johanna reviewed 2061: Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke (Odyssey #3)
a mixed bag
3 stars
Content warning spoiler
The parts that fascinated me about especially 2010 really came out once more in this book. Where I learned a lot about especially Jupiters moons in 2010, I learned a bunch about Halley's comet and I have to say the first half of the book is my favourite.
There are many things I found intruiging, like the way that people who have been off Earth for too long cannot return because their bodies got too used to lighter gravity. A nice touch. I have to say I didn't get much of the stuff about South Africa. I don't know much about it so a lot of the political elaborations of Africa and Asia kind of went past me.
I have to say the abscense of Hal and Dave Bowman didn't bother me very much. I know many people are only into the series for them, and I get why, but I found it entertaining even without them.
I think in some ways the problems of this book are similar to the problems of the first book, 2001, and ofc the movie 2001. There are too many characters. This book has the advantage of them all living at the same time though. I think the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey is mostly about the evil computer to people, with some wondering why there's, like, an hour of different shit happening in it.
Anyway, back to 2061. I can imagine the amount of characters can get confusing if you read this casually. My least favourite part about this book is probably the ending, which is very weak in my opinion. I do appreciate the explanation of why they turned Jupiter into a sun in 2010 (up til then you were lead to believe they kinda did that just cuz) and I can even get into the idea of there having been Jovian lifeforms that were wiped out because of this. It perhaps adds a nice touch to the horror aspect I talked about before. But I don't really get why Floyd is now both alive as a normal guy and transcended humanity. Like I get it happened in his dream? But it feels like a copout. Lame.
If you didn't like 2010 and especially if you didn't like anything about it beside the stuff about the computer, you definitely won't like this one. One funny thing though is that Haywood Floyd only has two friends and they're a gay couple with a parrot and one of them sends him a message complaining about how gay warlords from history give him a bad rap. Which was not at all plot relevant and kind of hilarious.
