This was not a novelization of the film, nor was the film based upon the book. His writing was better than most of his other works, and they are all good for the most part, and I wondered about his collaboration with Stanley Kubrick. Readers will pick up on horrific aspects of the book as well as different angles on his ordinary SF themes. I’ve read quite a few of his books and I can also see that this was a literary stretch for him, he expanded the philosophical approach of most of his canon while telling a story with some very cool elements. This 1953 novel, published 15 years before 2001: A Space Odyssey, describes many of Clarke’s most compelling statements about extraterrestrial life and these themes were revisited in 2001. Something I did not pick up on before is the influence of Clarke’s own earlier work Childhood’s End. I knew back in the day that this was a true science fiction classic, and knew that it was a great work of speculative fiction, but I like it even more now and believe this is one of the greatest SF books. Not just an excellent science fiction novel, this is a work of literature, brilliant. I especially enjoyed the many allusions to other works and found the reference to Melville's Ahab particularly engrossing.Ĭlarke’s prose is clear and descriptive and his story line linear and thought provoking. Thirty years later, I have read it again, and though I may not completely get it the second time around, the more mature reader can better grasp the vision and message of the genius author. Still, though I found it very entertaining, I did not really get it. I read 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was a teenager and knew it was a very influential work of fiction because of the film and all the attention it had received. Kubrick touched the monolith, but Clarke went inside. Unfortunately, Kubrick stripped away the mysticism and theory and left us what is, in comparison to the book, only a glimmer at something bigger. Clarke marries science, mysticism, theory, and fantasy in ways like no other. And completely erased is the notion that David Bowman, as Star Child, is now one with the Universe, in some Zen-like way, and also much more like something we'd called a god.ĭon't get me wrong, 2001 is still one of my favorite films, but to get the full meaning and understand the full weight of why 2001 has been called "the perfect science fiction story," you must read the book. Stripped away by Kubrick is the sense that this being truly wants us to be in its image, and that the whole breadcrumb trail of monoliths was designed to do just that. There is none of Clarke's vision of how a being we'd call God would communicate with us across unfathomable time spans, or teach us, or lead us into higher consciousness. At some points, however, filming overtook writing, or vice versa, and the two stories, though similar, split along two different paths.Īfter reading the book, the film becomes little more than a very well crafted container: It's pretty and neat to look at it, but open it up, and it's empty. What I didn't know, until reading the foreword, is that this novel was literally written in tandem with the film, with Clarke and Kubrick feeding each other ideas. The book is always better than the film, but I'd never read 2001 before. Clarke also won the Nebula Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1972, 19, the Hugo Award of the World Science Fiction Convention in 19, and in 1986 became Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America. Campbell Award for his novel Rendezvous With Rama. He is past Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society, a member of the Academy of Astronautics, the Royal Astronomical Society, and many other scientific organizations.Īuthor of over fifty books, his numerous awards include the 1961 Kalinga Prize, the AAAS-Westinghouse science writing prize, the Bradford Washburn Award, and the John W. He is best known for the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he co-created with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.Ĭlarke was a graduate of King's College, London where he obtained First Class Honours in Physics and Mathematics. He spent the first half of his life in England, where he served in World War Two as a radar operator, before emigrating to Ceylon in 1956. Sir Arthur Charles Clarke was one of the most important and influential figures in 20th century science fiction.
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