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?
No comments:
Post a Comment