Book Edition

Author:	Arthur C. Clarke
Title:	2001: A Space Odyssey
Publisher:	Orbit
Country:	UK
Date:	2000
Format:	Paperback
Genre:	Science Fiction
ISBN13 / Barcode:	9781857236644
Total Editions:	8
First Published:	1968
Rating:	9.0 Rate
Collection:	I Own It I Want It
Community:	1 Owns
Price Guide:	Valuation Page
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Notes

252 Pages.

With a Foreword by Arthur .C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, and an Introduction, "Back To 2001" by Arthur C. Clarke.

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Number: 1643530

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Uploaded By: Magic Marmalade
Description: Arthur C. Clarke - 2001 - A Space Odyssey - Orbit - Paperback - UK - 9781857236644 (2000) - Front Cover

Primary Edition

Book

Arthur C. Clarke - 2001 L'Odyssée De L'Espace - Robert Laffont - Paperback - France (1968)

Comments and Reviews


Magic Marmalade 26th Apr 2018		Rated 9/10 For those who have seen the Stanley Kubrick film, and come away with the eternal question... ...WTF!??? ...This will go a long way to illuminating you as to the intent and meaning of the story. ......Well, in so far as the general idea is concerned, particularly around this novel; Less so for the film, as Kubrick has made a couple of small, but key editorial alterations to features of the story that render it in an entirely new light. As Arthur C. explains in the introduction, although this novel is an expansion on a kernel of an idea he sketched out in a short story: The Sentinel, more was draw from other works of his, that allowed him to write the full novel for the purposes of a collaboration with Kubrick on the film - He says here that they decided to write out the story as a novel for the film, as screenplays tended to be brief, dry, and uninformative, so this provided the basis for the screenplay to be written from (not a novelisation of the film "ugh"), he stresses - "Writing a novel is like swimming through the sea; Writing a film script is like thrashing through treacle" The key changes are at both the beginning and the end, whereby in the first scenes with the apes, the monolith is a large transluscent crystal slab, that has all kinds of flashing lights and goings-on that test the aptitudes of the ape population, and so promote their advancement, and are of unequivocally of alien intelligent origin... Kubrick omits this in the film, opting to use the inscrutable, and largely passive black slabs that appear later in this work as the only monolith design to appear... this renders it ambiguous at best, as to whether the story is actually about aliens or not... (I think the film actually is not about aliens at all, but only intelligence of human origin, with the slabs being symbolic objects of our own wonder, and self promoted intellectual advancement - intelligence begets itself) ...This ambiguity is further compounded with the "through the stargate" segment at the end, where here, it is very clearly the involvement of alien civilization, but in the film, a more abstract approach is taken, in order to represent an intellectual leap towards a new stage in human evolution. All else being pretty much as you see in the film. What did surprise me though, reading this, is what a fantastic writer Arthur C. Clarke is, which may sound silly, but most of the praise for him usually lies in the quality and innovation of his ideas, but I think it should be noted how lyrical, concise, and even poetic, at times, his writing is, and how easily he wraps up quite complex scientific ideas without trying to bludgeon you with description... he makes these ideas very easy to digest in simple phrases and expressions (his description of the stargate is brilliant).... ...so much so, that, comparatively slow reader that I am, I was able to bang through these 252 pages in just under two days! (A record for me) In large part though, as there are (other than the ape scene and space station scene), only three characters (Hal included) interacting in a tube in space, the story is of course, very elegant, without lots of environment and multitudes of characters to consider. The film and this book really are compliments to each other, and if you want to get more to the bottom of both, either is recommended to have at hand as at least a side-salad to your preferred main course. Great book! 2 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?

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Arthur C. Clarke - Die letzte Generation - Gebrüder Weiss Verlag - Hardcover - Germany

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