A review by dorothy_gale
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
4.0
I'M NOT A FAN OF SCI-FI BOOKS, BUT... this book surprised me, and I give credit to the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, if the book were all like its Part 1, I would have quit or checked out. The entirety of the man-apes section could have been cut, and nothing would have been lost. It was the epidemic on the moon, with the Chinese initially to blame, that pulled me forward.
Then amusement at the technology projected from 1968 to 2001: Newspads that could bring up any newspapers in the world. Hi-fi, vision phones, and machine intelligence. The idea that people still needed to read bad news, because "newspapers of Utopia would be dull." The idea that humans could remember 90% of what they had learned was exciting. And, that the two selected for the space mission were generalists -- they could handle a variety of situations during flight.
Another eerie projection was the population of Earth. Back in 1968, Earth had 3.5 billion people and the book was saying that in 2001 it had exceeded 6 billion (and characterized it as problematic). The real world population in 2001 was 6.2 billion! Nailed it! [We're at an estimated 7.8 billion today, by the way.]
If I had been enamored by the accurate predictions, then I was quickly brought back to 1968 when they stated that space pods were "usually christened with feminine names, perhaps in recognition of the fact that their personalities were sometimes slightly unpredictable." While it probably flew under the radar in the real 2001, my inner feminist had a hard time carrying it into my vision of the future.
Themes: Evolution (mostly boring if you've read any of Yuval Noah Harari's books, especially Sapiens); Space Exploration (it unfairly competed against my experiences of Star Wars to STARGá°TE to The 100); and The Perils of Technology (take a hammer to my nerves why don't you?)
Narration: Omniscient. Given the timeframe this book covers, it was the only way.
Tone: Detached and matter-of-fact. The majority of my 12 sci-fi books have been dystopian, so I'm not sure if the clinical tone is the norm for non-dystopian sci-fi.
I now understand references to Hal 9000, which I could have gone through life just fine without, but THEN... The Monolith. In real life, on November ~24, 2020, a large 10-12 foot monolith mysteriously appeared in Utah's Red Rock Country. Others began mysteriously appearing (and disappearing) around the world since. The most recent on February ~5, 2021 in Turkey (later determined to be a government gimmick). The stories sometimes mentioned this book, but not having read it, I had no clue. Now I do! :-)
Then, the ending. I won't spoil it, but it was positively unexpected.
In all, 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4. The epidemic and monolith were lucky timing. Had I read this any earlier than 2020, it would've been lucky to get 3 stars. I'm considering watching the famous movie to see if my impressions improve with visuals, since the the book and movie were co-developed.
Then amusement at the technology projected from 1968 to 2001: Newspads that could bring up any newspapers in the world. Hi-fi, vision phones, and machine intelligence. The idea that people still needed to read bad news, because "newspapers of Utopia would be dull." The idea that humans could remember 90% of what they had learned was exciting. And, that the two selected for the space mission were generalists -- they could handle a variety of situations during flight.
Another eerie projection was the population of Earth. Back in 1968, Earth had 3.5 billion people and the book was saying that in 2001 it had exceeded 6 billion (and characterized it as problematic). The real world population in 2001 was 6.2 billion! Nailed it! [We're at an estimated 7.8 billion today, by the way.]
If I had been enamored by the accurate predictions, then I was quickly brought back to 1968 when they stated that space pods were "usually christened with feminine names, perhaps in recognition of the fact that their personalities were sometimes slightly unpredictable." While it probably flew under the radar in the real 2001, my inner feminist had a hard time carrying it into my vision of the future.
Themes: Evolution (mostly boring if you've read any of Yuval Noah Harari's books, especially Sapiens); Space Exploration (it unfairly competed against my experiences of Star Wars to STARGá°TE to The 100); and The Perils of Technology (take a hammer to my nerves why don't you?)
Narration: Omniscient. Given the timeframe this book covers, it was the only way.
Tone: Detached and matter-of-fact. The majority of my 12 sci-fi books have been dystopian, so I'm not sure if the clinical tone is the norm for non-dystopian sci-fi.
I now understand references to Hal 9000, which I could have gone through life just fine without, but THEN... The Monolith. In real life, on November ~24, 2020, a large 10-12 foot monolith mysteriously appeared in Utah's Red Rock Country. Others began mysteriously appearing (and disappearing) around the world since. The most recent on February ~5, 2021 in Turkey (later determined to be a government gimmick). The stories sometimes mentioned this book, but not having read it, I had no clue. Now I do! :-)
Then, the ending. I won't spoil it, but it was positively unexpected.
In all, 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4. The epidemic and monolith were lucky timing. Had I read this any earlier than 2020, it would've been lucky to get 3 stars. I'm considering watching the famous movie to see if my impressions improve with visuals, since the the book and movie were co-developed.