This is not a place where you have to think something particularly smart. It is one of the best science fiction books. A perfect combination of technology and philosophy. It is a must-read for everyone who loves to read (I'm subjective :P).

And it is one of the rare works where the film and the book form a perfect symbiosis and both works need to be known.

This science fiction book offers a captivating exploration of the intersection between advanced technology and profound philosophical ideas. It takes the reader on a journey that challenges their perception of the world and makes them question the implications of technological progress.

The synergy between the film and the book is truly remarkable. The film brings the story to life in a visual and immersive way, while the book delves deeper into the characters' thoughts and emotions, providing a more in-depth understanding of the narrative. Together, they create a complete and unforgettable experience for the audience.

Whether you are a fan of science fiction or simply enjoy a thought-provoking read, this book and its corresponding film are definitely worth checking out.

Forget about the movie.

Set aside your opinions about novelizations (although this technically isn't one).

In fact, toss all your preconceived notions about what classic sci-fi is or could be into the memory black hole.

This book skips over mere storytelling and (literally) dives into a whole new universe.

It's truly astounding how much Clarke accomplishes within its brief pages.

It is a timeless classic that has served as a launchpad for numerous authors like Iain M. Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton, and many more who aren't even born (or reborn) yet.

The book is so remarkable that it easily deserves a 6/5 rating.

It offers a unique and immersive experience that takes readers on a journey beyond their wildest imaginations.

Clarke's writing is both captivating and thought-provoking, making this book a must-read for any sci-fi enthusiast.

Whether you're a long-time fan of the genre or new to it, this book is sure to leave a lasting impression.

So, don't let your previous expectations hold you back.

Dive into this extraordinary universe and discover the magic that awaits.

The most profound science fiction novel I have ever read is truly a masterpiece.

It has left an indelible mark on my mind. I don't think ANY novel I have ever read has struck me so much by its ending.

The ending of this novel is a powerful reaffirmation of the meaningfulness of existence. It makes us think deeply about the nature of our lives and the purpose of our existence.

It shows that even in the most extreme and unlikely situations, there is always hope and meaning.

The story takes us on a thrilling journey through a future world full of wonder and danger.

The characters are well-developed and the plot is engaging from start to finish.

This novel is not only a great work of science fiction but also a profound exploration of the human condition.

It is a must-read for anyone who loves science fiction or is interested in exploring the deeper questions of life.

Come and find words to describe a masterpiece! I will focus on the fact that Clarke wrote a hymn to man's solitude in the universe and his insignificance (guess what! we are not that important after all), as well as on the fundamental existential questions regarding life and death.

What impressed me in comparison to the eponymous -huge- film by Kubrick (which is also my favorite film, along with Tarkovsky's Solaris), is that the -philosophical implications- end of the book is clearer than the -perhaps deliberately- unclear one of the film. What I understood is that Clarke is a devotee of the idea that "there is life after death". The purpose of the famous monolith (for those who have seen the film) is the death of the body, so that change and birth can come. This birth is expressed by the baby traveling in space. It is now an energy (;) that has escaped from the materiality of the body and is ready to travel freely in the eternal universe.

I keep something that is on the penultimate page of the book:

"He was back, precisely where he wished to be, in the space that men called real"

and on the last page:

"For though he was the master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next.

But he would think of something".

P.S. It goes without saying that it was read with the musical background of Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra". Kubrick knew something and used it in the soundtrack.

The film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and the book (1968) are not related in the traditional sense of adaptation or novelization. As Clarke explains in the '25th Anniversary Edition' introduction, both were written simultaneously and inspired by his short stories The Sentinel (1951) and Encounter in the Dawn (1953).

There are differences between the two mediums. The most significant is the placement of the monolith. In the film, it orbits Jupiter, while in the novel, it is on the surface of Iapetus, one of Saturn's moons. The novel also clarifies some of the ambiguities that critics often point out in the film. For example, actor Rock Hudson reportedly walked out of the New York City premiere, muttering, “What is this bullshit!?”

Overall, Clarke presents an amazing, though sexist, vision of the future. He accurately predicted the iPad (Apple, 2010) and reusable rocket boosters (SpaceX, 2011). However, the book's take on the future is decidedly masculine, similar to that of Star Trek: The Original Series.

In general, I have quite liked it.

Although the ending seemed a bit strange to me, but oh well..

The entire journey has been very interesting, and even the initial and more memorable part of the monolith and our ancestors and the bone, as well as the part of HAL 9000. However, I thought it would appear more in the book and it is only a small fraction of it.

Rating: 7.75/10

Synopsis: Doctors David Bowman and Frank Poole are on board the Discovery One with the aim of conducting an expedition to the confines of the universe in search of evidence to confirm that humans are not alone. They are accompanied by three scientists in suspended animation and HAL 9000, an exceptionally intelligent computer. But the mission becomes very dangerous when HAL starts to malfunction. Is it a technical problem? What influence does the monolith exert? With these questions, others arise: What is the ultimate essence that governs us? What place does man occupy in the complex fabric of the infinite, in the cosmos? What is time, life, death?

A breathtaking interstellar journey in search of evidence that humans are not alone in the cosmos. An expedition to the confines of the universe and of the soul, where past, present, and future merge into an enigmatic continuum.

A magnificent novel of epic dimensions with a wide range of interpretations. One of the great classics of science fiction, offering a comprehensive vision of the origin of consciousness and the evolution of humanity.

Arthur C. Clarke collaborated closely with Stanley Kubrick in the production of the famous同名 film.

# 3. The number 20 on your to-read list on Goodreads. Reading Challenge 2024.

It is a real classic. If you have an interest in Science Fiction, you must definitely read this book. It was written exactly 58 years ago from today and is a work that has made a great contribution to the popularization of the genre. When you read the book, you will also notice how it influenced the works that came after it.

One cannot help but admire the author's imagination. I can easily say that it was far ahead of the era in which it was written. The author's fluent language and clean translation enhance the reading pleasure. I would not be exaggerating if I said that the book flows like water. The fact that the element of curiosity is never lacking is a reflection of the author's fictional talent.

Although there are now plenty of works dealing with similar themes, 2001, which is the ancestor and predecessor of all these works, and its author Arthur C. Clarke should be read by everyone who loves Science Fiction.

Arthur C. Clarke is at the forefront of those who opened the door for Science Fiction and Space Opera to become a genre accepted by everyone.

Even though I watched the movie approximately 10 years ago, it is still a movie that I can't get out of my mind. Therefore, one day, I planned to read this book, which was published after the movie and in which the stories that form the basis of the movie's script were developed into a more consistent and complete form. 10 years later, it was finally my turn. A beautiful book that exceeded my expectations came to me...

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, I always attributed a large part of the genius in this movie to Kubrick. Now that I have read this book for the first time, I understand how great Clarke is. Clarke, who used the concept of weightlessness in his novel more than ten years before it was applied in science, and who sent astronauts to Jupiter even before humans had gone to the moon, his imagination is so vast, his narration is so stable and fluent, and he uses the elements that constantly disturb people in a very successful way. When the subject is also extremely original, it is fair to say that I couldn't put the book down.

Although some narrative techniques from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g., using names that tell the reader early on what will happen in the chapter at the beginning of the chapter) are used, the book is still current enough to maintain its relevance today. So much so that the technological elements in it capture the era so well that the book may still maintain its currency even twenty or thirty years from now. Not only did the author predict video calls at a time when people could only talk on the phone with great difficulty through an operator, a supercomputer that controls everything at a time when computers were huge, and mini digital cameras and many other technological developments, but he also accurately described their functions and features. In this regard, I can say that the only thing in the book that he couldn't time correctly was magnetic tapes. Of course, I don't see this as a failure. No one can be a prophet. On the contrary, I'm saying this to show that he got everything else right.

I would like to remind that many elements of the book and the movie have inspired dozens of works written after them. Therefore, this book is a classic and a cornerstone in science fiction readings. Therefore, it is one of the stops that today's reader must visit on his reading journey.

https://agacingovdesi.com/2021/04/02/...

Arthur C. Clarke (along with Isaac Asimov and Philip Dick) is what scientific fantasy means. The author-scientist himself has shown many scientific discoveries from World War II and after. (He was a pilot in the Royal Air Force, one of those who first dealt with radar (basically, he thought they could exist), studied physics and mathematics, and collaborated with NASA to bring it all together and... went to Sri Lanka where he dedicated himself to writing.

"Behind every creature there are thirty fantasies. This is the relationship between the living and the dead. Approximately one hundred billion human beings have lived on our planet since life first appeared. This number is of great interest because, by some strange coincidence, there are also one hundred billion stars in our cosmic world, that is, in our galaxy. Thus, for every person who ever lived, a star shines in space. Each of these stars is also a world, which is often brighter and more powerful than our nearby little star that we call the sun."

With the above, the famous Odyssey of Space begins... If I had read it at a young age, I would surely have wanted to become an astronomer! Of course, then I would not have been able to understand the entire existential search that comes from the rest of the work. I read it in school, where I can't help but grin for romantic astronomy teachers, but by then I was already elsewhere! (Not to mention the mathematics of astronomy **%&(((^)#$@#$)

Anyway, this book is for the romantic people everywhere in the world who are looking for some meaning in the stars... traveling in the Space Age and seeking the meaning of existence and the idea in Time and the moons where "such ideas were too fantastic to be taken seriously, and was answered with the phrase of Niels Bohr: Your theory is crazy, but not crazy enough to be right."

The basic idea is that "man had conquered the past and was beginning to move towards the future", in which man will know and understand God: "The Child [of the Stars] waited, ordering his thoughts, not yet having used all his powers. Now he was the master of the world. He was not very sure what he would do next, but some idea would come to him."

A book that is read and reread!!!

I've been pondering 2001: A Space Odyssey since I could tie my shoelaces. The divisive 1968 film version directed by Stanley Kubrick was the first movie to ever play in a household where my family had cable television. It was October 1979 and I was six years old. Up until then, the movies I watched on TV were interrupted by commercials and edited for content, and I was baffled by the content of 2001. Thanks to this fantastic, mind-altering novel by Arthur C. Clarke, also published in '68 and based on the screenplay the author developed with Kubrick, I'm confident that I could now discuss the movie intelligently with my kids. This may be the first time I've regretted not having any.

Following his black comedy Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick wanted to make a science fiction film. At the time, sci-fi was still the juvenile domain of flying saucers and spacemen, schlock basically. But what Kubrick had in mind was a film about man and our relationship with the cosmos. It was recommended that he contact Arthur C. Clarke, who was living in Sri Lanka. Meeting in New York in 1964, Clarke offered Kubrick six of his short stories. The filmmaker selected "The Sentinel," which concerned the discovery of an alien artifact left on the moon by extraterrestrials. In need of more material, Kubrick and Clarke spent two years building around the story, developing a novel, and then a screenplay.

Kubrick, who favored using images and sound to tell a story and held contempt for plot, believed all a movie needed were six to eight "non-submersible units," according to science fiction author Brian Aldiss who worked with Kubrick on A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. These non-submersible units were chunks of story that were so emotionally compelling that they could not sink. If they didn't quite fit together with the other units in the film, that was okay; the tonality encouraged viewers to complete the movie in their own imaginations. There is no better example of non-submersible units than 2001, whose seven parts are given greater clarity by Clarke's novel.

The story unfolds in a series of captivating segments. Three million years ago on the African veldt, a tribe of man-apes are facing extinction. They have no concept of a past and little hope of a future, until the tribe awakens to find a rectangular slab three times their height standing by the river. The monolith emits a vibrating pulse which seems to initiate strange new behaviors in the tribe. Moon-Watcher, the healthiest of the man-apes, is struck by inspiration. He uses bones as tools to kill their enemy, the leopard, and repel a rival tribe for territory. The man-apes pull themselves to the top of the food chain, but no connection is made between their ascent and the appearance of the monolith, which disappears.

In the year 2001, Dr. Heywood Floyd is the sole passenger on the first ever chartered flight to the Moon. He is driven to an excavation site where a geometrically perfect black monolith has been dug up. Exposed to the sun, it directs a vibrating pulse to Saturn. Two years later, the spacecraft Discovery is launched in the first manned expedition to Jupiter and Saturn. The highly advanced computer HAL 9000 begins to exhibit strange behavior, leading to the deaths of several crew members. Bowman narrowly escapes and disables HAL. From Mission Control, Dr. Floyd reveals to Bowman his true mission, which is to investigate the signal the monolith on the moon has transmitted to Saturn.

Bowman reaches his destination, the moon of Japetus orbiting Saturn. He discovers a black monolith the size of a building. His last transmission to Earth baffles mankind for years. Meanwhile, Bowman enters a Star Gate. My three thoughts on 2001 are as follows. I believe in science, and Clarke's writing about evolution and space travel is both succinct and thought-provoking. 2001 hit pop culture at the peak of the space race and is a reminder of the innovation of that time. The monolith is the greatest extraterrestrial ever put on film and in fiction, inspiring and baffling mankind. Perhaps as a result of the film, I did not expect dynamic characters or a diverse cast, but I'm content with the inclusion of female astronauts in more recent science fiction movies. Overall, 2001 opened my mind and blew it away.

“And now Deep Space Monitor 79 had noted something strange—a faint yet unmistakable disturbance rippling across the Solar System, and quite unlike any natural phenomenon it had ever observed in the past.”


I can finally count myself among the readers of 2001: A Space Odyssey, an iconic 1968 science fiction novel that was developed alongside the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film by the same name. I have long been on the hunt for an early sci-fi story that is both readable and enjoyable, and this is it. The writing is highly descriptive, painting vivid pictures of the technologies and scenarios encountered. It strikes a perfect balance, ensuring that even the most casual sci-fi fan can easily understand.


Don't be deterred when the book begins in the age of prehistoric humans. At first, it may seem laughable, and I actually thought I had opened the wrong digital book. I quickly checked the contents and book cover to confirm that I was indeed reading the intended work. The story unfolds in three interconnected parts: prehistoric humans, moon discovery, and deep space mission. I found myself equally engaged in each period, and my interest only grew as I grasped the overall arc that tied them all together.


As for the 1968 film adaptation of the book, opinions will vary. Despite being considered one of the best science fiction films of all time, I was not a fan. The film lacked a clear plot and substantial dialogue, leaving viewers unfamiliar with the novel confused about what was happening. However, if you are a fan of movie scores, you will find them prominent here, to the point of even replacing dialogue with music. Surprisingly, the film does not feel dated, and while it could be enhanced by current technology, it was well-made for its time.


Even if you've never watched the film or read the book, you'll probably recognize the name of the AI computer aboard the deep spaceship – HAL 9000. It is the brain and nervous system that controls everything. We learn that HAL's odd behavior is a result of a strain on his "psyche" due to a conflict of interest in his mission instructions that has not been disclosed to all crew members. I include this minor spoiler in my review in case, like me, you didn't quite put it all together from reading the book.


The ending was the only aspect of the book that prevented me from giving it a five-star rating. While the descriptions throughout the book were clear, the ending felt vague and slightly inconceivable. This doesn't mean it was bad; it just required a bit of effort on my part to understand the subtleties of the themes at play, such as the dangers of technology, evolution, and the perils of nuclear war. This is where having watched the movie prior to reading the book was helpful, as the visuals supplemented the text in a way that reading alone might not have achieved.


This is my second read of Clarke's work, having previously enjoyed The City and the Stars. I am now eager to continue sampling more of his numerous books.

4.5 Stars.

The books of Arthur C. Clarke, at least the ten or so that I have had the pleasure of reading, have been nothing short of consistently excellent and of an extremely high quality.

Whenever I reach for one of his literary works, I can do so with the utmost confidence that I will not be let down.

This particular book is truly terrific.

One should not make the mistake of thinking that just because they have seen the movie adaptation, they already know everything that is going to occur within the pages of the book.

The written word has its own unique power and charm, and in the case of Clarke's work, it allows for a much deeper and more immersive exploration of the story, characters, and ideas.

There are often subtleties and details in the book that may not have been fully captured or emphasized in the movie.

So, even if you are familiar with the movie, I highly recommend giving this book a chance and experiencing it for yourself.

You may be surprised by how much more there is to discover and enjoy.