "feel" right. As an explanation to why there doesn't seem to be any intelligent life on other worlds in the universe (why have we not been visited?), it's certainly a breath-taking concept. But the idea of transcendence is a little bit too much mystical and "religious" for my taste. But who's really to say, after all? Maybe our weak and frail physical bodies, that age and decay all too quickly, are only a momentary stage in the chain of evolution. And maybe humanity is the last remaining race in the universe that still have not achieved the next stage.
This will forever remain the science fiction novel that Clarke is best remembered for. But that is perhaps a bit unfair, since both the book and the movie (that is, the writing of the screenplay) was a collaboration between Clarke and Kubrick. Clarke wrote the book, of course, but so many of the ideas and so much of the material was developed together with Kubrick. Still, 2001 was epoch-making, and no one can deny that as a movie, 2001 was the most influential science fiction movie ever made. It helped to clear the way for things to come, like Star Wars and the other great science fiction movies of the late -70s and early -80s. And that's one more thing that we can, at least in part, thank the genius of Sir Arthur C. Clarke for.
The millennium edition has a new foreword and an "In Memoriam" for Stanley Kubrick, who died in 1999. As Clarke says, "One of my deepest regrets now is that we shall not be able to welcome the year 2001 together."
|
