Arthur C Clarke is undoubtedly the grand master of classical science fiction. This novel was written almost half a century ago and comes very close to the reality of the world we live it today as visualized then by the author. Before I go further classical science fiction (or hard sci-fi) stretches what is possible with current technologies to create scenarios and/or backdrops in which the actual story is played out.
Clarke in his unique style plays the story out in the form of an action adventure. The science (or pseudo-science) forms the vital backdrop over which the story is superimposed but it’s taken as given rather than central to the story. This novel was the first to introduce the Frankenstein’s monster to science fiction in the form of HAL-9000 the artificially intelligent computer that calculates human lives as being less important compared to the mission and terminates them so as to be able to complete the mission on its own.
The story begins in pre-historical times with an unknown extra terrestrial entity (referred to as The Monolith) sets cave dwelling prehistoric human beings on a path of evolution that would one day take us to the moon and then to the further reaches of the solar system. At each stage there are guiding beacons that record every move to lead the human race to a yet unknown destiny. The story of the novel is played out in the form of events that happen up to and during the journey. The passages are datelined so it seems to be more an account of things as they happen rather than a story, in fact it seems to be more like a diary maintained by an observer which is rather unique.
The most fascinating part is the one that takes the reader through the journey (from earth to Saturn in the novel) describing the perils of space travel, the associated hazards and how the protagonists navigate through them. Things like red shift, message time lag, and gravity-assisted flight are used aptly to describe what could someday become a stupendously beautiful tour of the solar system. This book was made into an immensely successful movie of the same name directed by Stanley Kubrick. The success of the movie led Clarke to write a sequel 2010 space odyssey 2 and 2061 space odyssey 3. All these went on to become bestsellers and another movie was made on 2010. Clarke wound up the series with 3001 the final Odyssey, which was released in the year 2000. Though each of these novels has its own story to tell and each one is a great story in its own but 2001 The Space Odyssey is undoubtedly the best.