2001: A Space Odyssey

Oh man, what a fun, fun read. This tickled all my love for theoretical astrophysics, philosophy about the human condition, and just pushed all of those to the extremity of imagination.

I've not watched the movie myself, but it was also interesting to note that Clarke co-wrote the screenplay with Kubrick on the film, while also working on the novel. Most books and films come one after the other, I think this is my first time coming across a book that is tied so closely to its filmic counterpart.

It's not difficult to see how much the movie Interstellar was inspired by 2001. The story beats are almost identical, although it diverges in its ending. It is the story of a human being who tumbles his way through space towards Saturn, where he finds something beyond all human imagination. The film 2001 has become so iconic that it's hard to know what would constitute a spoiler or not, since so many of its scenes have been widely reproduced and paid homage to by big name directors of today.

This isn't so much what I pictured for a sci-fi novel because it's very much us in our modern world, and perhaps even more realistic today than it was back in 1968 when it was first written, because we've achieved some of the technology Clarke envisioned in this book (in fact, the iPod was named after a line from the movie when it was released in 2001), and have gotten several steps closer to the wilder bits of Clarke's imagination. This book/movie was released in the age of the Space Race, and a year before humans landed on the Moon), a momentous time in human history but also in a time before a lot of technological advancement that we are familiar with today. Some of the things that Clarke envisioned turned out pretty accurate (he correctly predicted that the global population would hit about 6 billion in 2001), and things like the NewsPad devices in this book might have been the inspiration for our ubiquitous iPads today. Some things surpassed even Clarke's imagination - he described the tally of Jupiter's moons as being unbelievably past 30, but we've now discovered 79. He also thought of Jupiter having a surface at all, when it is now common knowledge that Jupiter is a gas giant that doesn't have any kind of rocky surface.

This book was fairly short and goes by really quick, but manages to concisely explore the astrophysical theories that it sets forth. It's engaging enough that I blazed through it in a couple of days. It mixes some beautiful descriptive passages of space travel through our Solar System (entirely from Clarke's imagination since we would only have had very basic and rudimentary photographs of the planets at the time, which makes it all the more amazing), and an absorbing mystery through time and space with several twists and turns.

Because it's so short, I'd really recommend it to just about anyone, but especially those who love theoretical astrophysics, philosophy, and just a good ol' sci-fi mystery. The movie might be polarising in the way it was shot, but I feel that the book is more universally appealing in its storytelling and conveying its ideas.

I never fully understood the movie. There are long scenes without any explanation, chimps jumping up and down, unusual scenes without context. Reading this book added that context in every case. Any places I was confused or had questions have now been answered. The book is actually really good sci fi - a precursor to Interstellar or Contact I'm more ways than one. Great read by itself, or even better if you want to understand more from the movie.

The book was written in parallel with the film, both of them before the first man stepped on the Moon, and they're both dated by this. They survive by being well crafted, but they're period pieces.

The book seems ponderous by modern standards. It tells quite an exciting story, but lingers over every detail: Clarke takes a scientist's interest in everything that's going on, and he assumes that his readers have the same interest.

It's a classic story, the encounter between the human and the superhuman, and Clarke tells it well enough, he deserves credit for it. Each stage of the story is told competently, and yet in the manner of a scientist, without flair. It's all a very odd business, because it comes to us from the late 1960s, a time of hallucinations, from a man born in 1917 who was largely immune to it all, and went his own way regardless.

I saw the film in about 1972, and probably bought the book soon afterwards, but I was amazed to discover that I no longer have it. I bought a Kindle version just recently in order to reread it. I don't seem to have read it in the last 30 or 40 years. It's not essential reading, but it seems an interesting part of the history of science fiction.

I never fully understood the movie. There are long scenes without any explanation, chimps jumping up and down, unusual scenes without context. Reading this book added that context in every case. Any places I was confused or had questions have now been answered. The book is actually really good sci fi - a precursor to Interstellar or Contact I'm more ways than one. Great read by itself, or even better if you want to understand more from the movie.

One more proof of the fact, that the classic sci-fi books (Asimov, Herbert, Clarke) are worlds apart from modern soap operas. Even though they can sometimes be naive and technological progress has already proved some of their assumptions wrong, there's something in them that modern sci-fi books lack, even with all their AI grandeur.
I still love space operas, but reading books like 2001 from time to time is a special kind of pleasure

5.0

“If you understand 2001: A Space Odyssey completely, we failed.” - Stanley Kubrick

This book is ahead beyond its time, way before we even first set foot in the Moon. Clarke's imagination literally transcends into the universe. Most people who have both read the books and seen the movies will tell you to read the book first in order to fully understand the film. Well, they're not wrong after all.

Right after I finished reading this today, I opened up Netflix as I feel like I need to see the film immediately. I wouldn't even understand the movie if I haven't read the book first. Everything's too ambiguous and downright confusing. Both the print and screen version are mindbenders that requires a few more getting-into. You will never fully understand this in the first reading. Scratch that. You will never fully understand this in forever. Read the quote above, and you'll understand my point.

This book will make you think about the greater scheme of man about the universe. All of the things that we know, and may never know, in a human race's lifetime. It will question your role, you as a human, on the universe and what will happen way past beyond that.

This book is literally an “odyssey” of the mind so if you're a fan of books that do all the thinking for you, steer away from this. However, I recommend this if you're a fan of mind-boggling books. It's appropriate for any age group. Read this and I can guarantee you that this will probably be one of the best sci-fi books you've ever come contact with.

Vor einigen Jahren habe ich Kubricks Verfilmung zu 2001 gesehen. Was davon hängen geblieben ist waren die Popkultur Einflüsse und eine nicht endende Lightshow am Ende. Den Film habe ich für mich als overhyped und als nicht vereinbar mit meinen 2010er Jahren Sehverhalten abgelegt.
Nun habe ich in meiner gerade blühenden SciFi Phase dieses Buch aus dem Schrank geholt, welches ich vor einigen Jahren von einem Arbeitskollegen bekommen hatte und bisher sein Leben als Regaldekoration Fristen musste.

Was soll ich sagen - es war eine Erfahrung. Zum einen ist es kurz. Und es liest sich schnell weg. Auch all die Szenen sie wir aus Kubricks Film kennen sind drin. Aber anstelle der niemals endenden LSD Lichtshow war hier einfach nochmal ein gutes Stück Handlung versteckt. Im Nachhinein sogar die beste im Buch. Clarke hat ein Händchen dafür kosmische Begebenheiten zu beschreiben, die einen direkt ein spannendes Bild geben. Beispielsweise seine Beschreibung von Jupiter und Saturn. (Chefkoch-Zwei-Finger-Kuss GIF hier vorstellen) Und im im letzten Viertel haut er richtig raus. ..

4,5/5 oder so.

This was spectacular!
I don't know whether I can find a better word to describe it, nor whether I need to.
This is hands down the best sci-fi book I have read so far, with the most beautiful ending.
There was not a moment of this book that I didn't enjoy.
If you haven't yet read it, please do yourself a favour and pick it up.

Being a classic of the genre of science fiction, this has been on my “to read” list for a very long time. I think I kept postponing it because I always thought the movie was kind of boring (although I need to re-watch it now that I'm older, I think it might have just been too cerebral for me as a younger child when I first watched it).

I listened to the audiobook, which was fantastic. Arthur C. Clarke read the introduction himself, which told how he wrote the book with Stanley Kubrick with the intention of making a movie. Also of note is they were writing this as the “space age” was in it's early infancy, which is cool to think about as you're reading the novel.

In the end, I enjoyed this quite a bit. Now, I'm wondering about reading 2010... What do you think? Is it worth it?

Hmm. I'm not sure what to think about this one. I probably did it a disservice using this book as my “read while falling asleep if I go to bed before my wife” book. That means it was read occasionally, in small pieces, sometimes while struggling to keep my eyes open, until I finished it one day while waiting to apply for a passport and reading the final 80 pages or so.

I've probably seen the movie, but don't remember much about it except the iconic scenes. I do want to have the voice of HAL for a GPS and for my voice mail. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the book for me was the Forward to the Millennial Edition. That was pretty riveting.

As for the book itself, although I only rated it three stars, it will likely go up over time. I appreciate the seminal nature of the book, the unique process by which it came to be, and the impact on society. I feel I missed a lot by not giving it the attention I think it needs, because I missed a lot. I am, however, now spending a lot of time watching reviews, videos on the difference between the book and the movie, and generally picking up many of the things I missed. I'll definitely be rereading it.

Knowing the great swaths of information that was left out of the movie I have little desire to try to see it again as a way to understand the book better, but I am interested in watching it for its artistic merit and the amount of controversy it spawns from people who “just don't get it.”

I don't think Arthur C. Clarke is just destined to disappoint me. I did quite enjoy Rendezvous with Rama, and I do look forward to reading Childhood's End, but I don't have a driving desire to read more of the Rama series or the Space Odyssey series. Am I missing out? Am I not “getting” Clarke and his writing? Perhaps I need to focus more on the ideas than the execution. In the meantime, when I put a book down and I'm spending my time thinking about it instead of running to grab the next one, then there is definitely something to be said for the book. Perhaps that reread will be sooner rather than later.

Going into this book, I never would have thought that reading it would be such a chore. But, at the same time, I can see why it was so influential when it was first published. The prehistoric section was an interesting intro to the whole book. And then pace takes a dip. It picks back up when Hal starts doing his thing. And then the last section was interesting and boring at the same time. The main thing that I didn't care for was the exposition, even though Bowman found himself in an extraordinary situation. It was a roller coaster of a read and I really had to concentrate in order to not lose interest in some sections. I don't know if I'll continue on with this series.

Libro maestoso, autentico mostro sacro della fantascienza. Non si può essere appassionati di questo genere di lettura se non si è mai letto “2001: Odissea nello spazio”.

Tutto comincia tre milioni di anni fa con l'apparizione inquietante di un monolito sulla Terra, struttura aliena dotata di straordinari poteri che accese la scintilla dell'intelligenza nelle scimmie trasformandole in esseri umani. All'alba del ventunesimo secolo all'apice delle conquiste spaziali terrestri un identico monolito nero viene trovato sulla Luna. Questo segna l'inizio dell'avventura del comandante Dave Bowman, del suo vice Frank Poole e del supercomputer Hal a bordo dell'astronave Discovery.

Scritto negli anni 1964-1968, vero precursore dei tempi, ricordiamo che ancora l'uomo non aveva allunato è pieno di dettagli tecnici e di invenzioni stupefacenti: realisticamente è costruito in maniera perfetta; in contemporanea con la lavorazione dell'omonimo film di Stanley Kubrick e giunto sugli scaffali mentre il film usciva nelle sale, da vita a quasi due storie diverse. E' impossibile credo, parlare di questa storia e scindere la pellicola dal libro. Clarke più legato alla realtà, ai dettagli tecnici, Kubrick al simbolismo e al misticismo.

Se ovviamente Clarke ha abbondato di dettagli tecnici ha di contro lesinato un poco sulla caratterizzazione dei personaggi, ma perché probabilmente non era questo quanto ci si prefiggeva. Tanto più scarsa è la descrizione dei personaggi umani, quanto è più meravigliosa e costruita eccellentemente quella del supercomputer HAL, meraviglia umana di ‘intelligenza artificiale, che cadrà poi nella totale nevrosi e follia.

Un libro davvero eccezionale, dilatato nel tempo e quasi privo di dialoghi per dare spazio ad argomenti come le chiavi dell'esistenza umana, la scoperta dell'ignoto e forse il conflitto con Dio: un viaggio che comincia nel passato remoto di tre milioni di anni fa e finisce con un viaggio interstellare, nel tempo, e all'interno della stessa mente umana.

Bello come sola certa fantascienza di classe sa essere, anche se perde un qualcosa nel finale, che mi ha lasciato un po' perplesso, o forse immaginavo qualcosa di diverso come degna conclusione del viaggio della Discovery. Sicuramente da consigliare con in accoppiata con il film di Kubrick, per gustarsi a 360 gradi questa meraviglia. E per guardare nell'occhio rosso di Hal 9000.

A timeless masterpiece. What's not to love about classic science fiction like this? The beginning of the story is very strong and surprising. The buildup to the science fiction world is a masterclass. And the way the characterization is done, the reader can feel the broken, depressed psyche of each character, be it an AI. The ending is also very strong and surprising. I want to read the next books in the series, but it is not easy to pass such an epic saga.