Customer Reviews

2001 A Space Odyssey

5 star:		(192)
4 star:		(68)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

When I saw the movie 2001, I was completely confused. I understood the basic plot line but didn't understand any of the nuances. I found the end especially baffling.

Reading the book cleared up my confusion and answered my questions (and created a few more). The premise of the book is excellent. Instead of having a typical face-to-face run-in with aliens, the characters in the book come upon evidence of alien intelligence: a black monolith which pre-dates modern history. As they try to discover who left the monolith, questions are answered and many more questions arise. The storyline was unique, and although the characters were underdeveloped they were believable. The imagery in the book was wonderful: I could picture Jupiter, Saturn, and the moons of the planets as Clarke described them. I found it amazing how accurate his descriptions were considering what we know now about these heavenly bodies compared to what they knew at the time the book was written.

I would recommend this book to science fiction fans who aren't interested in violence. This doesn't have any of the wars or combat that many SF books have. I would also recommend it to technical-oriented people who have an interest in learning more about astronomy.

I have seen the Stanley Kubrick film of the same title hundreds of times before I decided to read the book. As the opening credits in the film state, "Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke". Because the movie and the book were written simultaneously, I never thought the book would be much different. Once I began reading, however, I was stunned at how wrong I was, where in fact there was more than I dreamed of. What the movie could not convey, or maybe even did not want to convey was exposed in the writing. Clarke writes with clarity and passion; not just for writing, but also science as a means of expressing ones own existence. That existence being the ultimate question of man's relationship with the universe and the environment he has created for himself. The book is existential as well as mystical: scientific as well as theological: revaltory as well as inquisitive. The story follows the same track as the movie, yet with inner dialogue of the apes on Earth and their first meeting with the Black Monolith, describing how the impact of this clean, smooth, black mystery impacted their means of survival through the use of weaponry and tools. Following some 2001 years later into deep space towards Jupiter we meet H.A.L., another enigma that similarly impacts man and his ability to control his fate or destiny. For anyone who has seen the movie, the book will not surprise you as far as the generic structure of the story, yet Clarke's handling of the subject completely unknown at the time is simply startling.

Published in 1968 (a year before landing on the moon), Clarke dedicates this book to Stanley Kubrick. Likewise, Kubrick made a similar gesture with his film. This new edition includes some thoughts on the year 2001, as well as a small write-up on his relationship with Stanley. Highly reccomended.

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.

In the background Clarke introduces us to an advanced civilization that helped Earth's "dumb" apes evolve millions of years ago into modern humans by teaching them how to kill prey. I'm fascinated by these mysterious characters lurking in the background. They, like us, evolved from ocean slime, then into intelligent, self-aware carbon-based beings like us, then into machines, then finally into states of organized energy. Then the reader is suddenly translated into modern times. Humans, developing powerful artificial intelligent life, are at the cusp of taking the next evolutionary leap. This, post-Darwinian evolution, is what 2001 is REALLY about--all of the conflict between humans and their AI life forms is just a side topic. Unfortunately for me, this side topic makes the bulk of the book, which is definitely enjoyable on its own to be sure, and makes sense of the movie.

On the other hand, a book I recently read and strongly recommend, Beyond Future Shock by Alaniz, picks up where Clarke coldly left off. Like 2001, it is a strong science fiction book. Starting in WWI, tracking the lives, romances, struggles and triumphs of several infant Germans who will live through WWII, the Cold War, and into the age of youth cocktails when these "kids" are in their late 90s, Alaniz tracks the science behind the coming transhuman age with masterful, subtle "Clarkian" writing. He also tracks the potential perils, and the problem of Luddism and religion versus science. As you sink deep into Alaniz's powerful imagery, you will find yourself thinking about mankind's various potential fates in the coming few decades: some horribly dystopian some reasonably utopian. Singularity (read the new book by Kurzweil) will soon be upon on us.

For me, Alaniz has finished with genius what Clarke only touched upon in 2001. I am fully sastisfied at last.

Paul

This book is subject to many interpretations, and that alone makes it a great story while it also tends to send people off arguing their own points. I'll try to stick to just one in this review, the one I believe is central to enjoying this book. 2001 (book) reveals more of the details of the story than the movie and that there are some differences (going to Saturn in the book, Jupiter in the film, as an example). This doesn't effect the overall read, but I thought it important to point out that the two (book/film) are different enough to be confusing. Many people have seen the film, or parts of it, and that can bring some to seek out the book and others to wonder why they would bother. The story is of Biblical proportions not only in the sense of the widest timeline in a movie (over 3 million years) but that it covers mankind's history without resorting to a long narrative, but by book ending history or in essence - their is no middle story. Man's destiny is outlined in rather 'dry' terms with little detail. Our ancestral relatives are mysteriously guided by the first monolith and we assume this leads us to our intellectual evolution as the 'bone weapon' becomes a space ship (that's from the movie). No time is wasted explaining the change, you just have to accept it. The second monolith, buried on the moon as a marker for us to discover, assuming we did evolve, sets off the two major parts of the story - Mankinds' curiousity vs. his need for secrecy, which is portrayed by the ignorance of the astronauts to their 'real' mission and the hidden knowledge of the on-board computer entity the HAL 9000. The characters are very flat, as is HAL, and that partly distracts the reader from realizing that technology itself is the central theme. This story is a warning about the inhuman direction that mankind is making with technology. Why wouldn't the actors be dull? We are diluting the individualism of mankind even now. I'll dare say that Kubrick intended to expand on the dryness of Clarke's stories (The Sentinel, for one) so as to remind us of mankinds' foolish dependence on the technology we surround ourselves with. I mention the movie here as it reveals how the collaberation with Clarke had influenced the book. Clarke wrote this novel in tandem with his input on the movie screenplay and besides, Clarke is well known for taking on big issues instead of filling out characters. Back to the story. The malfunctioning of HAL leads to the final shedding of any human element in the story by simply discarding all but one of them. From here on, you experience the story through David Bowman. Victorious over HAL, Bowman has no one to share his final life experience with. The huge monolith, orbiting Saturn, leaves Bowman with a final mission - before he dies, find out what he can. Curiousity wiining out over survival, which seems impossible. This leads to a trip through 'unknown space', a place so 'alien' that Bowman cannot interpret what is going around him. Being nearly driven mad, he is left to viewing some last remnants of his race before he is transformed. Here the book better explains, without revealing any reason or purpose. Bowman is left, in a form he can get his mind around - an infant in space - to contemplate mankind's future. A not so subtle reference is made to the elimination of nuclear weapons. So, the end of the book, which in itself can be interpreted many ways, shows that a superior presence may yet guide us to a better future.

This is only one, of many, interpretations I have had of this book/movie since I first read/viewed it, back in '68. The title is, or course, very dated, but it still harks of a future yet untraveled. I found the trip through this book even more 'mind-expanding' than the visual ride through the Jupiter monolith in the movie. So, it is because this story has so open an interpretation that it excels and also tends to baffle some readers and disgust others. It is in the 'not answering' the questions that I give this book 5 Stars. If Clarke had succumbed to giving the reader his own interpretation it would have poisoned the very 'mystery' the book had built. After all, how can you describe something that could be God or a future human species, or anything else in between? Much less give a reason for their actions that would make sense to us mere humans.

2001 is a great read that will leave you thinking the ultimate thought - your very existence. The fun is in the trip, not the destination.

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.

An excellent book, which really had an impact on me when I first read it. I had of course seen the movie and loved it. Reading the book though, was a completely different experience - much less frustrating than the film.
The ideas raised by Clarke concerning our own evolution are fascinating and brilliantly presented. The way he mixes these big questions with an eery yet tense sci-fi plot is truly expert. I can't understand how anyone could find this boring.

Another reviewer stated the book came after the film. Not entirely true. The story was actually based on a number of short stories by Arthur C. Clarke, the most notable being 'The Sentinel' written in 1951. Kubrick approached Clarke to collaborate on a screenplay for the film out of which came this novel.

After reading Arthur C. Clarke's short story 'The Sentinal,' filmaker Stanely Kubrick enlisted the author's aide in creating what he deemed the 'perverbial good science-fiction movie.' The result of this great collaberation was '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The novel, which came out after the movie but was created at the same time, is a stirring tale of human evolution, exploration, and hope. The story begins with our ape-like progenitors and their discovery of a odd object- a black monolith, that boosts their IQ to a level that will promote thier evolution. Fast forward three million years: NASA discovers a strange object- a black monolith, buried beneath the lunar surface. When the sun hits it for the first time in three million years it sends a signal across the solar system. The expedition that follows is filled with hope, but will it succeed? The novel does have several minor differences from the 1968 film- for instance the planet of destination is Saturn, not Jupiter. But if you have seen the film and are a little confused as to what the monolith is and just what transformation the astronaut Bowman underwent, the book will answer you questions. A marvel of science-ficton!

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!