2001: A Space Odyssey

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, but I'd already read the book by then; I was surprised to discover that I no longer have it. I bought the 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.

A 4.5 for me. I found Clarke's insight into technology, written decades ago, profound. Without a doubt a classic - its influence on other more modern works of science fiction is immediately apparent.

Where the book feels self indulgent, the film offers various ways for modern science and audience to adapt to this story. The book prides itself and struts its knowledge as if it has the answers. I believe that it's impossible for this story and that interpretation should be its best friend when it doesn't seem to be. I prefer the film, but I can't deny that the story at hand is the same and it is one of the best to be told. I don't know if I prefer the ape sequence in this or if I just admire the additional depth, but it's extremely effective. High 8/10

worth reading becouse of its place in history. But not that amazing.

I was very disappointed in this, the hype was high, the story was adequate.

This book is truly amazing. I wasn't expecting so much. I was afraid that, as many Sci-Fi classics, it maybe didn't age very well. But fortunately I was proven wrong. I can really say it is Science Fiction, as all the astronomy and astrophysics elements as super accurate (at least for the time when it was first written). And in being scientifically correct it is not pretentious in it. The story is very well written and touches a lot of fundamental questions about who we are, what is consciousness, etc. The title itself gives a hint on what the book is about - a hyperbole of Homer's Odyssey on context of humanity and the vastness of space and time. I will definitely come back to it again. I would put this book easily as the best sci-fi classic I have ever read. Period.