# Question about book: "2010 Space Odyssey 2"...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 12, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031 "2016-04-12T18:50:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McDeath_the_Mad)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/1 "2016-04-12T18:50:42Z")
I’m just in the process of re-reading “The Space Odyssey” series by Arthur C. Clarke. I haven’t read them in probably 30 years.
One thing I totally forgot about and really blows me away is how the second book (“2010: Space Odyssey 2”) drastically changes events that happened in the first book (“2001: Space Odyssey 1”) because of the changes Stanley Kubrick made in the movie.
I understand a writer or director will make changes to movies based on books, but when an author writes a sequel to his first book one would assume the first book would be “cannon” and not the movie based on the book.
In the book all of the action takes place on a moon around Saturn, in the movie it takes place on Europa (a moon around Jupiter). In the book the spaceship discovery is abandoned in space without any fuel.
In the second book Arthur C. Clarke starts off where the movie left off. Everything happened on Europa and the Discovery spacecraft has fuel left in it.
Any idea why Arthur C. Clarke changed his book? And does anyone know of any other examples of this happening?
MtM
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### Author:  [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/2 "2016-04-12T20:25:14Z")
My copy of _2010_ (last read decades ago, so …) had an intro in which Clarke said that because so many more people had seen the movie than read the book, he was starting from the events at the end of the movie.
FWIW, the movie wasn’t exactly an adaptation of the book. Clarke and Kubrick worked out the story together, then Clarke wrote it as a novel and Kubrick made it as a movie. Maybe this made Clarke more sympathetic to the movie than an author would usually be? I don’t know.
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### Author:  [@Panthan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panthan)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2016, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/3 "2016-04-12T21:44:52Z")
> [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](#):
>
> And does anyone know of any other examples of this happening?
> MtM
Malcolm died in the novel Jurassic Park, but survived the movie and recovered for the novel Lost World.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/4 "2016-04-12T21:45:41Z")
In 2001 the book the monolith is on Iapetus, which has sides of different albedos which Clarke used as a clue (and which turns out to be natureal.) . Jupiter is easier to get to than Saturn, and he used Europa as a major plot point.
However Floyd in 2010 the movie and the book is a lot more like Floyd in 2001 the book than the smiling robot in the movie.
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2016, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/5 "2016-04-12T22:27:47Z")
When “The Poseidon Adventure” became a runaway hit in theaters, Paul Gallico wrote a sequel that picked up where the movie left off–in the original book, the ship sinks, for one. The sequel novel was not used for the movie adaptation, the producers started from scratch and we ended up with Michael Caine, Karl Malden and Sally Field in one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Gallico’s sequel was slightly better. Everybody should have quit while they were ahead. Including Wolfgang Petersen.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2016, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/6 "2016-04-12T22:36:35Z")
> [@Panthan](#):
>
> Malcolm died in the novel Jurassic Park, but survived the movie and recovered for the novel Lost World.
He was just sleeping.
Clarke stated that the _2001/2010/2061/3001_ novels take place in separate but similar narratve universes, and so the inconsistances are intentional. It’s a great approach to dealing with the inevitable inconsistances that arise from writing a series of books across decades, especially when Kubrick decided to change the destination because of the difficulty in representing a realistic Saturn with the SFX of the day. Practically, Saturn makes more sense as a destination for a crewed mission since it doesn’t have the intense magnetic field and ionizing radiation evnvironment of Jupiter, but that was unknown at the time that _2001: A Space Odyssey_ (film and novel) were released.
Anyway, the planetary destination isn’t really germane to the themes of the story, which speak to humanity being evolutionarily overtaken by its own tools, and the existential horror of coming into contact with a technologically superior alien species which could wink us out of existance in a heartbeat (or whatever substitute they have for respiration). Compared to the Watchers, the Borg or Cylons or whatever are paper people.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2016, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/7 "2016-04-12T22:56:59Z")
> [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](#):
>
> In the book all of the action takes place on a moon around Saturn, in the movie it takes place on Europa (a moon around Jupiter). In the book the spaceship discovery is abandoned in space without any fuel.
>
> In the second book Arthur C. Clarke starts off where the movie left off. Everything happened on Europa and the Discovery spacecraft has fuel left in it.
>
> Any idea why Arthur C. Clarke changed his book?
The second novel’s plot was about taking a world with primitive life and accelerating its development.
Astronomers have speculated that Europa really may contain life. Thus it is a suitable location for the novel.
There are no worlds around Saturn that could plausibly contain life.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/8 "2016-04-12T23:09:40Z")
Titan, although too cold to support liquid water, could have organisms using methane in a similar role, and is rich in complex hydrocarbons. Enceladus is though to almost certainly have a body of liquid water below the frozen surface. In any case, the real mission for _Discovery_ wasn’t native planetary organisms but TMA-2, the second alien monolith after the Tycho artifact which TMA-1 transmitted to. In the novel, TMA-2 was found on the surface of Iapetus.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/9 "2016-04-13T21:55:02Z")
> [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](#):
>
> And does anyone know of any other examples of this happening?
In the novel _Prizzi’s Honor_, the lead character bears very little resemblance to Jack Nicholson. When he started to write the sequel, _Prizzi’s Family_, Richard Condon said that he tried to write about the original character, but he couldn’t get Nicholson’s portrayal out of his mind.
In Richard Condon’s novel, _First Blood_, Rambo dies at the end. When they made _Rambo: First Blood Part II_, Condon wrote the novelization of the screenplay. He claims that there were things he wanted to do with the character for artistic reasons. One suspects that there was a paycheck involved.
In the early James Bond novels, Bond is quintessentially English. When they filmed _Doctor No_, Ian Fleming thought Sean Connery was completely wrong for the role. (He wanted David Niven, or Roger Moore.) However, in the later novels, Fleming’s descriptions of Bond are a pretty close match with Connery, and Fleming added a Scottish element to Bond’s backstory.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/10 "2016-04-14T15:26:02Z")
> [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](#):
>
> I’m just in the process of re-reading “The Space Odyssey” series by Arthur C. Clarke. I haven’t read them in probably 30 years.
>
> One thing I totally forgot about and really blows me away is how the second book (“2010: Space Odyssey 2”) drastically changes events that happened in the first book (“2001: Space Odyssey 1”) because of the changes Stanley Kubrick made in the movie.
>
> I understand a writer or director will make changes to movies based on books, but when an author writes a sequel to his first book one would assume the first book would be “cannon” and not the movie based on the book.
(Nitpick: “canon”, not “cannon”)
I’m currently reading Gary Wolf’s _Who P-p-p-plugged Roger Rabbit?_ sequel to _Who Censored Roger Rabbit?_, the book they based the movie _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_\* on.
Wolf’s book isn’t exactly a sequel to his first book, but sort of takes elements from both his book and the movie to create a composite mythology. He sort of had to – more people saw the movie than read his original novel. He’s since written a third Roger Rabbit book, which I assume is set in the same universe.
So writers can definitely bow to the situations dictated by the movie version. Especially if the movie version is a cultural icon like **2001** or **Roger Rabbit**.
I mean, heck, look at the “new” James Bond novels that came out after Fleming’s death. Although Kingsley Amis (_Colonel Sun_) and Sebastian Faulks (_Devil May Care_) follow in Fleming’s footsteps, as if the movies never existed., just about everyone else who has written them assumes at least some of the details of the Bond films are canon. For that matter, Fleming himself acknowledged the films in his novel _On Her Majesty’s Secret Service_.
\*Wolf’s book titles all have the question mark in them, but the film _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_ doesn’t. It’s claimed that this is due to some Hollywood superstition/tradition against question marks in titles. Although this one apparently doesn’t know about that – [?: A Question Mark (2012) - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2378057/) . Which may be why I never heard of it before.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/11 "2016-04-14T17:34:40Z")
> [@mbh](#):
>
> [Condon] claims that there were things he wanted to do with the character for artistic reasons. One suspects that there was a paycheck involved.
Heinlein once declared that the apex of English prose reads, “Pay to the order of…”.
Speaking of Condon, in _The Manchurian Candidate_, he lifted a bit about the physical relationship between Senator and Mrs. Islin word-for-word from Robert Grave’s\* I Claudius\*, where it described the relationship between Augustus and Livia. It’s such an extended passage that it cannot possibly be accidental, and it is so blatant that I have occasionally wondered if he had Grave’s OK to use it.
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/12 "2016-04-14T20:36:30Z")
> [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](#):
>
> In the book all of the action takes place on a moon around Saturn, in the movie it takes place on Europa (a moon around Jupiter). In the book the spaceship discovery is abandoned in space without any fuel.
I don’t recall the Discovery being out of fuel, but then it’s been ages since I read the book. Was it never planned to have enough for a return trip, did HAL jettison some to sabotage the mission, or was it something else?
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### Author:  [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/13 "2016-04-14T20:58:33Z")
Discovery had fuel, they used it as a first stage to bring them back after they were warned to run.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/14 "2016-04-14T21:31:37Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> . . . Gary Wolf [has]since written a third Roger Rabbit book, which I assume is set in the same universe. . . .
Brief aside: thank you for noting this! I had no idea! “Who Wacked Roger Rabbit?” I just went and glommed it as a Kindle book. Turns out there’s also “The Road To Toontown,” a collection of Wolf’s short stories, including some in the Rabbitverse. Thank you most kindly!
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/15 "2016-04-14T21:37:40Z")
> [@Grey](#):
>
> Discovery had fuel, they used it as a first stage to bring them back after they were warned to run.
In the movie (and the sequel books), yes, it did. Re-read the OP; **McDtM** is saying that in Clarke’s original novel Discovery is abandoned without fuel. I don’t remember that from the book; curious if any reason is given why it ran out.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/16 "2016-04-15T00:37:15Z")
The reason it would run out is obvious: the mission was re-configured to a higher-velocity flight, burning more fuel in the launch phase and then again in the deceleration or terminal phase.
The original mission probably envisioned using only half the fuel, so the ship could come back to earth-orbit again later. But the discovery (!) of alien intelligence prompted an emergency mission, sacrificing the ship (and requiring a later rescue mission to retrieve the astro- and cybernauts.
(One presumes it was not a suicide mission!)
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/17 "2016-04-15T02:43:00Z")
Lots of movies have titles ending with question marks:
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/18 "2016-04-15T03:42:14Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> The reason it would run out is obvious: the mission was re-configured to a higher-velocity flight, burning more fuel in the launch phase and then again in the deceleration or terminal phase.
>
> The original mission probably envisioned using only half the fuel, so the ship could come back to earth-orbit again later. But the discovery (!) of alien intelligence prompted an emergency mission, sacrificing the ship (and requiring a later rescue mission to retrieve the astro- and cybernauts.
>
> (One presumes it was not a suicide mission!)
A three-million year old object sent a signal toward Saturn so we have to get there _right now!_ Return trip? Yeah, we’ll send somebody to pick you up.
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/19 "2016-04-15T14:50:01Z")
> [@mbh](#):
>
> … In Richard Condon’s novel, _First Blood_, Rambo dies at the end. When they made _Rambo: First Blood Part II_, Condon wrote the novelization of the screenplay. He claims that there were things he wanted to do with the character for artistic reasons. One suspects that there was a paycheck involved. …
No idea who wrote the novelization of the sequel, but David Morrell wrote the original _First Blood_ novel.
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-book-2010-space-odyssey-2/752031/20 "2016-04-15T14:58:04Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#):
>
> No idea who wrote the novelization of the sequel, but David Morrell wrote the original _First Blood_ novel.
Morrell did. He also wrote the novelization of **Rambo III** \*. He has publicly stated that he’s fine with them continuing the series, even though his character died in the original novel.
As I indicated in another thread, it’s exactly the same with Gary Wolf and his Roger Rabbit character who died in the original novel (Yes! Roger Rabbit has something in common with John Rambo!), but who has written two more Roger Rabbit novels since.
_The very title of Rambo III bothers me. There was never a Rambo II – there was First Blood, followed by Rambo – First Blood Part II. You’d think the next movie would be (Something) – First Blood Part III_\*, but I guess that would be too confusing. I’ll bet more people knew about and saw _Rambo (FB PtII)_ than saw _First Blood_, so it would make sense.
\*\* Or even _Rambo II – First Blood part III_
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