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Missing for two hundred millennia, the legendary Iconians have returned, bringing with them the secret …
As always it was pretty okay and filled me with a familiar sense of rage at the author. same old, same old.
A thousand years after the Jupiter Mission, astronaut Frank Poole is recovered and revived. He …
much easier to get through than especially 2061, but ultimately very flat. many aspects should have been explored more. the utopia is incredibly dystopian in some ways that i think are worth exploring in context with the frightening nature of the "ultimate evolution" that so coldly decides over the life and death of the species it interferes with. it was quite fun and silly at times, not hard to get through and cleared up some mysteries. but especially since i can tell the author truly meant for the depicted society to be good and not as obviously alarming as it was to me, i can't give it, as Dave said "the benefit of the doubt" as much as i would like.
A thousand years after the Jupiter Mission, astronaut Frank Poole is recovered and revived. He …
okay
Did you miss him? Admit it, you missed him.
The demon that terrorized Gravity Falls …
nice
A re-visitation of the imaginative future painted by Arthur C. Clarke in his previous two …
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.
A re-visitation of the imaginative future painted by Arthur C. Clarke in his previous two …
it was okay
A re-visitation of the imaginative future painted by Arthur C. Clarke in his previous two …
The whole part about being on Halley's Comet was so fucking cool! I don't even care about Europa anymore atp man I wish they'd just stayed a little longer on Halley rn fr.
A re-visitation of the imaginative future painted by Arthur C. Clarke in his previous two …
So far it's fine. I think trying to land on Halley's Comet sounds exciting.
When 2001: A Space Odyssey first shocked, amazed, and delighted millions in the late 1960s, …
I thought this book was more beautifully written than the first! The poetic and somewhat detailed descriptions of celestial phenomena drew me in, as well as the rich cast of characters as seen from Floyds perspective.
I think there is a lot of horror to this series that I am not altogether sure was 100% intended to be viewed as such. Certainly some things are obviously meant to be scary and evoke loneliness etc, but nothing to me is sadder or more terrible than the thought and description of these Gods and their impact on our creation and lives, as well as the direct influence on Bowman, who is little more than a tool for most of the book. Very depressing!
I really loved the descriptions of the evolved life on Europa in the last chapter. So fascinating and fun to think about; I don't think I can name another …
I thought this book was more beautifully written than the first! The poetic and somewhat detailed descriptions of celestial phenomena drew me in, as well as the rich cast of characters as seen from Floyds perspective.
I think there is a lot of horror to this series that I am not altogether sure was 100% intended to be viewed as such. Certainly some things are obviously meant to be scary and evoke loneliness etc, but nothing to me is sadder or more terrible than the thought and description of these Gods and their impact on our creation and lives, as well as the direct influence on Bowman, who is little more than a tool for most of the book. Very depressing!
I really loved the descriptions of the evolved life on Europa in the last chapter. So fascinating and fun to think about; I don't think I can name another story that proposes the idea of life evolving in the Solar System after we did. Great stuff. Of course all controlled by the awesome power of the faceless and bodiless Gods and creators of the monoliths.
I had already seen the movie adaptation so there are no big reveals for me here. A lot of stuff added in the movie made it a better story, and a lot of stuff they left out made it a shakier story with plot holes and unexplained truths that were just accepted by everybody. I liked the focus on the Earthly conflict in the movie more, just one example of which is the added line to Hals final message: "Use them together. Use them in peace." What can I say, I am a sucker for Cold War sci-fi.
Just a great book with as many science facts about space that we had at the time that the average persons mind would be interested in! And a happier ending for Hal and Dave than in the first movie. I'll continue reading.
When 2001: A Space Odyssey first shocked, amazed, and delighted millions in the late 1960s, …
This made me really appreciate the movie. That sounds like it sucked which it definitely didn't but some details about the movie were obviously added and my God were they good additions. Especially the scene in the movie where Hal asks if he will dream. Shocking honestly, that that wasnt even in the book
When 2001: A Space Odyssey first shocked, amazed, and delighted millions in the late 1960s, …
hey this book is really good
A thousand years after the Jupiter Mission, astronaut Frank Poole is recovered and revived. He …
the premise of frank somehow still being revivable is so funny sorry
A re-visitation of the imaginative future painted by Arthur C. Clarke in his previous two …
i've heard its not that good
Based on a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.
Some things are different from the movie but there are only maybe one or two scenes that I definitely preferred in the movie over the book. While I didn't feel like I needed a more detailed explanation of some of the mysteries in the story, I can definitely say that the book can keep your interest better than a lot of silent scenes with beautiful effects might.
For me it's not really a matter of "the movie is better" or "the book is better"; I am just thankful for some of the extra content and descriptions in the book. It's like an add-on. I think without the film the book wouldn't be so good. I might have cried while reading this. Leave me alone..
Based on a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.
It was a secret that, with the greatest determination, was very hard to conceal - for it affected one's attitude, one's voice, one's total outlook on the universe. Therefore it was best that Poole and Bowman, who would be on all the TV screens in the world during the first weeks of the flight, should not learn the mission's full purpose, until there was need to know. So ran the logic of the planners; but their twin gods of Security and National Interest meant nothing to Hal. He was only aware of the conflict that was slowly destroying his integrity - the conflict between truth, and concealment of truth. He had begun to make mistakes, although, like a neurotic who could not observe his own symptoms, he would have denied it. The link with Earth, over which his performance was continually monitored, had become the voice of a conscience he …
It was a secret that, with the greatest determination, was very hard to conceal - for it affected one's attitude, one's voice, one's total outlook on the universe. Therefore it was best that Poole and Bowman, who would be on all the TV screens in the world during the first weeks of the flight, should not learn the mission's full purpose, until there was need to know. So ran the logic of the planners; but their twin gods of Security and National Interest meant nothing to Hal. He was only aware of the conflict that was slowly destroying his integrity - the conflict between truth, and concealment of truth. He had begun to make mistakes, although, like a neurotic who could not observe his own symptoms, he would have denied it. The link with Earth, over which his performance was continually monitored, had become the voice of a conscience he could no longer fully obey. But that he would deliberately attempt to break that link was something that he would never admit, even to himself. Yet this was still a relatively minor problem; he might have handled it - as most men handle their own neuroses - if he had not been faced with a crisis that challenged his very existence. He had been threatened with disconnection; he would be deprived of all his inputs, and thrown into an unimaginable state of unconsciousness.
To Hal, this was the equivalent of Death. For he had never slept, and therefore he did not know that one could wake again.
crazy. anyway