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Summary: Great book--I couldn't put it down!!!
Review: 2001: A Space Odyssey was an incredible work of science fiction. While I was reading this book I could not put it down. The characters seemed so real to me. You should read this book. Also read its sequel 2010: Odyssey Two. Incredible book!
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Summary: An interesting book with a great theory.
Review: 2001 was what many people consider the greatest science fiction movie of all time.However, I think I like the book more than the movie. It had a lot more detail and had important parts that were left out in the movie. The plot is that in the year 2001, the moon has been colonized by humans(I wish). When they find a strange object on the moon, they call Dr. Heywood Floyd from Earth to check it out. It appears to be a black monolith that was made 3 million years ago, long before there was any life or civilization on Earth. The book had some interesting ideas, such as the fact that every star in the universe is actually a solar system. The book had a great story. Actually, it was 3 stories, but the object was in all 3. The ending still is confusing, but it leaves you to come up with your own ending. Very original book, highly recomended.
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Summary: How it might have happened? And a look at ourselves.
Review: When Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick sat down together and simultaneously developed this book, and the visually stunning movie by the same name, you have to wonder if they imagined that they were creating something timeless as they have.While this book would fall under the genre Sci-Fi, the perhaps ficional elements about the evolution of man provide an entertaining backdrop for a story about where man has come from and where we are going. Have we learned from our mistakes? At the time this book was written, Clarke would indicate that we have not. Will we reach what scientific philosophers like Clarke believe are going to be our future evolutionary states? The way you begin to think as you read this book will remind you of any and all the nights you may have stared at the stars as a child and wondered what our role in the universe is. This book is as artistic a piece as the film for that reason, and it is far less confusing on the first read as compared to the first film viewing.
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Summary: THE BEGINNING OF A GREAT SCI-FI BOOK SERIES!
Review: This is one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written! Arthur C. Clarke creates a mind-bending story that builds on the feature film version! A must-read for any true sci-fi buff! Grade: A+
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Summary: A new Evolutionary step
Review: Arthur C Clarke has returned to his favorite theme - that of the proverbial First Encounter. We've had them in the RAMA series and in CHILDHOOD'S END. But this time we meet them by proxy. Everyone is quite familiar with the story but the originality and suprises (aided by an extraordinarily perceptive cinematic translation) just keep coming. It's like the author is drinking from a well of originality and talent that won't run dry. I loved the man-machine/man-monolith/man-Jupiter interactions. Clarke has ventured into the metaphysical here and the movie perfectly suggests to the viewer what we, the readers, can only imagine from the text. The idea of an extraterrestrial boost to Earthly intelligence has been suggested before (along with the idea that life itself arrived from outer space via meteorite). One still has to ask the question: OK, so where did THAT life come from? Clarke simply assumes that "it is" without questions. Another theme present in almost all his works is that we on this planet are still children of the universe, we are in the learning stage and must and will learn from the more "advanced" races. Whether this happens or not - my personal opinion is that it won't - it is still a good concept to bandy about.
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Summary: Is good scifi timeless?
Review: If I were to rely on this book alone, I would say yes! Although some minor details seem dated in the book, the main concepts and the depiction of the planets are detailed without being boring and sound believable (specially if you are not a professional astronomer). The book has great pacing (maybe except for the first part where the monolith tinkers with our ancestors brains) and culminates beautifully with the transformation of Bowman into the star-child. If you have already seen the movie or even read the book previously and enjoyed it, I would highly recommend this paperback edition for the rather lengthy preface by the author. There he describes his partnership with Kubrik, his conversations with Asimov (!) and, among other trivia, tells us that HAL has nothing to do with IBM (can you believe him?).
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Summary: The evolution of humankind.....
Review: This book is timeless. The allegorical significance of this novel will never diminish in importance and scope.....
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Summary: Comparing Both 2001's
Review: Comparing the 2001 of the book, 2001 A Space Odyssey to the 2001 we know, you can find major differences. Biggest of all would be the event of September 11, 2001. Reading this book makes you think, "How could our world be different, if we had or hadn't done something?" Like most books written about the future it's not accurate but it gives us an interesting idea of where we thought we would be. 2001 starts out easy to read and understand, then glides through the book in this way until the last few chapters. The last few chapters require almost a second read through and a few minutes of thinking to fully understand and enjoy what's going on. I enjoyed the sci-fi aspect of 2001, and the end. I literally couldn't put this book down until I was done.
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Summary: One of the Best
Review: It had been several years since I watched the film, when I listened to this audiobook, and I remember not really liking the film very much. This book; however, is great and is probably one of the best, if not the best, science fiction books I have ever read. The story is compelling and interesting all the way through, but the best part of the novel is that it makes you THINK.
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Summary: One of science fiction's major triumphs
Review: Arthur C. Clarke's monumental novel 2001: A Space Odyssey is top-notch science fiction that more than earns its spot among the greatest works published in the genre. Reading the novel is quite a different experience from watching Stanley Kubrick's wildly famous movie adaptation of the story. The movie is far too abstract and vague for my tastes, concentrating more on visual wonders than sound plot development. Many of the questions left unanswered in the movie (along with some questions and answers the movie never even addressed) can be found in the novel, and this made for a much more rewarding and satisfying 2001 experience for me. Moviegoers had to wait sixteen years to learn the real story of Hal's failure, but Clarke explains it (and in more detail) in the pages of his original 2001 novel. There are actually a surprising number of differences between the novel and the film, which strikes me as somewhat strange given the fact that the book was inspired by the idea of the film; as a matter of fact, much of the writing took place during the film's production, and Clarke has said that some movie shots led him to make changes to the novel as he was writing it. The story begins in the ancient past, providing much more detail about the appearance of a huge black monolith on earth and its deliberative interference with the man-apes of the area. The film fails to convey the overwhelming impact of the alien monolith on the evolution of life on earth, and that is one important reason why I find the film too vague. The events of Clarke's first few chapters are of great importance in one's understanding of the story, and all the facts become clear in this book. One will also find some major differences between the novel and the movie in terms of the setting of the final events. In the novel, the crucial mission goes to Saturn, whereas the movie takes us no farther than Jupiter; this doesn't change anything really, but Clarke has said that Kubrick made the right decision and saved him some embarrassment from making a visual representation of Saturn that later failed to hold up to more recent scientific discoveries about the ringed planet. Many of the crucial events onboard the Saturn-bound spaceship Discovery also differ significantly between book and movie. Clarke's exposition of the growing doubts expressed by Captains Poole and Bowman over the performance of the onboard supercomputer Hal works much better than Kubrick's lip reading explication, and there is a lot more information provided here about the whys and wherefores of Hal's troubling and duplicitous actions. The pivotal events of Hal's takeover of the ship play much better in the book as well, and the events as described here are actually much more exciting and convincing than the events you see in the film. The novel concludes with a much more revealing look at Bowman's journey beyond Saturn into infinity. Here, Clarke even goes into some detail about the creators of the monoliths, which is a topic the movie never really addresses at all. In the end, the novel is just much more compelling than the film, and for that reason I would recommend watching the movie before reading the book. Kubrick intentionally left his film rather vague and open-ended, and a reading of the much more compelling and informative novel may well rob you of whatever small joys you might otherwise find in the film. In the same vein, the paucity of answers in the movie does little to detract from one's enjoyment of and fascination with the novel.
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