2001 - A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke

    1968; 256 pages.  Book 1 (out of 4) in the “Space Odyssey” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : First Contact; Hard Science Fiction; Movie Tie-In.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    The evidence is persuasive: extraterrestrial beings have visited us.

 

    They left behind some sort of marker, and we’re not talking crop circles or spaceships either.  Instead, it’s a giant stone monolith buried 30 feet below ground.  Curiously, it was placed on the moon.  Talk about an out-of-the-way location.

 

    Needless to say, we Earthlings didn’t discover it until we made it to the moon and began to analyze what’s beneath its surface.  The slab's strong gravitational field was what clued us in that it wasn't a naturally-occurring object.

 

    Further testing showed that the monolith has been there quite some time.  About three million years, give or take a few millennia.  If some alien civilization possessed space travel technology that long ago, think of how more advanced they must be now.  Although to be honest, burying a marker underground, and on the moon, doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

    I wonder if they left any other monoliths behind for us.

 

What’s To Like...

    2001 – A Space Odyssey is Arthur C. Clarke’s companion book to Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant, spectacular, and incredibly popular 1968 sci-fi movie of the same name.  The "Introduction" in the front of this book (the “Millennial” Edition) details the extensive collaborative effort by these two geniuses to create a blockbuster sci-fi epic, with plans for the film and the novel to be released at the same time.

 

    I’ve seen the movie (three times!) and decided to now read the book.  I was surprised how much they differ, despite the Kubrick/Clarke partnership.  Some examples: the opening “man-ape” scenario in the book is played out in greater detail, with its monolith, dark and silent in the movie, performing some dazzling pyrotechnics.  Later on, HAL’s demise plays out differently and his/its reason for failure is explained in greater detail.  And perhaps most notably, the main mission’s destination in the book is now Saturn; while the movie’s endpoint is Jupiter.  Wikipedia gives a complete list of the differences; the link to it is here.

 

    The overall sequence of scenes is the pretty much the same.  Things start with the man-apes, then hop on a flight to the moon to look at the monolith.  After that, we join HAL, Dave, and Frank on a spaceflight to Jupiter, the final destination in the movie, and a gravitational booster in the book to save on gas for the trip to Saturn, where, when we arrive, we find a familiar object waiting to greet us.

 

    The book is written in a “hard science fiction” style; while the movie focuses on stunning visual effects.  I enjoyed Clarke's choice of the rarely-used but completely-awesome word “waldoes”, and had to YouTube the music references to “Verdi’s Requiem Mass” and the obscure “Walton’s Violin Concerto”.  In light of the present-day pandemic, the book’s mention of China being accused of initiating a “blackmail by synthetic disease” plot was eerily prescient.  And I appreciated Arthur Clarke addressing the urban legend about how the computer HAL got its name.  Hint: it is not a clever transition from the acronym IBM by moving each letter one spot earlier.

 

    The movie-vs-book ending is a trade-off.  You can’t reproduce the movie’s fabulous psychedelic climax with words, but Clarke does give a better explanation of it.  Neither version explains the appearance, purpose, and destiny of the Star Child, and the ease with which it destroys a missile-carrying satellite.  Presumably that will be addressed in the sequel, 2010 – Odyssey Two, which exists in both book and film formats.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 2,728 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.15*/5, based on 280,092 ratings and 6,537 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Quietus (n.) : death, or something that causes death, regarded as a release from life.

Others: Ablative (adj.).

 

 

Excerpts...

    At last, one of Man’s oldest questions had been answered; here was the proof, beyond all shadow of doubt, that his was not the only intelligence that the universe had brought forth.  But with that knowledge there came again an aching awareness of the immensity of Time.  Whatever had passed this way had missed mankind by a hundred thousand generations.  Perhaps, Floyd told himself, it was just as well.  And yet — what we might have learned from creatures who could cross space, while our ancestors were still living in trees!  (loc. 1094)

 

    “Mission Control has just dropped a small bomb on us.”  He lowered his voice, like a doctor discussing an illness in front of the patient.  “We may have a slight case of hypochondria aboard.”

    Perhaps Bowman was not fully awake, after all; it took him several seconds to get the point.  Then he said, “Oh — I see.  What else did they tell you?”

    “That there was no cause for alarm.  They said that twice, which rather spoiled the effect as far as I was concerned.”  (loc. 1878)

 

“The thing’s hollow – it goes on forever – and – oh my God! – it’s full of stars!”  (loc. 2686)

    I don’t really have any quibbles with 2001 – A Space Odyssey, neither with the movie nor the novel.  True, both leave a lot of plot threads unresolved, the movie more so, but the ending in both cases is at a logical point.

 

    The degree of storyline divergence is surprising, particularly in light of the amount of collaboration going on between Clarke and Kubrick, but both of them did a superb job within their respective fields.  We never do meet the monolith-crafting aliens, nor any of the other races of sentient creatures that are implied to exist, but I have no doubt that will be addressed in the rest of the series.

 

    The book version of 2001 – A Space Odyssey was a delight to read, and I was particularly impressed by how closely the hard science fiction proposed in it has matched up with the real-world technological advancements in space travel.  Somehow it seemed fitting that I should read this book in the same week as when Captain James T. Kirk made his ascension into the final frontier.

 

    9 Stars.  I can’t recall any other case of such close collaboration by a movie director and a novelist for the simultaneous development and release of a new movie-&-book combination.  In this age of indie and self-published authors, coupled with TikTok and YouTube video-makers, surely such an alliance should should be common practice.  Authors already co-write novels with other authors.  Why not co-produce your great idea with a movie-maker?