2001: A Space Odyssey was written by science-fiction master Arthur C. Clarke in collaboration with Stanley Kubrick in 1964. They conceived the ideas together and worked concurrently on the novel and screenplay at the same time, adding to each others work. Since it's publication in 1968, it has been hailed as a classic.
Kubrick's vision of the story differs slightly from Clarke's, some things in the movie needed to change from the novel and vice-versa. The film is cerebral, the story of the computer HAL taking over the space ship and sabotaging the mission. I saw HAL as a main character in the story, so I was pleasantly surprised find in the novel a timeless story that is so much larger than that. So many ideas and events of the story have come to pass in space travel that it's amazing to me it was written 50 years ago.
It begins with the discovery by our pre-human ancestors of a giant black monolith. The main ape-man is called the Moon-Watcher and through him we witness an awakening of intelligence within the tribe. We then leap forward to 1999, to the Clavius base on the Moon. Excavation has discovered a long buried black monolith by magnetic disturbance ~ when the sun hits it for the first time, it begins emanating a signal to the Saturn Moon Japetus.
We leap forward to 2001 and the Discovery One mission to Saturn. Dave Bowman and his partner are running the ship, while three other members are in suspended animation. The onboard computer HAL has detected a malfunction in a communications dish, but perhaps the malfunction is within the computer itself. Through a series of mishaps, HAL eliminates the rest of the crew, before being shut down. Bowman is now alone, without communication or a way to return, with months to go before discovering the source of the Saturn transmission. As he approaches Japetus, he sees a black dot on the surface, which gradually reveals itself to be a large black monolith. Bowman leaves the ship in a small one-man craft to begin exploring it.
2001 is a technical science thriller, my favourite, and with it's themes of technological malfunctions and the brain-boggling revelation of the universe, it hasn't dated at all.
I would say it's the best science fiction novel I have read, the concepts are still floating about in my mind. The novel was much more about our experience into into space, rather than my misconception of technology over taking us. The story of human advancement is laid out on a gigantic scale, full of poetry and imagination. Although as Clarke says in his foreword "The truth, as always, will be far stranger."
It was hard to believe that it was written so long ago. Many of the technologies and development of the space flight are foreseen by Clarke, and he is seen as a groundbreaker by both the writing community and the space program.
If you are interested in science fiction, I can highly recommend 2001. I wanted to read the classic and it far exceeded my expectations.
1968 / Paperback / 297 pages
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