''What shocking linguists we Americans are!'' says the central character, and he doesn't leave it at that. Only rarely does Clarke indulge in the kind of preachiness that keeps science fiction firmly locked within its genre. Rather, he uses his facts to give the reader a credible experience of space travel.Īlso - Clarke's science fiction, as the art of making projections based on established fact, successfully creates such things as an amazing core for Jupiter and intriguing life forms beneath the icy crust of Jupiter's moon, Europa. Clarke, author of 26 works of fiction and 25 works of nonfiction on space science and oceanography, presumably knows his astronomy, his space technology, and his orbital mechanics and he doesn't compromise them to fit the plot. It is soon obvious that he is being manipulated in turn by the masters of the monolith, whose purpose and identity add mystery to the engrossing plot.Ī pleasant contrast to the fantastical treatment of Bowman's superhuman exploits is the central story: a realistically drawn portrayal of the voyage of the spaceship Leonov. Bowman has been reborn as a force field capable of manipulating human events. The anticipated theme in Bowman's rebirth is one of the most intriguing in science fiction: Into what kind of being could Homo sapiens evolve? Clarke, however, bypasses the question and chooses to treat this part of the story as cosmic fantasy. (In the current sequel, ''2010: Odyssey Two,'' Clarke quotes several passages from the book ''2001'' but follows the movie version of the story, in which Discovery orbits Jupiter.)īeginning where ''2001'' left off, ''2010'' follows three major story lines: Bowman's fate, the investigation of the Jupiter monolith by the spaceship Leonov, and the rehabilitation of Hal. He has created a story that contains elements of both fantasy and classical science fiction on the grand cosmic scale, while maintaining a vivid sense of reality - staying true to the human realities of space travel, incorporating new facts gleaned from the 1979 Voyager space probes, and making believable scientific projections based on those facts.Īt the conclusion of ''2001: A Space Odyssey,'' published in 1968, Clarke leaves astronaut David Bowman (reborn with the help of a large black monolith) floating above Earth, wondering what to do with his newfound powers over space and time.Meanwhile Hal, the self-conscious computer gone dangerously schizophrenic, circles a moon of Saturn in the spaceship Discovery. Clarke has accomplished what few modern science fiction authors seem to be able to do.
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