3001: The Final Odyssey

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Circumcision Angst: Inverted. A woman loses interest in Frank because his is circumcised, something that is considered a "mutilation" in 3001. Subverted by Frank, who is bemused to learn why his one-night stand ran out on him, but declines restorative surgery and goes on to date more favourably inclined women instead. follows the adventures of Frank Poole, the astronaut killed by the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In his exciting new novel, Clarke reveals the ominous answer about the ultimate purpose of the monoliths.” — Daily Telegraph 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. In 2000, Yahoo! reported that MGM and actor/director Tom Hanks were in discussions regarding adapting both 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey into movies, with Hanks reportedly to play Frank Poole in the 3001 film. An update in 2001 stated that there was no further development on the project. [1]

The petabyte storage device, containing Halman and other lifeforms, but also infected with the virus, is subsequently sealed by scientists in the Pico Vault. At the close of the story, Poole and other humans land on Europa to start peaceful relations with the primitive native Europans. A statement is made that the monolith's makers will not determine humanity's fate until "the Last Days". 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? 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... follows the adventures of Frank Poole, the astronaut killed by the HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the Fourth Millennium, Poole's freeze-dried body is discovered in the Kuiper belt by a comet-collecting space tug named the Goliath, and revived. Poole is taken home to learn about the Earth in the year 3001.Broad Strokes/ Negative Continuity: While all of the novels takes pretty much all of the events of the previous ones in account, each installment also seems to ignore the ending of the previous one. invoked Word of God is that each novel takes place in its own parallel universe. I grew up on Clarke. His novels and short stories fuelled my avid interest in science, evolution, and academic pursuits. It used to be that I could not wait to read the latest Clarke edition. 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.

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. :) Starfish Aliens: The "Europs", whose evolution has been accelerated by the Monoliths much as ancient man-apes were accelerated on the path to humans. They're described as looking like mobile thorn-bushes, with no obvious sense organs. Because their biochemistry is based on sulphur instead of oxygen, it is much less efficient, thus even a sloth could outrun them. They are filter-feeders that use their branches to strain the water for plankton. By 3001 they've barely started using tools, just making ice igloos on the surface to avoid predators - after a thousand years they're still loosely at the level of the man-apes at the beginning of 3001 who started using bones as clubs. Yet there's a spark of pre-sapience in them now, as they are fascinated by metal objects left over from human probes, and arrange them in piles like cargo cults. 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 Final Odyssey is a 1997 science fiction novel by British writer ArthurC. Clarke. It is the fourth and final book in Clarke's Space Odyssey series.Then ending of 2001 indicates that the Monolith can act as a wormhole and it transports Bowman to another solar system, apparently that of its builders. The sequels do not include any form of faster-than-light travel or communication and Bowman is said to have been "absorbed" by the monolith rather than transported anywhere. Yet Clarke has a weird take on religions (Ch. 9), which is hilarious, since the franchise is essentially Christian: Replace aliens with God, the monolith with Christ, and evolution with salvation, then you have the core Christian message. As Athanasius said, "God became man so that man might be god." ( On the Incarnation (De Incarnatione Verbi Dei)) What C. S. Lewis wrote about Christ applies to Dave Bowman: "In Christ a new kind of man appeared; and the new kind of life which began in Him is to be put into us." ( Mere Christianity).

The Sentinel (1951): It was originally written for a BBC competition and it failed, it got published in the Ten Story Fantasy magazine as Sentinel Of Eternity. It was used as a starting point for 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is this future time that the 100 year old body of Frank Poole is found floating out in the outer reaches of the galaxy…frozen, but apparently not dead. He is miraculously revived and comes full circle in an odyssey of his own as he resumes his life in a world and time far removed from the early 21st century. As Frank adjusts to his life in this new world it would seem that the monolith is become active again. Soon Halman – the merged consciousness of Dave Bowman and the computer HAL – is being spotted again in various places. Soon he has an ominous message for his old friend Frank Poole. 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? And because, in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.In connecting this story to the previous three novels, Clarke writes in a couple of ‘guest appearances’ by David Bowman and HAL — now a single entity called Halman. They appear, literally and figuratively, as mere shadows of their former selves. Poole’s character, and the smattering of future humans he interacts with, are not nearly enough to carry the story of 3001 itself, however. Well-paced and absorbing . . . It is as a flight of fancy by the master of science fiction that 3001 makes its mark.” — The Times HAL is probably the most famous example of all time. His erratic behavior in 2001 is explained in 2010 as the result of a programming conflict. Essentially, HAL was programmed to 'be truthful', then told to hide the actual goal of the mission from the astronauts that were awake; something of a lie by omission. HAL eventually decided that since it could largely run the ship through automation, and already knew everything anyway, getting rid of all of the astronauts meant no one to lie to. Not being clear on the idea that "being shut down to troubleshoot HAL's increasingly contradictory reports" doesn't equal death (and risking the mission) didn't help.

Earth-Shattering Kaboom: In 3001, humanity observed a planet explode, which somehow triggered a supernova. They are left to wonder if there was intelligence on that planet and if they caused the supernova. Though everyone was so terrified of the phenomenon they didn't want to speak of it again.Portal Crossroad World: The Star Gate leads to a hub system at the center of the galaxy with portals leading everywhere else. Well-paced and absorbing . . . It is as a flight of fancy by the master of science fiction that 3001makes its mark.” — The Times Terraform: 2061 and 3001 depicts humankind as doing this to Mars and Venus. In 3001 there are still centuries to go before Venus will be habitable. I am even filing this under my science shelf (I know, I know I shouldn't, but still, theoretically, it is all possible, right?) Plagued with problems" is how I choose to describe "3001." I echo what J. R. R. Tolkien said about Lewis's conclusion to the Space Trilogy: I think it spoiled it. ( The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 393). In fact, I think this series is a good example of when a good franchise goes bad. "2001" is euphoric, "2010" is idealistic, "2061" is optimistic, but "3001" is sarcastic. The future may have been a let-down, but his books need not be.