So, tonight I’m starting the book version of 2001. I’ve read it before, but it’s been years. I’ve seen the film a few times recently. I read 2010 back in high school and think I’ve seen the movie but don’t remember a thing about it, was in college and my mind was definitely altered at the time.
No experience with 2061 or 3001.
Let’s hope I don’t get too frustrated and want to quit halfway through.
What’s been your experience?
Edit: these are all old books, not worried about spoilers
It’s been decades since I read those books, but here’s how I remember them:
2001 - Great novel; one of my all-time favorite books.
2010 - Interesting and entertaining, but not quite as impressive as 2001.
2061 - Significantly weaker than the previous two books.
3001 - ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz
2061 is interesting only in that it portrays an advanced Chinese space program that boldly lands on a part of the solar system that the “landlords” told us to avoid. And something interesting happens.
That occurrence was later used as the central idea in the movie “Europa Report” which seemed so promising…until it kind of fell apart.
3001 had some cool ideas about humanity finally learning to take good care of their mother planet, evacuating up to a space station around Earth’s equator and treating the planet’s surface as a vast nature preserve. The station is very large; it’s in geostationary orbit if I recall correctly, and connected to the surface using spokes, “space elevators” of the kind he proposed in his other book, “Fountains of Paradise.” There’s a plot involving one of the 2001 astronauts whom they discovered and revived. Can’t remember much else.
Please consider strongly stopping after 2010. The other two just aren’t worth the time. 2010 is only worth the time because it answers questions about what happened to HAL and Dave.
And please, please don’t bother reading any of the Rama sequels. None of them are worth the time it takes to read their titles, and they get worse exponentially.
Amazon often has the Rama sequels on sale and they’ve got such awful reviews that I’ve steered clear.
As far as Odyssey, well, I own them now on Kindle so I’ll start plugging away. If they get so awful, I can always abandon ship. I don’t think I paid more than $2.99 for any of them. None of the books are super long, so I should be able to push through.
If I am recalling correctly, the epilogue in “Fountains of Paradise” describes such a space station in the distant future - a complete ring around the Earth connected to the ground via a number of space elevators. A touch of “Childhood’s End” thrown in as well with humans evolving supernatural powers.
I re-read those books about a year ago. One thing that stood out to me was the complete regurgitation of sections from one book to the next. From hearing about how good of a sci-fi writer he was and then experiencing the above I was a little disappointed. YMMV…
MtM
If I may…
Arthur C Clarke is wonderful and all, but once you’ve gotten the feel of his stuff, the gist of it, you might want to read similar stuff from other authors. For instance, ACC’s “Rama” books are great, and if you like that, then also try “EON” by Greg Bear, a rather underrated author. EON uses as its main plot device (IIRC) a Rama-like object appearing near the Earth, that when entered by astronauts, is found to go on infinitely along a central axis. And its makers use it for time and space travel. Interesting…
If you want a real gut punch, try Bear’s two book series Forge of God / Anvil of Stars, which were written out of chronological order, describing the end of the world and its aftermath. It was bad guys who did it, using self-replicating planet killer robots. The way he portrays the end of the Earth, and humanity’s reaction to it, is chillingly realistic. In the “second” book, some good guys helped the surviving (rescued) children of earth track down the bad guys and bring them to justice.
Clarke ebooks are constantly going on sale; right now, ten of them are $1.99 on Amazon. I don’t think I’ve ever paid full price for one. I’m not sure what’s up with that, but it’s a great deal for anyone getting into ACC.
I absolutely love the writing of Greg Bear. Interesting that Amazon went through a phase where his ebooks were often on sale, so I’ve accumulated a few of them. I’ll definitely look through them to see which ones I haven’t gotten to.
I don’t remember if I read 3001 or not, so take that as a review!
I didn’t think 2061 was that bad. But I have one question. And it’s such a minor thing. I think it was in 2061and not 2010.
When Dave Bowman is remembering how him and his brother used an air compressor to get air for diving, and the brother goes deep and dies, the book treats it like you’re supposed to know why that is bad. Well, I’m not a diver and I still don’t know why. Can someone explain what happened?
Admittedly, there’s a ton of sci fi I don’t remember if I’ve read or not from the 80s and 90s. So much of it blurred together.
I seem to recall a line about how the air compressor was putting out a high concentration of carbon monoxide, for some reason (it was described as “ancient”).
An ordinary air compressor would of course be using the usual mixture and proportions of nitrogen and oxygen, but that’s notwhat you want for deep diving, because of the bends.
Arthur C. Clarke’s biggest strength, I think, was the ability to deliver an emotional gut punch at the end of a story that makes you rethink all the rest of it. But that’s something that works much better in short story format than in a novel. See, for instance, “The Nine Billion Names of God”, or “The Star”, or the less well-known but great “Hatred”.
Actually, it’s probably true of science fiction in general that it works better in short story form than novels.
It has been a very long time since I read the book but it could have been one of two reasons. First normal air becomes toxic at a depth of 60 meters (200 feet); below that you need to use heliox. The second, and more likely reason, is that the exhaust was too close to the intake and the diver was poisoned with carbon monoxide.
I might be nuts but I’m sure I read something years before 2010 (or 2061 which ever it was) about Jacques Cousteau experimenting with early SCUBA gear. It was essentially the same story except he survived CO poisoning and dangerous disorientation. After he came up he looked at his compressor and watched the exhaust being sucked into the air intake.
Stop there. I couldn’t finish 2061 and I understand 3001 is worse.
I read all three a long, long time ago. 2001 and 2010 were already well out and in existent by the time I read them. I was a bit confused in 2001 why they went to Saturn, when in the movie they went to Jupiter, then in 2010, both the book and the movie both went to Jupiter. (I am aware now of the behind the scenes issues)
Then 2061 came out, and I read that. There were certainly parts that I enjoyed, some parts that I remember well. Clarke went on and on about orbital mechanics, which I found fascinating.
By the time 3001 came out, I was a bit more hesitant, but still got the book and consumed it. Different story, more of a man out of time story. Think “Futurama” but boring rather than ridiculous.
I really liked EON, but I could never read it again, knowing as I do now that spinning up Thistledown would have just caused the whole rock to break up and go flying across the solar system.
2010 is more a straight novel with a story arc, rather than 2001 which tackles more complex themes in an almost stream-of-conciousness telling - which was well captured in the movie.
Agree on the general negative views re 2061 and 3001.
Clark had some brilliant ideas, but he was amongst the worst writers of dialogue ever. He’s fond of using a situation such as two characters sitting down having a cup of tea for one of them to expand on at length about some critical technological or scientific fact that will be crusial to the story. It’s just clunky.
Oh - and the Rama series. Book 1 - one of the best books I (and many others) have read.
The rest - firelighters.
Yeah, like some other great SF writers, Clarke has a tendency to write the kind of dialogue where, by the end, everyone (including the author) has lost track of which character is speaking which part.
Compare Asimov’s robot stories: The only reason why Donovan and Powell are two characters is so he doesn’t have to talk to himself.