3001: The Final Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
Back in 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the characters (Frank Poole) dies due to the actions of HAL; in 3001: The Final Odyssey he returns! Arthur C. Clarke takes the opportunity to describe his vision for earth’s far off future. Given his the accuracy of some of his previous predictions, I’d be surprised if a few of them didn’t come true, and perhaps quicker than the 1000 odd year gap he envisaged.
The slabs so important in the previous 3 novels obviously star again, this time the original one from the beginning of the 2001 book rears its head, and is discovered. This novel in fact could be quite well described as tying up most of the loose ends presented in the earlier books; the essence of HAL and Bowman return, and are needed to try and avert the cataclysmic fate that human kind face. The aliens look to be judging humans as un-worthy of carrying on their existence, although the evidence used does date back to 2001, so things have improved.
I’m loathe to talk about the plot too much, as I don’t want to spoil the surprises for any potential readers; if you’d like details on any particular aspect of the book, leave me a comment and I’ll e-mail you the response.
If you’ve read the three other books in this series, you’re not very likely to decide to skip this one, and if you’ve not yet read the others, I would recommend buying those first, as they do obviously provide a lot of back-story to this novel.
There are in fact 3 other Arthur C. Clarke books to be reviewed soon, but I’ve grown a little bored of them for now, so I’ll review a few others first, then return to his books. Hope you don’t mind. Tough luck if it does cause you to lose sleep ;-P