2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke

I've stated in the past I'm not a fan of the movie version of 2001. It moves entirely too slowly for me. I hadn't read the book since 2004, but I had fonder memories of it, so I figured it was due for a revisit (along with the subsequent novels, which I'll get to probably in the next month or so).

As it turns out, my belief I could read the book in less time than it takes to watch the movie was not quite correct; it took me 4 hours, although I was also recovering from my morning run, so there were periodic pauses to stretch or grab more drinks. I definitely got through the sequence in the white "hotel room" faster than the movie, though.

Mysterious monolith experiments on primitive man-apes, millions of years later, humanity discovers a similar monolith buried on the Moon. Once unearthed, and exposed to the Sun, it sends of a huge burst of radio waves in the direction of Saturn. A ship is sent out there, with two of the crewman, Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, awake while the other three hibernate. The ship's computer, HAL 9000, goes nuts and tries to kill everyone, forcing Dave to shut it down. Dave travels through the monolith he finds out there and is ultimately transformed into a Star Child.

The film always seems to be memorable for the beginning, with the apes figuring out tools in the shadow of the monolith, and for the struggle against HAL out in space. The part on the Moon was actually fairly interesting to me, though I'd forgotten most of it. The idea of international cooperation in building Moon bases, and yet the world is stated to be on the brink of famine in 15 years. That 38 nations have nuclear weapons, and China is selling off some of theirs for the low price of $2 million bucks. The things Clarke predicted would be the problems in the future.

There's also a random comment that the spaceship's extravehicular pods were named after women, because their personalities were unpredictable. Ha ha, dames, so flighty and temperamental, amirite, fellas? Of course, it's the computer, with a guy's name, that actually goes out of control. 

I also didn't remember that the reason HAL goes on a murder spree is because firstly, he's cracking under the strain of programming that tells him to be truthful with the crew, while other programming tells him to conceal the true reason for the mission from Dave and Frank (who know nothing of the monoliths). And that, when he begins to malfunction, Dave says he may have to turn HAL off, which HAL equates with Death, rather than sleep. An absolute end, rather than an interlude. Unintended consequences of humans' attempts to create artificial intelligence, not really putting the appropriate forethought into things.

I wonder if it's meant as a contrast to the beings behind the monoliths. They conducted these experiments, then left Earth and continued on to the next world. And even as they evolved far beyond what they were at the time, they still waited to see how the experiments turned out. When the monolith on the Moon is unearthed, the protocols are still in place. And when Dave reaches Iapetus* , and passes through the Gate, they're ready for him. They haven't forgotten or become bored. The question is whether the metamorphosis they put Dave through is going to have consequences they can't perceive, and I don't remember how the next three books turn out well enough to know.

I haven't always liked the payoff in Clarke's books, but I enjoy his writing. He's matter-of-fact when need be, but can be poignant or poetic as necessary. I don't know about funny, it doesn't really come up here, but there's some excellent descriptive work on the different settings, or the physics behind some of what's going on.

'Yet there was no violation of the laws of mechanics; Nature always balances her books, and Jupiter had lost exactly as much momentum as Discovery had gained. The planet had been slowed down - but as its mass was a sextillion times greater than the ship's the change in its orbit was far too small to be detectable. The time had not yet come when Man could leave his mark upon the Solar System.'

* I like that Clarke incorporated the mystery of Iapetus' starkly different sides, like it's another test the creatures set up.