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Space Odyssey #4
Odyseja kosmiczna 3001. Finał
Tysiąc lat po tym, jak misja w kierunku Jowisza zakończyła się niepowodzeniem, a David Bowman stał się „gwiezdnym dzieckiem”, Frank Poole dryfuje w próżni, zamrożony i zapomniany. Niespodziewanie jednak zostaje odnaleziony i przywrócony do życia w świecie zupełnie odmiennym od tego, który niegdyś zostawił. A monolit nie powiedział jeszcze ostatniego słowa…
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
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14294 people want to read
About the author
Arthur C. Clarke
1,657 books11.7k followersStories, works of noted British writer, scientist, and underwater explorer Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, include
2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968).
This most important and influential figure in 20th century fiction spent the first half of his life in England and served in World War II as a radar operator before migrating to Ceylon in 1956. He co-created his best known novel and movie with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.
Clarke, a graduate of King's College, London, obtained first class honours in physics and mathematics. He served as past chairman of the interplanetary society and as a member of the academy of astronautics, the royal astronomical society, and many other organizations.
He authored more than fifty books and won his numerous awards: the Kalinga prize of 1961, the American association for the advancement Westinghouse prize, the Bradford Washburn award, and the John W. Campbell award for his novel Rendezvous with Rama. Clarke also won the nebula award of the fiction of America in 1972, 1974 and 1979, the Hugo award of the world fiction convention in 1974 and 1980. In 1986, he stood as grand master of the fiction of America. The queen knighted him as the commander of the British Empire in 1989.
This most important and influential figure in 20th century fiction spent the first half of his life in England and served in World War II as a radar operator before migrating to Ceylon in 1956. He co-created his best known novel and movie with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.
Clarke, a graduate of King's College, London, obtained first class honours in physics and mathematics. He served as past chairman of the interplanetary society and as a member of the academy of astronautics, the royal astronomical society, and many other organizations.
He authored more than fifty books and won his numerous awards: the Kalinga prize of 1961, the American association for the advancement Westinghouse prize, the Bradford Washburn award, and the John W. Campbell award for his novel Rendezvous with Rama. Clarke also won the nebula award of the fiction of America in 1972, 1974 and 1979, the Hugo award of the world fiction convention in 1974 and 1980. In 1986, he stood as grand master of the fiction of America. The queen knighted him as the commander of the British Empire in 1989.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,208 reviews
February 1, 2024
The 4th and last of the 2001 series Dr.Heywood Floyd is not in this novel he is long gone my friends...Even the eternal good doctor, can't live 1,000 years. But Frank Poole that's a horse of a different color, Frank's body is floating, floating, being pushed out into the limitless universe gently moving up and down, twisting, tumbling, passing numerous distant planets, asteroids, rocks even an occasional comet unseen in the darkness a calm peaceful sleep leaving the troubled Solar System behind... what dreams he must have had.However this heaven ends when Captain Dimitri Chandler (what a name) of the space tug Goliath finds and resuscitates ancient Frank.The first thing they ask the undead Poole is, who was Batman and why did he wear a mask? I WISHED in truth, Frank is still sleeping , Chandler beyond the orbit of Neptune had been nudging ice found in abundance there, sending them to crash on the surfaces of waterless Venus and Mercury. Someday forming seas and developing breathable atmospheres. For future colonist from Earth no doubt.Too bad Frank didn't reach the dwarf planet Pluto, dwarf ? With him having five kids I mean moons does that sound like a dwarf? More moons rumored to be around the plucky sphere.
The Romeo of the Cosmos little, big, Pluto... But I digress after waking up the astronaut discovers he's living in a space elevator. One of four on Earth and towering above it a dizzy 22,000 miles high, looking from above seeing the planet changed immensely as he is astonished.
Down at Africa an ocean in the middle of the Sahara Desert, that cannot be real. Even Poole gets a little dizzy, imagine. An embarrassing situation for the ex crewman of the Discovery no doubt. Delectable gardens, amazing amusement parks, very tall trees and even pretty small rivers , with an exotic waterfall and lakes. And did I mention real Dinosaurs also, Disneyland in the sky more like Jurassic Park without the terror. Sounds like a great elevator to live in ... He will not be permitted or be able because of gravity to visit his home a shame. Besides after so many years everything he knew is gone, yet strangely except Poole's high school which still survives. The future has many strange things, robot slaves for people to command for any trivial tasks to do. Mind control helmets and braincaps, planted inside everyone's shaved skulls, ugh doesn't sound too appetizing. For instant communications where are the cell phones?.the internet this shows again nobody can predict the future. There is little crime here, Big Brother was a wimp compared to the 31st century but the people have freedom all are equal, right? After a few months Frank gets a little stir crazy who wouldn't be. He gladly accepts Captain Chandler's offer to take a little trip with him, Dave Bowman has been spotted, Poole's old captain. Great Jupiter or what's left of it, here he comes.....
The Romeo of the Cosmos little, big, Pluto... But I digress after waking up the astronaut discovers he's living in a space elevator. One of four on Earth and towering above it a dizzy 22,000 miles high, looking from above seeing the planet changed immensely as he is astonished.
Down at Africa an ocean in the middle of the Sahara Desert, that cannot be real. Even Poole gets a little dizzy, imagine. An embarrassing situation for the ex crewman of the Discovery no doubt. Delectable gardens, amazing amusement parks, very tall trees and even pretty small rivers , with an exotic waterfall and lakes. And did I mention real Dinosaurs also, Disneyland in the sky more like Jurassic Park without the terror. Sounds like a great elevator to live in ... He will not be permitted or be able because of gravity to visit his home a shame. Besides after so many years everything he knew is gone, yet strangely except Poole's high school which still survives. The future has many strange things, robot slaves for people to command for any trivial tasks to do. Mind control helmets and braincaps, planted inside everyone's shaved skulls, ugh doesn't sound too appetizing. For instant communications where are the cell phones?.the internet this shows again nobody can predict the future. There is little crime here, Big Brother was a wimp compared to the 31st century but the people have freedom all are equal, right? After a few months Frank gets a little stir crazy who wouldn't be. He gladly accepts Captain Chandler's offer to take a little trip with him, Dave Bowman has been spotted, Poole's old captain. Great Jupiter or what's left of it, here he comes.....
December 2, 2024
3001: The Final Odyssey is ultimately a flawed book, written to end a series which has sadly become increasingly redundant. Sad? Yes, because Arthur C. Clarke was a phenomenally good scientist with a lively imagination and the ability to craft very readable novels.
3001 is the 4th and final volume in Arthur C. Clarke’s “Odyssey” series, starting with “2001”. The other 2 books are “201o - Odyssey 2” and “2061 - Odyssey 3”. I have to admit to not having read the middle 2 books, but since Arthur C. Clarke himself regarded this group of novels as not a linear series, or even sequential in the traditional sense, this did not seem to matter. The author tells us we should view the book as having some of the same characters and situations, with “variations on the same theme…. but not necessarily happening in the same universe.” Hmm.
The starting point for this series was a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, “The Sentinel” written for the BBC in 1948 (and, interestingly, rejected by them.) Later on of course, with encouragement by Stanley Kubrick, this was hugely expanded and developed into the screenplay for “2001 A Space Odyssey”, a cult film of 1968 and still to my mind one of the most esoteric SF films ever made. Arthur C. Clarke points out that the whole project for this was still prior to the moon landings. We did not even know what the lunar landscape looked like at that point. (In the film “2001” the rocks on the moon’s surface appear a bit more jagged, but other than that it's a good approximation to say it’s all conjecture.)
Surely this one point illustrates the impossibility of the task which Arthur C. Clarke ended up setting himself. Each novel became scientifically and politically redundant shortly after it was written. A classic dilemma of much SF, of course, particularly that which deals with Earth-bound concepts of the near future. The novel we are looking at now, 3001: The Final Odyssey was written in 1997 (and reviewed here in 2013). How can there be any consistency in the characters and situations when real-life events have overtaken them in so many ways? Arthur C. Clarke would never compromise on the scientific elements, and it is well documented that many of his ideas have actually come to pass. But obviously not all!
Having said that, this is worth a look, if only to see what the black monolith was all about. In this book, the astronaut Frank Poole did not die, but was in suspended animation for 1000 years. (Cue scope for a nice meaty tale of Earth and humankind’s possible future.) Oh, and something very strange has happened to Jupiter. Other than that my lips are sealed.
3001 is the 4th and final volume in Arthur C. Clarke’s “Odyssey” series, starting with “2001”. The other 2 books are “201o - Odyssey 2” and “2061 - Odyssey 3”. I have to admit to not having read the middle 2 books, but since Arthur C. Clarke himself regarded this group of novels as not a linear series, or even sequential in the traditional sense, this did not seem to matter. The author tells us we should view the book as having some of the same characters and situations, with “variations on the same theme…. but not necessarily happening in the same universe.” Hmm.
The starting point for this series was a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, “The Sentinel” written for the BBC in 1948 (and, interestingly, rejected by them.) Later on of course, with encouragement by Stanley Kubrick, this was hugely expanded and developed into the screenplay for “2001 A Space Odyssey”, a cult film of 1968 and still to my mind one of the most esoteric SF films ever made. Arthur C. Clarke points out that the whole project for this was still prior to the moon landings. We did not even know what the lunar landscape looked like at that point. (In the film “2001” the rocks on the moon’s surface appear a bit more jagged, but other than that it's a good approximation to say it’s all conjecture.)
Surely this one point illustrates the impossibility of the task which Arthur C. Clarke ended up setting himself. Each novel became scientifically and politically redundant shortly after it was written. A classic dilemma of much SF, of course, particularly that which deals with Earth-bound concepts of the near future. The novel we are looking at now, 3001: The Final Odyssey was written in 1997 (and reviewed here in 2013). How can there be any consistency in the characters and situations when real-life events have overtaken them in so many ways? Arthur C. Clarke would never compromise on the scientific elements, and it is well documented that many of his ideas have actually come to pass. But obviously not all!
Having said that, this is worth a look, if only to see what the black monolith was all about. In this book, the astronaut Frank Poole did not die, but was in suspended animation for 1000 years. (Cue scope for a nice meaty tale of Earth and humankind’s possible future.) Oh, and something very strange has happened to Jupiter. Other than that my lips are sealed.
January 22, 2023
4/5 Estrellas
Corre el año 3001. No se sabe cómo, pero la Humanidad ha sobrevivido hasta los albores del tercer milenio d.c. Más allá de Neptuno una nave de carga detecta algo flotando en el espacio y lo recoge.........
Mil años después del comienzo de la odisea con el hallazgo del primer Monolito, los dos protagonistas vuelven a ser los tripulantes originales de la Discovery: Frank Poole y David Bowman.
Recordemos: Poole fue golpeado por una cápsula espacial manipulada por el rebelde HAL en la primera entrega, cuando realizaba una actividad extravehicular para arreglar una supuesta avería también simulada por HAL. Fue expulsado al espacio exterior y Bowman nada pudo hacer por él. Pues bien, Poole ha sobrevivido en estado de "hibernación" dentro de su traje dando tumbos por el espacio, hasta que, mil años después es recogido por la nave antes mencionada (esto va a ser mucho suponer ¿no?).
Recordemos: Bowman, tras no poder rescatar a Poole, se enfrenta a HAL y es capaz de desactivarlo y recuperar el control de la Discovery. Luego se acerca con una cápsula espacial hacia el gran Monolito que han descubierto en la órbita de Júpiter....y desaparece. Parece que pasa a formar parte del plan de los entes superiores que fabricaron los Monolitos. En las entregas posteriores aparece puntualmente para ayudar de una u otra forma a los humanos. Incluso llega a formar una entidad mixta fusionada con HAL (Halman), tras el abandono definitivo de la Discovery en la segunda entrega.
Interesantes flashbacks a las entregas anteriores. Se cierran historias. Comprendemos un poco mejor las intenciones de los monolitos o de sus creadores.
Maravillosas proyecciones de cómo podría ser la humanidad y sus logros tecnológicos dentro de mil años. Quizá demasiado buenismo y confianza en el hombre, me parece a mi, pero bueno, de ilusiones también se vive.
Análisis restrospectivos de cómo a Humanidad ha superado comportamientos y conceptos que nos marcaron durante siglos: interesante como vamos a ser capaces de superar el concepto de "religión", por ejemplo.
Pero....¿qué pasaría si nuestros "creadores" no estuvieran contentos con el resultado final de su experimento? ¿y si no les gustara la deriva que han seguido los humanos en los últimos siglos? ¿Y si la información que les hacen llegar los monolitos, sus centinelas, no está actualizada, o llega con mucho retraso? ¿Y si los monolitos empiezan a estar un poco fuera de control y quieren priorizar sus propias creaciones?
Me ha gustado que intenta cerrar la serie y redondear determinados conceptos. Está un poco mejor escrito que los primeros libros y se agradece. Hay cosas que no cuadran con entregas anteriores (la conexión entre Monolitos y entes superiores, por ejemplo).
El Final es bueno, si pensamos que el libro es de 1997. Si lo vemos desde una perspectiva actual, puede ser una simpleza.
Dejo la frase final:
"Su pequeño universo es muy joven, y su Dios aún es un niño. Pero es demasiado pronto para juzgarlos. Cuando regresemos en los Últimos Días, ya pensaremos en lo que vale la pena salvar".
Gran serie cerrada y muy disfrutada.
Corre el año 3001. No se sabe cómo, pero la Humanidad ha sobrevivido hasta los albores del tercer milenio d.c. Más allá de Neptuno una nave de carga detecta algo flotando en el espacio y lo recoge.........
Mil años después del comienzo de la odisea con el hallazgo del primer Monolito, los dos protagonistas vuelven a ser los tripulantes originales de la Discovery: Frank Poole y David Bowman.
Recordemos: Poole fue golpeado por una cápsula espacial manipulada por el rebelde HAL en la primera entrega, cuando realizaba una actividad extravehicular para arreglar una supuesta avería también simulada por HAL. Fue expulsado al espacio exterior y Bowman nada pudo hacer por él. Pues bien, Poole ha sobrevivido en estado de "hibernación" dentro de su traje dando tumbos por el espacio, hasta que, mil años después es recogido por la nave antes mencionada (esto va a ser mucho suponer ¿no?).
Recordemos: Bowman, tras no poder rescatar a Poole, se enfrenta a HAL y es capaz de desactivarlo y recuperar el control de la Discovery. Luego se acerca con una cápsula espacial hacia el gran Monolito que han descubierto en la órbita de Júpiter....y desaparece. Parece que pasa a formar parte del plan de los entes superiores que fabricaron los Monolitos. En las entregas posteriores aparece puntualmente para ayudar de una u otra forma a los humanos. Incluso llega a formar una entidad mixta fusionada con HAL (Halman), tras el abandono definitivo de la Discovery en la segunda entrega.
Interesantes flashbacks a las entregas anteriores. Se cierran historias. Comprendemos un poco mejor las intenciones de los monolitos o de sus creadores.
Maravillosas proyecciones de cómo podría ser la humanidad y sus logros tecnológicos dentro de mil años. Quizá demasiado buenismo y confianza en el hombre, me parece a mi, pero bueno, de ilusiones también se vive.
Análisis restrospectivos de cómo a Humanidad ha superado comportamientos y conceptos que nos marcaron durante siglos: interesante como vamos a ser capaces de superar el concepto de "religión", por ejemplo.
Pero....¿qué pasaría si nuestros "creadores" no estuvieran contentos con el resultado final de su experimento? ¿y si no les gustara la deriva que han seguido los humanos en los últimos siglos? ¿Y si la información que les hacen llegar los monolitos, sus centinelas, no está actualizada, o llega con mucho retraso? ¿Y si los monolitos empiezan a estar un poco fuera de control y quieren priorizar sus propias creaciones?
Me ha gustado que intenta cerrar la serie y redondear determinados conceptos. Está un poco mejor escrito que los primeros libros y se agradece. Hay cosas que no cuadran con entregas anteriores (la conexión entre Monolitos y entes superiores, por ejemplo).
El Final es bueno, si pensamos que el libro es de 1997. Si lo vemos desde una perspectiva actual, puede ser una simpleza.
Dejo la frase final:
"Su pequeño universo es muy joven, y su Dios aún es un niño. Pero es demasiado pronto para juzgarlos. Cuando regresemos en los Últimos Días, ya pensaremos en lo que vale la pena salvar".
Gran serie cerrada y muy disfrutada.
July 9, 2025
My 1998 review:
Rating: strong "A" for rigorous extrapolation, by a [then] living monument from the dawn of the Space Age.
"3001" has accumulated mixed reviews, perhaps because it's not really a novel: think "Looking Backward" or "Ralph 124C41+". Thankfully, it's better-written than those, but Sir Arthur won't be remembered as a prose stylist.
The plot outline is familiar by now -- Frank Poole is revived after a thousand years as a cryo-corpse - flung into space in 2001 by the malevolent HAL. He marvels at the Wonders of the World of 3001, and gets reacquainted with Dave Bowman - and HAL - within the great Europa monolith. The Dream Team then saves humanity from the latest Monolith Crisis. Huh.
The wonders of 3001 are genuine, and "rigorously" [note 1] extrapolated. Four great towers support a Star City ring around the world. Civilization runs by tapping limitless energy from the vacuum. Spacecraft and Star City elevators operate on inertialess drives... - all carefully footnoted and put into historic context: Buckminster Fuller designed an orbital world-ring in 1951. The first material strong enough to build a Space Elevator is the buckytube, discovered in 1991, and so noted by the discoverer, Nobelist R. Smalley (from my alma mater). Richard Feynman [allegedly] once remarked that the vacuum-energy contained in a coffee-cup could boil off the world's oceans. There are tantalizing hints that inertia and gravitation could be electromagnetic phenomena, linked thru the Zero Point field... Literature citations extend up to late 1996. The end-notes alone are worth the price of admission.
Sir Arthur himself has historic context - he wrote "The Sentinel" in 1948, just 3 years after publishing the theory of communication satellites. Clarke and Kubrick started working on "2001" in 1964, using "The Sentinel" as a starting-point. Clarke's reputation is such that, if our civilization is still extant in 3001, people will be reading his predictions with interest and (no doubt) amusement. He was a living monument of the early Space Age.
______________
[1] insofar as *any* 1000-yr extrapolation can be "rigorous." Playing with the net up is what I mean.
2023 reread notes:
The book hasn't aged well in the 25 years since I last read it in 1998. No one seems to take vacuum-energy speculations seriously these days. Clarke's speculations about an inertia-less space drive remain an unlikely SF dream. But the space-elevator project should be do-able at some point, perhaps some centuries from now, as the book suggests. And rounding up ice from the outer solar system to (for example) terraform Venus is a solid speculation. And who knows what other scientific and engineering discoveries will be made a few centuries from now?
So. It's still a decent read, but far from a 5-star effort. Sir Arthur's windup of his Space Odyssey series is still fun, decent SF, and worth reading. Reread rating: 3.5 stars, rounded up.
Clarke's wikibio is interesting reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_...
Rating: strong "A" for rigorous extrapolation, by a [then] living monument from the dawn of the Space Age.
"3001" has accumulated mixed reviews, perhaps because it's not really a novel: think "Looking Backward" or "Ralph 124C41+". Thankfully, it's better-written than those, but Sir Arthur won't be remembered as a prose stylist.
The plot outline is familiar by now -- Frank Poole is revived after a thousand years as a cryo-corpse - flung into space in 2001 by the malevolent HAL. He marvels at the Wonders of the World of 3001, and gets reacquainted with Dave Bowman - and HAL - within the great Europa monolith. The Dream Team then saves humanity from the latest Monolith Crisis. Huh.
The wonders of 3001 are genuine, and "rigorously" [note 1] extrapolated. Four great towers support a Star City ring around the world. Civilization runs by tapping limitless energy from the vacuum. Spacecraft and Star City elevators operate on inertialess drives... - all carefully footnoted and put into historic context: Buckminster Fuller designed an orbital world-ring in 1951. The first material strong enough to build a Space Elevator is the buckytube, discovered in 1991, and so noted by the discoverer, Nobelist R. Smalley (from my alma mater). Richard Feynman [allegedly] once remarked that the vacuum-energy contained in a coffee-cup could boil off the world's oceans. There are tantalizing hints that inertia and gravitation could be electromagnetic phenomena, linked thru the Zero Point field... Literature citations extend up to late 1996. The end-notes alone are worth the price of admission.
Sir Arthur himself has historic context - he wrote "The Sentinel" in 1948, just 3 years after publishing the theory of communication satellites. Clarke and Kubrick started working on "2001" in 1964, using "The Sentinel" as a starting-point. Clarke's reputation is such that, if our civilization is still extant in 3001, people will be reading his predictions with interest and (no doubt) amusement. He was a living monument of the early Space Age.
______________
[1] insofar as *any* 1000-yr extrapolation can be "rigorous." Playing with the net up is what I mean.
2023 reread notes:
The book hasn't aged well in the 25 years since I last read it in 1998. No one seems to take vacuum-energy speculations seriously these days. Clarke's speculations about an inertia-less space drive remain an unlikely SF dream. But the space-elevator project should be do-able at some point, perhaps some centuries from now, as the book suggests. And rounding up ice from the outer solar system to (for example) terraform Venus is a solid speculation. And who knows what other scientific and engineering discoveries will be made a few centuries from now?
So. It's still a decent read, but far from a 5-star effort. Sir Arthur's windup of his Space Odyssey series is still fun, decent SF, and worth reading. Reread rating: 3.5 stars, rounded up.
Clarke's wikibio is interesting reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_...
January 24, 2012
It's both amusing and sad when a book series falls flat on its face during its final leaps. The Odyssey series is, unfortunately, one of these. Except instead of attempting to get back up and trying to pretend its fall never happened, 3001 wallows in the failure, following the same idea as 2061; nothing happens. Well, nothing substantial, anyway.
Let me be the first to say that I don't mind that Frank comes back to life. It was a (sort of) logical way to show Dave's human side (sort of) while still having a (sort of) familiar character to 'relate' to (sort of).
The problem is that the entire plot is, as stated above, filled with 'sort of's. I honestly never found Frank engaging enough to care about, as he's pretty accepting about the fact that he's one thousand years ahead of his time and has very little difficulty adapting. I'll take the excuse that 'it's the future' for why he could miraculously be retrieved from space and brought back to life. There's been more implausible things in this series. However, what little personality he had in 2001 must have never been revived, because he is easily the most boring character in the series.
Not that the characters have ever been the high point of the Odyssey series, with the exception of maybe Hal and Dave. It's always been about the adventure, the journey to get to the plot. The characters were always basically two-dimensional, and that was fine because it wasn't a character driven story. 3001 attempts to change up the formula, happily turning in its space suit for a more boring 'life-in-the-future' story.
It's unfortunate that Odyssey ends on such a low point, when the first two were so good and the third passable. It won't go without recommendation - it's still a rather unique take on the future and one of the grandaddies of sci-fi. The good also far outweighs the bad in the series, with space descriptions that make you believe you were standing right there next to them.
So if you haven't yet, check out these books, watch the movies, something. Odyssey is something that everyone - young and old - should experience.
Let me be the first to say that I don't mind that Frank comes back to life. It was a (sort of) logical way to show Dave's human side (sort of) while still having a (sort of) familiar character to 'relate' to (sort of).
The problem is that the entire plot is, as stated above, filled with 'sort of's. I honestly never found Frank engaging enough to care about, as he's pretty accepting about the fact that he's one thousand years ahead of his time and has very little difficulty adapting. I'll take the excuse that 'it's the future' for why he could miraculously be retrieved from space and brought back to life. There's been more implausible things in this series. However, what little personality he had in 2001 must have never been revived, because he is easily the most boring character in the series.
Not that the characters have ever been the high point of the Odyssey series, with the exception of maybe Hal and Dave. It's always been about the adventure, the journey to get to the plot. The characters were always basically two-dimensional, and that was fine because it wasn't a character driven story. 3001 attempts to change up the formula, happily turning in its space suit for a more boring 'life-in-the-future' story.
It's unfortunate that Odyssey ends on such a low point, when the first two were so good and the third passable. It won't go without recommendation - it's still a rather unique take on the future and one of the grandaddies of sci-fi. The good also far outweighs the bad in the series, with space descriptions that make you believe you were standing right there next to them.
So if you haven't yet, check out these books, watch the movies, something. Odyssey is something that everyone - young and old - should experience.
November 29, 2025
Хилядолетие след първата настъпва времето за четвъртата и последна „Космическа Одисея“... През 3001 г. е съживен Франк Пул - един от астронавтите от легендарния „Дискавъри“. Той е главният герой и от негова гледна точка се докосваме до света от бъдещето и проследяваме събитията в новия му живот. В първата половина на книгата действието е по-мудно, тъй като на Франк му е необходимо време да се адаптира към футуристичния начин на живот, а и да се сприятели с други хора. Впоследствие историята става динамична. Той отива на вълнуващо космическо пътешествие до Европа, опитвайки се да разкрие тайните на монолита и защити човечеството...
Финалът като цяло ми хареса, въпреки че имах по-големи очаквания... Тази поредица не е от най-великите творби на големия Артър Кларк, но си има своите достойнства и мисля, че ще допадне на почитателите на научната фантастика!
„— Трябваше да ти обясня — замислено каза Индра. — Когато можем, предпочитаме да използваме биоорганизми, вместо роботи — предполагам, че можеш да го наречеш въглероден шовинизъм.“
„Но „любовта от пръв поглед“ никога не е досадна.“
„ — Ти не разбираш, Индра. Често нямахме никакъв избор: не можехме да реформираме целия свят. И някой не беше ли казал: „Политиката е изкуството на възможното“?
— Съвсем вярно. И тъкмо затова с нея се занимават само не особено интелигентни хора. Геният обича да предизвиква невъзможното.“
„Анубис сити беше прекалено малък град, за да има университетско градче — лукс, който все още съществуваше на другите светове, макар и мнозина да смятаха, че телекомуникационната революция го е направил излишен. Вместо това тук имаше нещо много по-подходящо, както и с векове по-старо: академия, допълнена от маслинова горичка, която би заблудила дори самия Платон, стига да не се опиташе да се разходи в нея. Вицът на Индра за философските факултети, на които им трябвали само черни дъски, явно не се отнасяше за тази сложна среда.“
„Нали знаете, конспектът може да ви даде цялата основна информация — но без какъвто и да е намек за авторовата личност. И въпреки това има моменти, в които усещах, че нещо от стария Дейв все още се е запазило. Няма да пресилвам нещата, като кажа, че се зарадва да ме види — по-скоро беше умерено доволен…“
Финалът като цяло ми хареса, въпреки че имах по-големи очаквания... Тази поредица не е от най-великите творби на големия Артър Кларк, но си има своите достойнства и мисля, че ще допадне на почитателите на научната фантастика!
„— Трябваше да ти обясня — замислено каза Индра. — Когато можем, предпочитаме да използваме биоорганизми, вместо роботи — предполагам, че можеш да го наречеш въглероден шовинизъм.“
„Но „любовта от пръв поглед“ никога не е досадна.“
„ — Ти не разбираш, Индра. Често нямахме никакъв избор: не можехме да реформираме целия свят. И някой не беше ли казал: „Политиката е изкуството на възможното“?
— Съвсем вярно. И тъкмо затова с нея се занимават само не особено интелигентни хора. Геният обича да предизвиква невъзможното.“
„Анубис сити беше прекалено малък град, за да има университетско градче — лукс, който все още съществуваше на другите светове, макар и мнозина да смятаха, че телекомуникационната революция го е направил излишен. Вместо това тук имаше нещо много по-подходящо, както и с векове по-старо: академия, допълнена от маслинова горичка, която би заблудила дори самия Платон, стига да не се опиташе да се разходи в нея. Вицът на Индра за философските факултети, на които им трябвали само черни дъски, явно не се отнасяше за тази сложна среда.“
„Нали знаете, конспектът може да ви даде цялата основна информация — но без какъвто и да е намек за авторовата личност. И въпреки това има моменти, в които усещах, че нещо от стария Дейв все още се е запазило. Няма да пресилвам нещата, като кажа, че се зарадва да ме види — по-скоро беше умерено доволен…“
August 31, 2016
Fourth and the final book in the Space Odyssey saga. It was astonishing, as this book too, continues to pour the wonders and awesomeness of evolution, and future-tech alike. Unlike in Book three (2061), which lacked anything about the advancements in technology, this book makes up for it, totally!
Frank Poole's experiences after returning back a millennia later, into Star City, a ringed structure at the Geostationary Earth Orbit connected to Earth by four Space Towers at the Equator, and his learning of changes that have happened within the thousand years, made it an awesome read. This itself makes up about forty percent of the book.
Written very vividly, it actually puts the reader in the middle of the situations describing almost everything that is necessary. Some parts of the text were edited repeats from Book 1 and 2. However, I felt they were interesting to read again.
This book finally answers the questions of mystery with regard to the monoliths. As far as the ending of the saga goes, I did not love it as much, but it wasn't bad at all. I wish there were more books in this Space Odyssey series. Will certainly miss them. :)
ABOUT THE SAGA: The entire Space Odyssey saga is about Man's adventures and hardships in space, our Solar System: the odysseys that he undertakes, thus making the four books Chronicles. And it is definitely about making mankind come face-to-face with the awesomeness and the wonders of the solar system, the ultimate grandeur of nature and evolution, and extra-terrestrial life-forms & intelligence.
The reader, I feel needs to take into consideration that the four books in the set do not comprise a single story, as is already put forth by the writer at the beginning of Book II, III, and in the valediction of Book IV. Being written in a span of thirty years, and without planning for any sequels, it isn't easy to maintain proper continuity and consistency within any of the books. I would prefer to be optimistic, that the presence of these books in my life is better than not having the writer to have ever written them. :D
Highly recommended for Clarke's splendid and brilliant imagination! :D
Frank Poole's experiences after returning back a millennia later, into Star City, a ringed structure at the Geostationary Earth Orbit connected to Earth by four Space Towers at the Equator, and his learning of changes that have happened within the thousand years, made it an awesome read. This itself makes up about forty percent of the book.
Written very vividly, it actually puts the reader in the middle of the situations describing almost everything that is necessary. Some parts of the text were edited repeats from Book 1 and 2. However, I felt they were interesting to read again.
This book finally answers the questions of mystery with regard to the monoliths. As far as the ending of the saga goes, I did not love it as much, but it wasn't bad at all. I wish there were more books in this Space Odyssey series. Will certainly miss them. :)
ABOUT THE SAGA: The entire Space Odyssey saga is about Man's adventures and hardships in space, our Solar System: the odysseys that he undertakes, thus making the four books Chronicles. And it is definitely about making mankind come face-to-face with the awesomeness and the wonders of the solar system, the ultimate grandeur of nature and evolution, and extra-terrestrial life-forms & intelligence.
The reader, I feel needs to take into consideration that the four books in the set do not comprise a single story, as is already put forth by the writer at the beginning of Book II, III, and in the valediction of Book IV. Being written in a span of thirty years, and without planning for any sequels, it isn't easy to maintain proper continuity and consistency within any of the books. I would prefer to be optimistic, that the presence of these books in my life is better than not having the writer to have ever written them. :D
Highly recommended for Clarke's splendid and brilliant imagination! :D
June 24, 2023
Jun 24, 1130am ~~ Thanks to insomnia and a basic lack of interest in the story, I skimmed through this book last night. I may have become biased against whatever Clarke had in mind after my disappointment in 2061, because I know I started this one with a Make Me Like It attitude rather than Oh, I Can't Wait For It thoughts.
Imagine the story of Rip Van Winkle set in the year 3001, salted with lots of fancy (sometimes creepy) technology and peppered with the idea of no Being in the entire Universe truly having free will, all the way up the ladder to and including the Big Boss, and that is this book in a nutshell.
I snorted when I recognized the man who was to be the main character, but went with the idea since it was a way for Clarke to 'prove' a theory he mentioned briefly in 2001 but which I very greatly doubt could really be possible. But truth is stranger than fiction, so who knows, this event might happen. Not sure I would want to be the person to experience it, though.
But I was bored by the entire first half of the book, long before Poole became truly adapted to his new surroundings. And again there were changes from the first book that bugged me. I thought sure that in 2001 the monolith that began everything in Africa had disappeared after it did its job. The apemen walked past the empty place where it had been and never thought about the black thing again, never even really seemed to remember there had ever been anything there at all.
But in this book one chapter talks about how the Earth monolith was discovered with centuries worth of bizarre offerings around it, turned into a primitive shrine. But at the very end of this book, during the notes Clarke made to explain his sources for data in certain chapters, he addresses these self-made inconsistencies.
". . . if any readers of the earlier books feel disoriented by such transmutations, I hope I can dissuade them from sending me angry letters of denunciation by adapting one of the more enduring remarks of a certain U.S. President: 'It's fiction, stupid!' . . . And it's all my own fiction, in case you hadn't noticed."
Okey dokey. I get it, stupid. Doesn't mean I have to like it, though.
Imagine the story of Rip Van Winkle set in the year 3001, salted with lots of fancy (sometimes creepy) technology and peppered with the idea of no Being in the entire Universe truly having free will, all the way up the ladder to and including the Big Boss, and that is this book in a nutshell.
I snorted when I recognized the man who was to be the main character, but went with the idea since it was a way for Clarke to 'prove' a theory he mentioned briefly in 2001 but which I very greatly doubt could really be possible. But truth is stranger than fiction, so who knows, this event might happen. Not sure I would want to be the person to experience it, though.
But I was bored by the entire first half of the book, long before Poole became truly adapted to his new surroundings. And again there were changes from the first book that bugged me. I thought sure that in 2001 the monolith that began everything in Africa had disappeared after it did its job. The apemen walked past the empty place where it had been and never thought about the black thing again, never even really seemed to remember there had ever been anything there at all.
But in this book one chapter talks about how the Earth monolith was discovered with centuries worth of bizarre offerings around it, turned into a primitive shrine. But at the very end of this book, during the notes Clarke made to explain his sources for data in certain chapters, he addresses these self-made inconsistencies.
". . . if any readers of the earlier books feel disoriented by such transmutations, I hope I can dissuade them from sending me angry letters of denunciation by adapting one of the more enduring remarks of a certain U.S. President: 'It's fiction, stupid!' . . . And it's all my own fiction, in case you hadn't noticed."
Okey dokey. I get it, stupid. Doesn't mean I have to like it, though.
August 8, 2021
El final de esta tetralogía me ha dejado un sabor agridulce.
Las dos primeras partes me encantaron, fueron unas novelas que disfruté muchísimo. Me pareció que la segunda parte encajaba muy bien como continuación de la primera, y el final de ambas fue espectacular.
La tercera entrega me aburrió, no todo el libro pero si la mayor parte, al final remontó bastante y eso me dió esperanzas con esta última novela. Pero no, en esta ocasión no me ha aburrido pero todo lo que ocurre lo he encontrado muy forzado y el final me ha parecido algo ridículo.
En general creo que la Odisea Espacial es una gran historia que se ha alargado demasiado pero que me alegro de haber leído.
Las dos primeras partes me encantaron, fueron unas novelas que disfruté muchísimo. Me pareció que la segunda parte encajaba muy bien como continuación de la primera, y el final de ambas fue espectacular.
La tercera entrega me aburrió, no todo el libro pero si la mayor parte, al final remontó bastante y eso me dió esperanzas con esta última novela. Pero no, en esta ocasión no me ha aburrido pero todo lo que ocurre lo he encontrado muy forzado y el final me ha parecido algo ridículo.
En general creo que la Odisea Espacial es una gran historia que se ha alargado demasiado pero que me alegro de haber leído.
August 19, 2008
They told me - don't bother reading 3001, it's not worth it. I knew they were right. But partially from a need to complete the series, and partially out of morbid curiosity, I read it anyway.
It's awful. It's only saving grace is being just 112 pages. There are a few beautiful passages - all lifted directly from the other novels in the series. He makes some interesting social commentary, but that's overwhelmed by his diatribes against religion.
Again, instead of ending it just frays away. What plot there is ends, but it's an unsatisfying end.
I will say this much for it - he does a nice job of handling a man sent 1000 years in the future. It's not an easy task, and he did it well. I also enjoyed the references to other SF works, and possibly seeing the origin on things in more recent SF stories. Did this inspire John Scalzi's "Brain Pal" in his Old Man's War series?
To save you the trouble, here's my synopsis of 3001: The Final Odyssey
SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT!!! (which I'm only hiding out of politeness. I'd much rather tell you about this book than have you suffer through reading it.)
So, it's the year 3001. In an amazing coincidence, a ship finds the body of Frank Poole, the astronaut HAL knocked into space in 2001. Becuase of the advances in medical science, he can be brought back to life. Can we say Mary Sue boys and girls? I knew you could. And why write a knew character, when you can just bring one back from the dead. But I digress.
He gets used to living 1000 in the future, and the author gets to hold forth on what's wrong with humanity in the second millinium.
For poorly explained reasons, Frank decided to try and contact Dave Bowman, by landing on Europa. In this process he meets a philosopher who holds forth at lenght about the insanity of religion. Somehow this is related to landing on Europa, although I do not at all understand how. The landing works! Frank is now the only being in conact with the only being who can contact the Monolith. Whee.
Frank goes back home, and goes on with his life. At some point, Dave gets in touch with him, basically pointing out that, based on 20th century information about humanity, the makers of the monolith have decided that Humanity has gone completely wrong and should be wiped out. Frank passes along that information, and watches as the great minds of the day figure out a way to stop their destruction. They gather the worst computer viruses they can find, send Frank back to Europa, and as him to ask Dave to be the Trojan Horse who delivers the computer viruses. They also give him a memory device to download himself to, to try and save him from the same fate as the monoliths.
It works, humanity is just barely saved from destruction, but Dave's consciousness is still infected with the viruses he delivered and so cannot be contacted. Frank goes on with his life, missing his old friend.
No, really. That's how it ends.
In 2061, the Dave/Hal/Monolith entity thing downloaded a copy of Heywood Floyd. There's no hint of him in this book - nothing. ARG!
It's awful. It's only saving grace is being just 112 pages. There are a few beautiful passages - all lifted directly from the other novels in the series. He makes some interesting social commentary, but that's overwhelmed by his diatribes against religion.
Again, instead of ending it just frays away. What plot there is ends, but it's an unsatisfying end.
I will say this much for it - he does a nice job of handling a man sent 1000 years in the future. It's not an easy task, and he did it well. I also enjoyed the references to other SF works, and possibly seeing the origin on things in more recent SF stories. Did this inspire John Scalzi's "Brain Pal" in his Old Man's War series?
To save you the trouble, here's my synopsis of 3001: The Final Odyssey
SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT!!! (which I'm only hiding out of politeness. I'd much rather tell you about this book than have you suffer through reading it.)
So, it's the year 3001. In an amazing coincidence, a ship finds the body of Frank Poole, the astronaut HAL knocked into space in 2001. Becuase of the advances in medical science, he can be brought back to life. Can we say Mary Sue boys and girls? I knew you could. And why write a knew character, when you can just bring one back from the dead. But I digress.
He gets used to living 1000 in the future, and the author gets to hold forth on what's wrong with humanity in the second millinium.
For poorly explained reasons, Frank decided to try and contact Dave Bowman, by landing on Europa. In this process he meets a philosopher who holds forth at lenght about the insanity of religion. Somehow this is related to landing on Europa, although I do not at all understand how. The landing works! Frank is now the only being in conact with the only being who can contact the Monolith. Whee.
Frank goes back home, and goes on with his life. At some point, Dave gets in touch with him, basically pointing out that, based on 20th century information about humanity, the makers of the monolith have decided that Humanity has gone completely wrong and should be wiped out. Frank passes along that information, and watches as the great minds of the day figure out a way to stop their destruction. They gather the worst computer viruses they can find, send Frank back to Europa, and as him to ask Dave to be the Trojan Horse who delivers the computer viruses. They also give him a memory device to download himself to, to try and save him from the same fate as the monoliths.
It works, humanity is just barely saved from destruction, but Dave's consciousness is still infected with the viruses he delivered and so cannot be contacted. Frank goes on with his life, missing his old friend.
No, really. That's how it ends.
In 2061, the Dave/Hal/Monolith entity thing downloaded a copy of Heywood Floyd. There's no hint of him in this book - nothing. ARG!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 6, 2010
Finally I've reached the end of the journey ... AND WHAT A WASTE OF TIME!!!! -_- Never again will I pick up anything written by Clarke. Honestly I can't understand how even got published. No identifiable Lead character in most of the books, no clear objective for what lead there was, the books meander around for the most part with dated and ludicrous speculation and no confrontation until the end, and what there was of a knockout closing seemed to appear out of nowhere. Internal conflict in the major characters/protagonist was minor and facile.
Again what I recommend is DO NOT read any part of this series...complete waste of time. Ahhhh....am I pissed at having wasted this much of my life on these books. Hope there is a hell so he's burning in the lake of fire reserved for failed, but published, authors. -_-
Again what I recommend is DO NOT read any part of this series...complete waste of time. Ahhhh....am I pissed at having wasted this much of my life on these books. Hope there is a hell so he's burning in the lake of fire reserved for failed, but published, authors. -_-
November 13, 2022
I really should have stopped after 2010, but at least I finished the series.
In this finale, Clarke brings back a character from 2001 - the flight engineer of the Discovery, Frank Poole. It's been 1,000 years since Hal set him up to drift to death in a shuttle accident, but a crew working near Neptune spots his vehicle on their sensors, long frozen but somehow not dead. Bringing the story full circle with the original crew, Frank eventually finds himself in contact with the Star Child, David Bowman/Hal, from within the Jovian monolith.
What a ridiculous ending. The way humans kicked the can on the threat of the intelligence behind the monoliths was so simplistic and convenient. Defeating the beings behind Creation, or at least, Evolution, with something so comparatively low-tech? Dumb.
In this finale, Clarke brings back a character from 2001 - the flight engineer of the Discovery, Frank Poole. It's been 1,000 years since Hal set him up to drift to death in a shuttle accident, but a crew working near Neptune spots his vehicle on their sensors, long frozen but somehow not dead. Bringing the story full circle with the original crew, Frank eventually finds himself in contact with the Star Child, David Bowman/Hal, from within the Jovian monolith.
What a ridiculous ending. The way humans kicked the can on the threat of the intelligence behind the monoliths was so simplistic and convenient. Defeating the beings behind Creation, or at least, Evolution, with something so comparatively low-tech? Dumb.
July 21, 2016
I jos jedna knjiga koju mi je tesko oceniti. Sa jedne strane imamo odlican opis moguce buducnosti (vrlo pozitivna buducnost) prikazane kroz oci nekoga ko dolazi iz naseg vremena. Ideje i nivo detalja u tom delu su odlicni iprosto raspiruju mastu.
Ali u druom delu knjige dobija se utisak da gosn Klark nije imao cistu viziju sta je uopste hteo da kaze sa knjigom pa citava prica ima nekako nedoreceni osecaj. Plus di je nestao Hejvud Flojd?
Ipak knjiga daje dosta odgovora ne mnoga pitanja iz prethodnih delova u nekom smislu kraj je takav da je na citaocu da razmisli sta je moguce, mada licno nisam fan takvih krajeva.
Ipak sve u svemu bilo je zabavno iskustvo sa puno maste tako da, po meni, citav serijal je i te kako vredan citanja.
Ali u druom delu knjige dobija se utisak da gosn Klark nije imao cistu viziju sta je uopste hteo da kaze sa knjigom pa citava prica ima nekako nedoreceni osecaj. Plus di je nestao Hejvud Flojd?
Ipak knjiga daje dosta odgovora ne mnoga pitanja iz prethodnih delova u nekom smislu kraj je takav da je na citaocu da razmisli sta je moguce, mada licno nisam fan takvih krajeva.
Ipak sve u svemu bilo je zabavno iskustvo sa puno maste tako da, po meni, citav serijal je i te kako vredan citanja.
July 20, 2022
The first two books in the series were very massive in scope. However, the final two books were very small scale. This final book, much like the series as a whole starts off strong but ends in a disappointing whisper. 2.5/5.
July 4, 2025
Me ha parecido un final muy digno para una saga original que no cuesta leer gracias a su ritmo ágil y de espíritu "aventurero".
Como único "pero" que le pondría a esta Odisea Espacial es su tercera parte, que pega un notable bajonazo con respecto a los otros libros.
Recomendada si os gusta la ciencia-ficción o si os quedasteis con ganas de más después de ver la peli.
Como único "pero" que le pondría a esta Odisea Espacial es su tercera parte, que pega un notable bajonazo con respecto a los otros libros.
Recomendada si os gusta la ciencia-ficción o si os quedasteis con ganas de más después de ver la peli.
October 19, 2020
The little numbers on the dashboard on the left hand of my screen tell me that I have listed 3000 books on Goodreads up to now, so, of course, this is the one that has to go here...
Set a thousand years after the original, obviously, Frank Poole returns and we see what has become of Hal and Dave. One of Clarke's themes is a warning about out-of-control technology. It's the fourth book in Clarke's Odyssey sequence, but still fits in pretty well both narratively as well as thematically. The second book followed the original by nine years, and the third by sixty, so this one was quite a jump. Humanity has not progressed as well or as much as might have been predicted, and Clarke's decision to revive Poole makes it pretty seamless. I didn't think the individual plot advanced the overall story well enough, and that Clarke didn't really have much new to say from a philosophical side different than what he'd already posited in the Rama books. It was an okay read, in my opinion, but not a classic like the first.
Set a thousand years after the original, obviously, Frank Poole returns and we see what has become of Hal and Dave. One of Clarke's themes is a warning about out-of-control technology. It's the fourth book in Clarke's Odyssey sequence, but still fits in pretty well both narratively as well as thematically. The second book followed the original by nine years, and the third by sixty, so this one was quite a jump. Humanity has not progressed as well or as much as might have been predicted, and Clarke's decision to revive Poole makes it pretty seamless. I didn't think the individual plot advanced the overall story well enough, and that Clarke didn't really have much new to say from a philosophical side different than what he'd already posited in the Rama books. It was an okay read, in my opinion, but not a classic like the first.
July 1, 2021
I finally finished the Odysseys, after so many years of delayed pleasure. I honestly took my time, as they are one of my favorite book series. The final odyssey did not disappoint.
This is the world as I so much want it to be. The scientific utopia that Arthur Clarke built is the world I want to see in 3001; a world finally completely free of religions, interplanetary humanity, poverty , disease and greed rooted out, and Elon Musk's Neuralink working. I wonder if he got inspired from this book...
It has been one amazing journey for Frank Poole, Dave Bowman and Hal.. and for me, because Clarke's vision of the future is a breath of fresh air and sanity. So deep, so profound and so incredibly smart. What a ride it was.
This is the world as I so much want it to be. The scientific utopia that Arthur Clarke built is the world I want to see in 3001; a world finally completely free of religions, interplanetary humanity, poverty , disease and greed rooted out, and Elon Musk's Neuralink working. I wonder if he got inspired from this book...
It has been one amazing journey for Frank Poole, Dave Bowman and Hal.. and for me, because Clarke's vision of the future is a breath of fresh air and sanity. So deep, so profound and so incredibly smart. What a ride it was.
June 8, 2023
Sfârșitul Odiseei Spațiale a venit!
Am fost surprins de inceputul acestei cărți și de direcția in care m-a purtat. Chiar a fost interesant să descopăr finalul seriei, nu aveam mari așteptări dar nu am fost dezamăgit.
Mă bucur că am putut să citesc această serie și m-a impresionat nivelul de detaliu asupra viitorului pe care Arthur C. Clarke și l-a imaginat pentru omenire, chiar dacă suntem departe de el, ne indreptăm intr-acolo.
Am fost surprins de inceputul acestei cărți și de direcția in care m-a purtat. Chiar a fost interesant să descopăr finalul seriei, nu aveam mari așteptări dar nu am fost dezamăgit.
Mă bucur că am putut să citesc această serie și m-a impresionat nivelul de detaliu asupra viitorului pe care Arthur C. Clarke și l-a imaginat pentru omenire, chiar dacă suntem departe de el, ne indreptăm intr-acolo.
December 18, 2025
Estaba entre dos y tres estrellas. Final flojito para una saga muy interesante. Hay buenas ideas en el libro, pero el tono es de apresuramiento, querer dejar cosas cerradas y algo de reiteración. Una lástima.
Mi comentario sobre las 4 novelas de la saga: https://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/20...
Mi comentario sobre las 4 novelas de la saga: https://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/20...
March 26, 2020
Of the two astronauts awake on the spaceship Discovery when the super-computer HAL went nuts, Frank Poole certainly drew the short straw. While Dave Bowman ended up an immortal extraterrestrial hybrid with the powers of a god, poor Poole ended up left for dead and floating off into the cold vacuum of space.
Left for dead, but not - as we discover at the start of the fourth and final Space Odyssey story - actually dead. His body frozen into an effective state of hibernation, Poole floats unconscious around the galaxy for a thousand years before being picked up and successfully resuscitated.
What must it feel like to fall asleep and wake up a millennium into the future? The first part of this book answers that with a mixture of culture-shock, humor and awe. As always, Clarke's extrapolations come from the latest scientific ideas of the time.
Poole finds himself in city tens of thousands of miles above the equator, gets fitted with his own personal computer called a Braincap, watches asteroids being hurled at Venus in order to cool the planet down and meets genetically engineered dinosaurs that make ideal babysitters!
When the story itself kicks in somewhere past the midway point, however, it proves to be thinner than the atmosphere of Mercury, nor does the ending qualify as a satisfactory conclusion to the writer's signature work.
Still, the first half is fun, and the brief prologue which gives a quick account of the evolution of the Monoliths, entitled 'The Firstborn', is a stark and beautiful piece of writing that you wouldn't commonly associate with Clarke.
Left for dead, but not - as we discover at the start of the fourth and final Space Odyssey story - actually dead. His body frozen into an effective state of hibernation, Poole floats unconscious around the galaxy for a thousand years before being picked up and successfully resuscitated.
What must it feel like to fall asleep and wake up a millennium into the future? The first part of this book answers that with a mixture of culture-shock, humor and awe. As always, Clarke's extrapolations come from the latest scientific ideas of the time.
Poole finds himself in city tens of thousands of miles above the equator, gets fitted with his own personal computer called a Braincap, watches asteroids being hurled at Venus in order to cool the planet down and meets genetically engineered dinosaurs that make ideal babysitters!
When the story itself kicks in somewhere past the midway point, however, it proves to be thinner than the atmosphere of Mercury, nor does the ending qualify as a satisfactory conclusion to the writer's signature work.
Still, the first half is fun, and the brief prologue which gives a quick account of the evolution of the Monoliths, entitled 'The Firstborn', is a stark and beautiful piece of writing that you wouldn't commonly associate with Clarke.
September 24, 2015
A great ending of a series. And it's even more astonishing that Arthur C. Clarke managed to end his famous series by writing an utopia, which is not so very common a genre, isn't it? It's short, but it's really well done and the reason of taking us to the year 3001 is brilliant. Certainly 3001 is as good as 2001.
June 27, 2019
This may be my favorite Odyssey. (although I thought that after each of the Odyssey books)
But really, I am just so thrilled with this one, how genius to bring back Frank Poole from the dead and to put the 21st century scientist in the 31st century.
I savored every word, every image, really and it read so plausible.
Hope we will achieve that society from 31 century. (Clarke seems to think so in other of his books, there is always some kind of Utopia there)
Check this out:
"It was generally agreed that Communism was the most perfect form of government; unfortunately, it had been demonstrated—at the cost of some hundreds of millions of lives—that it was only applicable to social insects, Robots Class II, and similar restricted categories. For imperfect human beings, the least-worse answer was Democracy, frequently defined as “Individual greed, moderated by an efficient but not too zealous government"
But really, the life on Europa and the images and thoughts like this (also there in 2061 Odyssey I know) really made me feel out of this world. It was so disappointing having to be back in this plain, old, depressing century, every time I closed the book. Just look at this description:
"He was searching a world more than a hundred times the area of Earth, and though he saw many wonders, nothing there hinted of intelligence. The radio voices of the great balloons carried only simple messages of warning or of fear. Even the hunters, who might have been expected to develop higher degrees of organization, were like the sharks in Earth’s oceans—mindless automata. And for all its breathtaking size and novelty, the biosphere of Jupiter was a fragile world, a place of mists and foam, of delicate silken threads and paper-thin tissues spun from the continual snowfall of petrochemicals formed by lightning in the upper atmosphere. Few of its constructs were more substantial than soap bubbles; its most awesome predators could be torn to shreds by even the feeblest of terrestrial carnivores. Like Europa on a vastly grander scale, Jupiter was an evolutionary cul-de-sac. Consciousness would never emerge here; even if it did, it would be doomed to a stunted existence. A purely aerial culture might develop, but in an environment where fire was impossible, and solids scarcely existed, it could never even reach the Stone Age."
The idea of a Braincap is great. I am not sure how we would manage all that with all the crap that we see on the internet now - but it's such a great concept.
I see there is a movie coming up in 2017. I hope they stick to the story.
And the story is so plausible, even the civilization which created the Monolith can't just travel across the universe in matter of years, even if they could travel at the speed of light. (that is something that really bothers me in the distopyan sci-fi, they don't even try to solve that problem in any plausible way...)
I am even filing this under my science shelf (I know, I know I shouldn't, but still, theoretically, it is all possible, right?)
Anyway, so sorry this was the last Odyssey. Wish there was more. But i am off now to read other Arthur C. Clarke. (I am so glad he was such a prolific writer)
But really, I am just so thrilled with this one, how genius to bring back Frank Poole from the dead and to put the 21st century scientist in the 31st century.
I savored every word, every image, really and it read so plausible.
Hope we will achieve that society from 31 century. (Clarke seems to think so in other of his books, there is always some kind of Utopia there)
Check this out:
"It was generally agreed that Communism was the most perfect form of government; unfortunately, it had been demonstrated—at the cost of some hundreds of millions of lives—that it was only applicable to social insects, Robots Class II, and similar restricted categories. For imperfect human beings, the least-worse answer was Democracy, frequently defined as “Individual greed, moderated by an efficient but not too zealous government"
But really, the life on Europa and the images and thoughts like this (also there in 2061 Odyssey I know) really made me feel out of this world. It was so disappointing having to be back in this plain, old, depressing century, every time I closed the book. Just look at this description:
"He was searching a world more than a hundred times the area of Earth, and though he saw many wonders, nothing there hinted of intelligence. The radio voices of the great balloons carried only simple messages of warning or of fear. Even the hunters, who might have been expected to develop higher degrees of organization, were like the sharks in Earth’s oceans—mindless automata. And for all its breathtaking size and novelty, the biosphere of Jupiter was a fragile world, a place of mists and foam, of delicate silken threads and paper-thin tissues spun from the continual snowfall of petrochemicals formed by lightning in the upper atmosphere. Few of its constructs were more substantial than soap bubbles; its most awesome predators could be torn to shreds by even the feeblest of terrestrial carnivores. Like Europa on a vastly grander scale, Jupiter was an evolutionary cul-de-sac. Consciousness would never emerge here; even if it did, it would be doomed to a stunted existence. A purely aerial culture might develop, but in an environment where fire was impossible, and solids scarcely existed, it could never even reach the Stone Age."
The idea of a Braincap is great. I am not sure how we would manage all that with all the crap that we see on the internet now - but it's such a great concept.
I see there is a movie coming up in 2017. I hope they stick to the story.
And the story is so plausible, even the civilization which created the Monolith can't just travel across the universe in matter of years, even if they could travel at the speed of light. (that is something that really bothers me in the distopyan sci-fi, they don't even try to solve that problem in any plausible way...)
I am even filing this under my science shelf (I know, I know I shouldn't, but still, theoretically, it is all possible, right?)
Anyway, so sorry this was the last Odyssey. Wish there was more. But i am off now to read other Arthur C. Clarke. (I am so glad he was such a prolific writer)
December 28, 2020
“I am a Stranger in a Strange Time.”
A fitting close to the story that electrified America fifty years ago. (Well, the movie based on the story.) Clark closes the loop opened by the stirring overture music. Published in 1997, this story anticipates the ubiquity of computers, jihadist terrorism, and pandemics.
“Forget you’re an engineer—and enjoy yourself.”
Curiously, his thesis is that mankind isn’t responsible for our aggressive tendencies; we were programmed that way by interfering aliens. Millions of years ago.
“He had to admit that the selection was well done, by someone (Indra?) familiar with the early Twenty-first Century. There was nothing disturbing—no wars or violence, and very little contemporary business or politics, all of which would now be utterly irrelevant.”
Rides his usual hobby horses—anti-war, anti-religion, anti-government, anti-anti. His ideas aren’t necessarily logical, but he presents them well. Not terribly interested in facts. When writing a book set in 3001, who can say what they know about the world of 2001?
“Corpse-food was on the way out even in your time,” Anderson explained. “Raising animals to—ugh—eat them became economically impossible.
Quibbles: “The general consensus about the single greatest work of human art. Over and over again, in almost every listing—it’s Angkor Wat.” (his consensus) “Lenin was unlucky; he was born a hundred years too soon. Russian communism might have worked—at least for a while—if it had had microchips. And had managed to avoid Stalin.” (his 1997 perspective) “How long would it take to build a super-bomb?” “Assuming that the designs still exist, so that no research is necessary—oh, perhaps two weeks. Thermonuclear weapons are rather simple, and use common materials.” (Plutonium and refined U-235 would not be common in a world with no nuclear reactors.) I can’t find a source, but I thought we knew that Ceres was mostly ice by 1997, so ice mining in the Oort Cloud would be stupidly and expensively unnecessary. Not to mention slow.
“For ordinary humans only two things were important: Love and Death. His body had not yet aged a hundred years: he still had plenty of time for both.”
A fitting close to the story that electrified America fifty years ago. (Well, the movie based on the story.) Clark closes the loop opened by the stirring overture music. Published in 1997, this story anticipates the ubiquity of computers, jihadist terrorism, and pandemics.
“Forget you’re an engineer—and enjoy yourself.”
Curiously, his thesis is that mankind isn’t responsible for our aggressive tendencies; we were programmed that way by interfering aliens. Millions of years ago.
“He had to admit that the selection was well done, by someone (Indra?) familiar with the early Twenty-first Century. There was nothing disturbing—no wars or violence, and very little contemporary business or politics, all of which would now be utterly irrelevant.”
Rides his usual hobby horses—anti-war, anti-religion, anti-government, anti-anti. His ideas aren’t necessarily logical, but he presents them well. Not terribly interested in facts. When writing a book set in 3001, who can say what they know about the world of 2001?
“Corpse-food was on the way out even in your time,” Anderson explained. “Raising animals to—ugh—eat them became economically impossible.
Quibbles: “The general consensus about the single greatest work of human art. Over and over again, in almost every listing—it’s Angkor Wat.” (his consensus) “Lenin was unlucky; he was born a hundred years too soon. Russian communism might have worked—at least for a while—if it had had microchips. And had managed to avoid Stalin.” (his 1997 perspective) “How long would it take to build a super-bomb?” “Assuming that the designs still exist, so that no research is necessary—oh, perhaps two weeks. Thermonuclear weapons are rather simple, and use common materials.” (Plutonium and refined U-235 would not be common in a world with no nuclear reactors.) I can’t find a source, but I thought we knew that Ceres was mostly ice by 1997, so ice mining in the Oort Cloud would be stupidly and expensively unnecessary. Not to mention slow.
“For ordinary humans only two things were important: Love and Death. His body had not yet aged a hundred years: he still had plenty of time for both.”
March 14, 2019
Having read the other books in this series, and seen the movies, I thought I would read the last one to conclude the story.
1,000 years after the original Discovery mission, Frank Poole's body is recovered out around Neptune. Future technology allows him to be revived and Clarke does some imagining of life and technology in the year 3001 in his classic style. This part of the book I found pretty good. The only things he got wrong were the developments in computer technology. We are getting close to what he imagined 980 years ahead of schedule:) Considering the book was written in 1997 it's still not that bad.
My only real problem with the book was the ending. It mimics the ending of a certain movie that also received a lot of criticism. I'm not going to say which movie as that would be a huge spoiler. You will have to read it for yourself.
If you have read the original 3 books then read this one, don't try and read it as a stand alone.
1,000 years after the original Discovery mission, Frank Poole's body is recovered out around Neptune. Future technology allows him to be revived and Clarke does some imagining of life and technology in the year 3001 in his classic style. This part of the book I found pretty good. The only things he got wrong were the developments in computer technology. We are getting close to what he imagined 980 years ahead of schedule:) Considering the book was written in 1997 it's still not that bad.
My only real problem with the book was the ending. It mimics the ending of a certain movie that also received a lot of criticism. I'm not going to say which movie as that would be a huge spoiler. You will have to read it for yourself.
If you have read the original 3 books then read this one, don't try and read it as a stand alone.
July 29, 2020
3.5
خب باید بگم که خوندنش از گروهان هم بیشتر طول کشید
هرکاری کردم نتونستم جذبش شم ، ینی صرفا تخیل بود نه هیجان ، البته خلاقیت نویسنده بیداد میکرد.
ولی در برخی جاها چنان به خودش سخت میگرفت و از کلممات سختی برای توصیف استفاده میکرد که نمیتونستم چیزی رو به تصور کنم.
شاید هم بخاطر ترجمه قدیمیش بود
ولی از فصل هایی که از زبان فرانک پول بودند تا دانای کل ، بیشتر لذت میبردم
یه نکته کوچیک هم داشت که نظرم رو جلب کرد . در فصل 37 ، نویسنده بطور غیر مستقیم به الن تیورینگ اشاره کرده بود که خیلی خوشم اومد و باعث شد دوباره متوجه داستان شم
با همه این ها، بدم نیومد و مایلم بقیه کتابای این مجموعه رو هم بخونم
خب باید بگم که خوندنش از گروهان هم بیشتر طول کشید
هرکاری کردم نتونستم جذبش شم ، ینی صرفا تخیل بود نه هیجان ، البته خلاقیت نویسنده بیداد میکرد.
ولی در برخی جاها چنان به خودش سخت میگرفت و از کلممات سختی برای توصیف استفاده میکرد که نمیتونستم چیزی رو به تصور کنم.
شاید هم بخاطر ترجمه قدیمیش بود
ولی از فصل هایی که از زبان فرانک پول بودند تا دانای کل ، بیشتر لذت میبردم
یه نکته کوچیک هم داشت که نظرم رو جلب کرد . در فصل 37 ، نویسنده بطور غیر مستقیم به الن تیورینگ اشاره کرده بود که خیلی خوشم اومد و باعث شد دوباره متوجه داستان شم
با همه این ها، بدم نیومد و مایلم بقیه کتابای این مجموعه رو هم بخونم
March 22, 2020
Not a very strong ending to the series but it was still enjoyable. I’ve enjoyed this series a lot. The first two were the best though.
September 7, 2009
This is one of my favorite books of all time because of its brutal and humbling honesty. I couldn't have chosen a better coda for the 2001 storyline, it left me absolutely breathless.
-- warning, serious spoilers --
After reading the ending of the Rendezvous with Rama series I was expecting Clarke to pretty much end things the same way, on a magnanimous upnote. With 2001 we learn that there is a vastly superior alien intelligence that has intervened in the natural evolution of apes to accelerate a group of them toward sentience. They use the monolith as their all-purpose tool to carry out the upgrades, then they leave one under the dirt on the moon so that some day, millions of years later, the creatures they engineered will find it and give the makers a status update. In 2001 we find it, uncover it, and activate it, and it sends off its data. In 2010 we discover that the monolith, operating independently from its makers, has started the process anew for some creatures evolving on Europa.
The monolith gives humanity a warning about its warring ways, and then goes on to advance and protect this new life. All the while the monolith is just running its default program, gathering data, and sending it off somewhere at the speed of light to some headquarters 1000 light years away. That's the kicker that makes this story so compelling, in 3001 we learn the maker's response to the data on us they received a thousand years earlier.
And what is that response? Do we get a magnanimous pat on the back from our alien parents? Do we get a stern but loving chiding?
No
The monolith is instructed to block out the sun from Earth....
After millions of years of waiting... after all the effort it took to create and monitor humanity, the alien race decides we're a failed experiment. The prognosis is death. God I LOVE Arthur C Clarke! No magnanimity for the poor bastard reader, no tying off his masterpiece in lovely little bows for our amusement, no forgiveness, no mercy, just DIE you degenerate earth scum!!! :D
I've read alot of the other reviews about how the ending just seemed like a ripoff of independance day, the whole virus thing, but that was just a one shot silly 2 hour movie! This series is a science fiction legend! The apollo astronauts were even quoted as joking that they hope they find a monolith when they land! This story is a part of our 20th century cultural identity and it ends with DIE YOU DEGENERATE EARTH SCUM!!! :D
Brilliant, biting, painful, and wonderful.
The only thing I suppose I would change about this book would be to just completely remove all hope. In the end the monolith is destroyed with a virus, but sends off a last scream to the makers before it fizzles offline, so humanity knows it's got a thousand more years before the makers realize the first attempt to kill us failed, so there's some unspoken hope that maybe we can organize a defense in the interim, or bake them a planet-sized "please don't kill us" cake, or suck up to the europans so they'll give us a recommendation or something.
If it was me sitting next to Arthur C Clarke in his den as he wrote this, bouncing up and down and chanting "you da man!!!", I would have tried to convince him to have the virus *fail* to stop the monolith. I would have had the monolith trip into some secondary killbot protocol where it just finished off the human race old school style, with a violent bloodbath, but that's just me ;)
-- warning, serious spoilers --
After reading the ending of the Rendezvous with Rama series I was expecting Clarke to pretty much end things the same way, on a magnanimous upnote. With 2001 we learn that there is a vastly superior alien intelligence that has intervened in the natural evolution of apes to accelerate a group of them toward sentience. They use the monolith as their all-purpose tool to carry out the upgrades, then they leave one under the dirt on the moon so that some day, millions of years later, the creatures they engineered will find it and give the makers a status update. In 2001 we find it, uncover it, and activate it, and it sends off its data. In 2010 we discover that the monolith, operating independently from its makers, has started the process anew for some creatures evolving on Europa.
The monolith gives humanity a warning about its warring ways, and then goes on to advance and protect this new life. All the while the monolith is just running its default program, gathering data, and sending it off somewhere at the speed of light to some headquarters 1000 light years away. That's the kicker that makes this story so compelling, in 3001 we learn the maker's response to the data on us they received a thousand years earlier.
And what is that response? Do we get a magnanimous pat on the back from our alien parents? Do we get a stern but loving chiding?
No
The monolith is instructed to block out the sun from Earth....
After millions of years of waiting... after all the effort it took to create and monitor humanity, the alien race decides we're a failed experiment. The prognosis is death. God I LOVE Arthur C Clarke! No magnanimity for the poor bastard reader, no tying off his masterpiece in lovely little bows for our amusement, no forgiveness, no mercy, just DIE you degenerate earth scum!!! :D
I've read alot of the other reviews about how the ending just seemed like a ripoff of independance day, the whole virus thing, but that was just a one shot silly 2 hour movie! This series is a science fiction legend! The apollo astronauts were even quoted as joking that they hope they find a monolith when they land! This story is a part of our 20th century cultural identity and it ends with DIE YOU DEGENERATE EARTH SCUM!!! :D
Brilliant, biting, painful, and wonderful.
The only thing I suppose I would change about this book would be to just completely remove all hope. In the end the monolith is destroyed with a virus, but sends off a last scream to the makers before it fizzles offline, so humanity knows it's got a thousand more years before the makers realize the first attempt to kill us failed, so there's some unspoken hope that maybe we can organize a defense in the interim, or bake them a planet-sized "please don't kill us" cake, or suck up to the europans so they'll give us a recommendation or something.
If it was me sitting next to Arthur C Clarke in his den as he wrote this, bouncing up and down and chanting "you da man!!!", I would have tried to convince him to have the virus *fail* to stop the monolith. I would have had the monolith trip into some secondary killbot protocol where it just finished off the human race old school style, with a violent bloodbath, but that's just me ;)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 12, 2020
Can a whole civilization be a Mary Sue?
This book was an unfortunate reminder that, for all his imagination, Clarke remained a creature of his time. This is one of his last novels (a novella, really) and it was clearly an effort to imagine his idea of a plausible future utopia, but it fell well short on both plausibility, and utopia.
His faith in a technological ascension was so strong that it becomes detached here from humanity; so many of his conceptions of this 1000-year future society are incoherent or morally repugnant yet go unremarked, that they can only be understood as the author's ideals. E.g.: although there are only 1 billion humans now, everyone subsists on artificial food; brain scans deemed deviant get their users sequestered from society; spirituality and psychotherapy are deemed pathologies that have "long since" been weeded out of society. Uh... sure. Not to mention the whole society getting billed as egalitarian, even though the narrative clearly dwells among the few highly privileged, with occasional dismissive glances at the indistinguishable masses who exist solely to serve the main characters.
Add in that there was almost no actual story, and what there was reduced the preceding mystique of the series -- the monoliths -- to a dumb machine. Give me a break.
This book was an unfortunate reminder that, for all his imagination, Clarke remained a creature of his time. This is one of his last novels (a novella, really) and it was clearly an effort to imagine his idea of a plausible future utopia, but it fell well short on both plausibility, and utopia.
His faith in a technological ascension was so strong that it becomes detached here from humanity; so many of his conceptions of this 1000-year future society are incoherent or morally repugnant yet go unremarked, that they can only be understood as the author's ideals. E.g.: although there are only 1 billion humans now, everyone subsists on artificial food; brain scans deemed deviant get their users sequestered from society; spirituality and psychotherapy are deemed pathologies that have "long since" been weeded out of society. Uh... sure. Not to mention the whole society getting billed as egalitarian, even though the narrative clearly dwells among the few highly privileged, with occasional dismissive glances at the indistinguishable masses who exist solely to serve the main characters.
Add in that there was almost no actual story, and what there was reduced the preceding mystique of the series -- the monoliths -- to a dumb machine. Give me a break.
July 26, 2025
https://imgur.com/a/KnK8tyZ
https://imgur.com/a/EPriKrY
(AI-generated images)
“This [Olduvai] was where -in time and space- the human species had really begun.
And this Monolith was the very first of all its multitudinous gods”
Page 58
There was so much expectation on my side when starting to read this book, a build-up coming from previous books and films, regarding the monoliths. As suggested in the books, monoliths, despite not possessing consciousness, are responsible for man’s evolution and the creation of new worlds (right, I am speaking about mini-sun Lucifer and its repercussions in the solar system).
I had also so many expectations apropos this resurrected character called Frank Poole, 1,000 years on, he comes to life again, and adapts. But then Poole participates in the annihilation of Lucifer. I was disappointed.
In the very end only the African monolith remains.
Man wants sole control of his evolution?
https://imgur.com/a/EPriKrY
(AI-generated images)
“This [Olduvai] was where -in time and space- the human species had really begun.
And this Monolith was the very first of all its multitudinous gods”
Page 58
There was so much expectation on my side when starting to read this book, a build-up coming from previous books and films, regarding the monoliths. As suggested in the books, monoliths, despite not possessing consciousness, are responsible for man’s evolution and the creation of new worlds (right, I am speaking about mini-sun Lucifer and its repercussions in the solar system).
I had also so many expectations apropos this resurrected character called Frank Poole, 1,000 years on, he comes to life again, and adapts. But then Poole participates in the annihilation of Lucifer. I was disappointed.
In the very end only the African monolith remains.
Man wants sole control of his evolution?
December 23, 2020
Mi ricorderò sempre di te, Dave.
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