2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)

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2001: A Space Odyssey is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke from 1968. It was created at the same time as the film of the same name based on Clarke's short story The Sentinel , but differs greatly from the plot in Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation. 2001 is the first book in the four-volume “Space Odyssey” cycle, which also includes the novels Odyssey 2010 - The Year In Contact , 2061 - Odyssey III and 3001 - The Last Odyssey .

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A group of great apes in Africa discovered three million years before Christ a black monolith that was erected by unknown aliens. Through contact with the monolith, the intelligence development of the group accelerates , after which the great apes begin to make tools. With their help, they are now able to kill all other animals and thus heave themselves to the top of the food chain.

A leap into 1999 follows, in which the scientist Dr. Heywood Floyd is on a secret mission to the moon. There he is told that a black monolith was discovered in the lunar crater Tycho , which is causing a strong disturbance of the magnetic field . It also sends a signal to Saturn's moon Iapetus .

Two years later, the spaceship Discovery One is on its way to Saturn . The astronauts David Bowman and Francis Poole are monitoring the mission together with the highly developed HAL 9000 computer, while three of their colleagues were brought on board while they were asleep. The HAL, which is considered to be infallible, reports the failure of the communication unit AE-35 to Bowman and Poole, but this turns out to be a misdiagnosis. In a conversation with their superiors from Earth, the astronauts are instructed to temporarily switch off HAL. During the call, the AE-35 actually fails and communication with earth is interrupted. When Poole tries to repair the unit, his spacesuit is torn apart, whereupon he suffocates in the vacuum of space. The unsettled Bowman orders HAL to wake the other astronauts. The computer refuses, however, and opens all the locks on the ship to kill the rest of the crew. Bowman, however, succeeds in re-entering Discovery One thanks to his spacesuit . He now reduces HAL's consciousness functions to the basic functions and reestablishes contact with earth. Only now is the real purpose of the mission, the search for the authors of the black monolith, revealed to him. Bowman now learns that HAL felt guilty for having to keep this assignment a secret from the astronauts. When he heard that it should be temporarily turned off, he fell into fear and panic.

Bowman spends the remaining months on the ship alone before arriving at Iapetus. When he finally reaches Saturn, he sees another black monolith, but it is many times larger than the one discovered on the moon. Bowman is drawn into the monolith, his last radio message to earth is: "My God, it is full of stars!" The astronaut now travels to unknown star systems, where different forms and stages of extraterrestrial life are revealed to him. When he falls asleep in a room, he is transformed into an immortal “star child” who can live in space and move around freely.

Differences from the film

  • The target of Discovery One in Kubrick's film adaptation is Jupiter, not Saturn. This is due to the fact that the trick technique at that time was not yet sufficiently developed to represent the complex ring system of Saturn realistically. In the other novels of his Space Odyssey cycle, Clarke also replaced Saturn with Jupiter.
  • The conflict between the astronauts and HAL develops a little differently in the book than in the film. For example, Bowman and Poole decide independently in the film to temporarily disable HAL, while in the book they receive this instruction from their superiors on Earth.
  • The book describes HAL's inner conflict in much more detail as the reason for his murderous behavior, while this is not explicitly discussed in the film. Only in the continuation 2010: The year in which we contact this storyline will be taken up on film. The same goes for Bowman's last words before his disappearance (“My God, it's full of stars!”).
  • The book addresses the loneliness and the resulting psychological problems Bowman between the events with HAL and the achievement of the TMA2.

literature

  • Arthur C. Clarke : 2001: A Space Odyssey. The novel for the film (= Heyne books 01, Heyne general series 20079). (OT: 2001: A Space Odyssey ). Foreword by Stephen Baxter . With the underlying short story The Guardian. Paperback edition, revised new edition. Heyne, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-453-19438-1 .