2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Outside of a few iconic parodies in films/shows like Toy Story 2, and Zoolander, and Futurama, I didn’t really have too much knowledge going into this book. I never saw the movie on which it was based, but it’s been on both my to watch and to read list.
That said, I’m glad I did read it. It has an interesting premise that seems to be fuel for the ancient aliens fire. (Although, not that he needs to, Arthur C. Clarke does say that it is a work of fiction right in the beginning.)
It was a very slow burn, but it was engaging. A very cerebral read, and I’m more interested to watch the movie now than I was before, because it takes about 100 pages out of the 221 pages in my edition for anything to actually happen.
This book is a huge amount of nostalgia. To think about what we might have accomplished up in space had budgets not been slashed.
I would recommend to the fan of hard sci-fi, or someone looking to read classics. For some casual fun, look elsewhere.
Michael Treadway 