As I’ve become more and more involved in writing Science Fiction, I’ve felt a strong desire to educate myself on the genre and read the major Sci Fi books that have come before me. I want to do this so that I can make my own works stronger, and also because I really enjoy them. When I picked up this book, I did so more because it was one of the more well known books and I felt that I ought to read it than that I really wanted to read it. After all, 2001: A Space Odyssey is known to be really hard sci fi, and most of what I’ve experienced and come to love is more “soft” sci fi.
However, even though this book really is “hard” science fiction, I became totally engrossed and really came to love it. The last 50 pages in particular had a huge impact on me–I literally couldn’t put the book down!
2001: A Space Odyssey kind of reminds me of Asimov’s Foundation series, in that the thing driving the story the most isn’t the characters, the plot, or the conflict, but the idea. In Foundation, it was psychohistory and questions about free will and the ability to predict the future. In 2001, it has to do with the growth and development of humanity and wonder at the universe.
Like Foundation, it really isn’t character based at all–the story starts three million years in the past, when aliens encounter our primate ancestors, and goes forward to 2001, when astronaut David Bowman again contacts these aliens on a mission to Saturn that goes disastrously wrong. But really, it isn’t about David at all–he’s more of a vehicle through which Arthur C. Clarke describes the planets and the aliens.
The thing that really makes this book stand out for me is the writing. When the Discovery was flying by Jupiter, I really felt like I was there. It was almost as if I could feel the same anxiety and wonder that the astronauts felt–and when the probe broke through the first few layers of Jovian clouds to send out a video picture of what lay underneath, my eyes grew wide as if I were there. The writing throughout the book was superb like that.
One thing that surprised me a bit was that I didn’t mind how Arthur C. Clarke treated the man-apes at the beginning of the book. I’m a fairly religious person, and even though I accept most of evolution, there are some things about the Darwinist worldview that clash with my theology and can sometimes irk me. It’s not that I think I’ve got it figured out–because really, like every reasonable person I have to admit that I haven’t–it’s that there are certain things about the Darwinist worldview that I feel leave no space for the kind of stuff that I believe in. However, even though 2001: A Space Odyssey adhered very close to the Darwinist view of human pre-history, I didn’t feel all that upset or thrown off by it. I think this was because Clarke wasn’t preachy about it, or tried to use it as a way to downplay religion. Indeed, Clarke didn’t seem to have much to say either for or against religion–just that this was one aspect of where we came from.
And I think this gets onto something much bigger that I really liked about this book–Clarke didn’t try to explain everything. Indeed, there was a lot more left unexplained than explained, and that helped to preserve the supreme sense of wonder that the book conveyed. This wasn’t like the Star Wars prequels when they tried to do something as lame as explain the force–this book really showed that there are a lot of unanswered questions and fascinating possibilities in the universe. And I really think that that helped to strengthen the book as Science Fiction.
By far the strangest and most fascinating part of the book was the last fifty pages, when David Bowman gets to Saturn aboard the now partly derelict Discovery and finds the stargate. Once he goes through it, ALL KINDS of crazy stuff happen! And it was really thrilling to read! I won’t give away any spoilers, but it was really crazy–and really good as well! The thing that made it good was that even though it was really psychedelic and mysterious, I didn’t feel lost as I was reading it. I felt that I could visualize it very well, even if I didn’t know what “it” was, and every once and a while, Clarke dropped in a short explanation or two without breaking the action. Indeed, since the point of view was not really limited to David, there was room for the narrator to talk with the reader and explain some of the stuff that was going on. But Clarke really did a good job balancing the information he gave so that he preserved a sense of mystery without losing the reader. That, I feel, takes skill and practice, and can really strengthen a good story.
2001: A Space Odyssey is definitely hard sci fi, so if you like reading about characters or stories, you won’t get much from this–but if you have a sense of wonder about the universe and you like pondering scientific ideas, this is a really excellent book to read!
