2001: A Space Odyssey
| 2001: A Space Odyssey | ||||||||||||
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Hardcover - USA - 1st Edition. |
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2001: A Space Odyssey is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke and published in 1968. The book was written at the same time as the Stanley Kubrick film adaption and is based off some of Clarke's earlier short stories including "Encounter in the Dawn" and "The Sentinel."
Personal
| Own? | No. |
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| Read? | Audiobook read by Dick Hill. |
| Finished | February 2015 |
Wanting to better increase my familiarity of classic sci-fi, I found an audio book version of this story and listened to it, but I don't remember much from it.
Review
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Overall: |
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— This section contains spoilers! —
Overall, I enjoyed this novel, but it felt pretty disjointed. The three main sections are tied together by a common theme, but not well enough for my tastes. It felt more like three different books in a series. I liked the description of the early ape-men society, and the suspense of finding the monolith on the moon, I also liked the fear of HAL, but overall, I think this was underplayed. Clarke gives away too much to the reader, killing the suspense, and HAL never really seemed like much of a threat despite his hyper-intelligent AI. I also felt the ending was too long and descriptive of things that were essentially impossible to picture in my head. I liked the idea of the alien race using their powers to construct an Earth-like setting based on poorly understood information from Earth, an idea seen over and over again in sci-fi (Contact, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Interstellar, etc.), but since the aliens were essentially god-like, this seems out-of-place.
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