3001: The Final Odyssey

By Arthur C. Clarke

The mysteries of the monoliths are revealed in this inspired conclusion to the Hugo Award–winning Space Odyssey series—“there are marvels aplenty” (The New York Times).
 
On an ill-fated mission to Jupiter in 2001, the mutinous supercomputer HAL sent crewmembers David Bowman and Frank Poole into the frozen void of space. Bowman’s strange transformation into a Star Child is traced through the novels 2010 and 2061. But now, a thousand years after his death, Frank Poole is brought back to life—and thrust into a world far more technically advanced than the one he left behind.
 
Poole discovers a world of human minds interfacing directly with computers, genetically engineered dinosaur servants, and massive space elevators built around the equator. He also discovers an impending threat to humanity lurking within the enigmatic monoliths. To fight it, Poole must join forces with Bowman and HAL, now fused into one corporeal consciousness—and the only being with the power to thwart the monoliths’ mysterious creators.
 
“3001 is not just a page-turner, plugged in to the great icons of HAL and the monoliths, but a book of wisdom too, pithy and provocative.” —New Scientist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9780795324888

Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur C. Clarke is the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and many other award-winning books of science fiction and fact.

Book preview

PROLOGUE: THE FIRSTBORN

Call them the Firstborn. Though they were not remotely human, they were flesh and blood, and when they looked out across the deeps of space, they felt awe, and wonder—and loneliness. As soon as they possessed the power, they began to seek for fellowship among the stars.

In their explorations, they encountered life in many forms, and watched the workings of evolution on a thousand worlds. They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence flickered and died in the cosmic night.

And because, in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped.

And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.

The great dinosaurs had long since passed away, their morning promise annihilated by a random hammer-blow from space, when the survey ship entered the Solar System after a voyage that had already lasted a thousand years. It swept past the frozen outer planets, paused briefly above the deserts of dying Mars, and presently looked down on Earth.

Spread out beneath them, the explorers saw a world swarming with life. For years they studied, collected, catalogued. When they had learned all that they could, they began to modify. They tinkered with the destiny of many species, on land and in the seas. But which of their experiments would bear fruit, they could not know for at least a million years.

They were patient, but they were not yet immortal. There was so much to do in this universe of a hundred billion suns, and other worlds were calling. So they set out once more into the abyss, knowing that they would never come this way again. Nor was there any need: the servants they had left behind would do the rest.

On Earth, the glaciers came and went, while above them the changeless Moon still carried its secret from the stars. With a yet slower rhythm than the polar ice, the tides of civilization ebbed and flowed across the Galaxy. Strange and beautiful and terrible empires rose and fell, and passed on their knowledge to their successors.

And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving toward new goals. The first explorers of Earth had long since come to the limits of flesh and blood; as soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move. First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and gemstone. In these, they roamed the Galaxy. They no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships.

But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed. In their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light.

Into pure energy, therefore, they presently transformed themselves; and on a thousand worlds, the empty shells they had discarded twitched for a while in a mindless dance of death, then crumbled into dust.

Now they were Lords of the Galaxy, and could rove at will among the stars, or sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. Though they were freed at last from the tyranny of matter, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea. And their marvelous instruments still continued to function, watching over the experiments started so many ages ago.

But no longer were they always obedient to the mandates of their creators; like all material things, they were not immune to the corruptions of Time and its patient, unsleeping servant, Entropy.

And sometimes, they discovered and sought goals of their own.

I. STAR CITY

1. COMET COWBOY

Captain Dimitri Chandler [M2973.04.21/93.106//Mars// SpaceAcad3005]—or Dim to his very best friends—was understandably annoyed. The message from Earth had taken six hours to reach the spacetug Goliath, here beyond the orbit of Neptune; if it had arrived ten minutes later he could have answered, Sorry—can’t leave now—we’ve just started to deploy the sunscreen.

The excuse would have been perfectly valid: wrapping a comet’s core in a sheet of reflective film only a few molecules thick but kilometers on a side, was not the sort of job you could abandon while it was half-completed.

Still, it would be a good idea to obey this ridiculous request: he was already in disfavor Sunward, through no fault of his own. Collecting ice from the rings of Saturn and nudging it toward Venus and Mercury, where it was really needed, had started back in the 2700s—three centuries ago. Captain Chandler had never been able to see any real difference in the before and after images the Solar Conservers were always producing, to support their accusations of celestial vandalism. But the general public, still sensitive to the ecological disasters of previous centuries, had thought otherwise, and the Hands off Saturn! vote had passed by a substantial majority. As a result, Chandler was no longer a Ring Rustler, but a Comet Cowboy.

So here he was at an appreciable fraction of the distance to Alpha Centauri, rounding up stragglers from the Kuiper Belt. There was certainly enough ice out here to cover Mercury and Venus with oceans kilometers deep, but it might take centuries to extinguish their hellfires and make them suitable for life. The Solar Conservers, of course, were still protesting against this, though no longer with so much enthusiasm. The millions dead from the tsunami caused by the Pacific asteroid in 2304—how ironic that a land impact would have done much less damage!—had reminded all future generations that the human race had too many eggs in one fragile basket.

Well, Chandler told himself, it would be fifty years before this particular package reached its destination, so a delay of a week would hardly make much difference. But all the calculations about rotation, center of mass, and thrust vectors would have to be redone, and radioed back to Mars for checking. It was a good idea to do your sums carefully, before nudging billions of tons of ice along an orbit that might take it within hailing distance of Earth.

As they had done so many times before, Captain Chandler’s eyes strayed toward the ancient photograph above his desk. It showed a three-masted steamship, dwarfed by the iceberg that was looming above it—as, indeed, Goliath was dwarfed at this very moment.

How incredible, he had often thought, that only one long lifetime spanned the gulf between this primitive Discovery and the ship that had carried the same name to Jupiter! And what would those long-ago Antarctic explorers have made of the view from his bridge?

They would certainly have been disoriented, for the wall of ice beside which Goliath was floating stretched both upward and downward as far as the eye could see. And it was strange-looking ice, wholly lacking the immaculate whites and blues of the frozen Polar seas. In fact, it looked dirty—as indeed it was. For only some 90 percent was water-ice: the rest was a witches’ brew of carbon and sulfur compounds, most of them stable only at temperatures not far above absolute zero. Thawing them out could produce unpleasant surprises: as one astrochemist had famously remarked, Comets have bad breath.

Skipper to all personnel, Chandler announced. There’s been a slight change of program. We’ve been asked to delay operations, to investigate a target that Spaceguard radar has picked up.

Any details? somebody asked, when the chorus of groans over the ship’s intercom had died away.

Not many, but I gather it’s another Millennium Committee project they’ve forgotten to cancel.

More groans: everyone had become heartily sick of all the events planned to celebrate the end of the 2000s. There had been a general sigh of relief when January 1, 3001, had passed uneventfully, and the human race could resume its normal activities.

Anyway, it will probably be another false alarm, like the last one. We’ll get back to work just as quickly as we can. Skipper out.

This was the third wild-goose chase, Chandler thought morosely, he’d been involved with during his career. Despite centuries of exploration, the Solar System could still produce surprises, and presumably Spaceguard had a good reason for its request. He only hoped that some imaginative idiot hadn’t once again sighted the fabled Golden Asteroid. If it did exist—which Chandler did not for a moment believe—it would be no more than a mineralogical curiosity: it would be of far less real value than the ice he was nudging Sunward, to bring life to barren worlds.

There was one possibility, however, which he did take quite seriously. Already, the human race had scattered its robot probes through a volume of space a hundred light-years across—and the Tycho Monolith was sufficient reminder that much older civilizations had engaged in similar activities. There might well be other alien artifacts in the Solar System, or in transit through it. Captain Chandler suspected that Spaceguard had something like this in mind: otherwise it would hardly have diverted a Class I spacetug to go chasing after an unidentified radar blip.

Five hours later, the questing Goliath detected the echo at extreme range; even allowing for the distance, it seemed disappointingly small. However, as it grew clearer and stronger, it began to give the signature of a metallic object, perhaps a couple of meters long. It was traveling on an orbit heading out of the Solar System, so was almost certainly, Chandler decided, one of the myriad pieces of space-junk that Mankind had tossed toward the stars during the last millennium—and which might one day provide the only evidence that the human race had ever existed.

Then it came close enough for visual inspection, and Captain Chandler realized, with awed astonishment, that some patient historian was still checking the earliest records of the Space Age. What a pity that the computers had given him the answer, just a few years too late for the Millennium celebrations!

"Goliath here, Chandler radioed Earthward, his voice tinged with pride as well as solemnity. We’re bringing aboard a thousand-year-old astronaut. And I can guess who it is."

2. AWAKENING

Frank Poole awoke, but he did not remember. He was not even sure of his name.

Obviously, he was in a hospital room: even though his eyes were still closed, the most primitive, and evocative, of his senses told him that. Each breath brought the faint and not unpleasant tang of antiseptics in the air, and it triggered a memory of the time when—of course!—as a reckless teenager he had broken a rib in the Arizona Hang-Gliding Championship.

Now it was all beginning to come back. I’m Deputy Commander Frank Poole, Executive Officer, USSS Discovery, on a Top Secret mission to Jupiter—

It seemed as if an icy hand had gripped his heart. He remembered, in slow-motion playback, that runaway space-pod jetting toward him, metal claws outstretched. Then the silent impact—and the not-so-silent hiss of air rushing out of his suit. After that—one last memory, of spinning helplessly in space, trying in vain to reconnect his broken air-hose.

Well, whatever mysterious accident had happened to the space-pod controls, he was safe now. Presumably Dave had made a quick EVA and rescued him before lack of oxygen could do permanent brain damage.

Good old Dave! he told himself. I must thank—just a moment!—I’m obviously not aboard Discovery now—surely I haven’t been unconscious long enough to be taken back to Earth!

His confused train of thought was abruptly broken by the arrival of a Matron and two nurses, wearing the immemorial uniform of their profession. They seemed a little surprised: Poole wondered if he had awakened ahead of schedule, and the idea gave him a childish feeling of satisfaction.

Hello! he said, after several attempts; his vocal cords appeared to be very rusty. How am I doing?

Matron smiled back at him and gave an obvious Don’t try to talk command by putting a finger to her lips. Then the two nurses fussed swiftly over him with practiced skill, checking pulse, temperature, reflexes. When one of them lifted his right arm and let it drop again, Poole noticed something peculiar. It fell slowly, and did not seem to weigh as much as normal. Nor, for that matter, did his body, when he attempted to move.

So I must be on a planet, he thought. Or a space station with artificial gravity. Certainly not Earth—I don’t weigh enough.

He was about to ask the obvious question when Matron pressed something against the side of his neck, he felt a slight tingling sensation, and sank back into a dreamless sleep. Just before he became unconscious, he had time for one more puzzled thought.

How odd—they never spoke a single word—all the time they were with me.

3. REHABILITATION

When he woke again, and found Matron and nurses standing round his bed, Poole felt strong enough to assert himself.

Where am I? Surely you can tell me that!

The three women exchanged glances, obviously uncertain what to do next. Then Matron answered, enunciating her words very slowly and carefully: Everything is fine, Mr. Poole. Professor Anderson will be here in a minute… He will explain.

Explain what? thought Poole with some exasperation. But at least she speaks English, even though I can’t place her accent…

Anderson must have been already on his way, for the door opened moments later—to give Poole a brief glimpse of a small crowd of inquisitive onlookers peering in at him. He began to feel like a new exhibit at a zoo.

Professor Anderson was a small, dapper man whose features seemed to have combined key aspects of several races—Chinese, Polynesian, Nordic—in a thoroughly confusing fashion. He greeted Poole by holding up his right palm, then did an obvious double take and shook hands, with such a curious hesitation that he might have been rehearsing some quite unfamiliar gesture.

Glad to see you’re looking so well, Mr. Poole… We’ll have you up in no time.

Again that odd accent and slow delivery—but the confident bedside manner was that of all doctors, in all places and all ages.

I’m glad to hear it. Now perhaps you can answer a few questions…

Of course, of course. But just a minute.

Anderson spoke so rapidly and quietly to the Matron that Poole could catch only a few words, several of which were wholly unfamiliar to him. Then the Matron nodded at one of the nurses, who opened a wall cupboard and produced a slim metal band, which she proceeded to wrap around Poole’s head.

What’s that for? he asked—being one of those difficult patients, so annoying to doctors, who always want to know just what’s happening to them. EEG readout?

Professor, Matron, and nurses looked equally baffled. Then a slow smile spread across Anderson’s face.

Oh—electro… enceph… alo… gram, he said slowly, as if dredging the word up from the depth of memory. You’re quite right. We just want to monitor your brain functions.

My brain would function perfectly well if you’d let me use it, Poole grumbled silently. But at least we seem to be getting somewhere—finally.

Mr. Poole, said Anderson, still speaking in that curiously stilted voice, as if venturing in a foreign language, "you know, of course, that you were—disabled—in a serious accident, while you were working outside Discovery."

Poole nodded agreement.

I’m beginning to suspect, he said dryly, that ‘disabled’ is a slight understatement.

Anderson relaxed visibly, and a slow smile spread across his face.

You’re quite correct. Tell me what you think happened.

Well, the best-case scenario is that, after I became unconscious, Dave Bowman rescued me and brought me back to the ship. How is Dave? No one will tell me anything!

All in due course… and the worst case?

It seemed to Frank Poole that a chill wind was blowing gently on the back of his neck. The suspicion that had been slowly forming in his mind began to solidify.

That I died, but was brought back here—wherever ‘here’ is—and you’ve been able to revive me. Thank you…

Quite correct. And you’re back on Earth. Well, very near it.

What did he mean by very near it? There was certainly a gravity field here—so he was probably inside the slowly turning wheel of an orbiting space station. No matter: there was something much more important to think about.

Poole did some quick mental calculations. If Dave had put him in the hibernaculum, revived the rest of the crew, and completed the mission to Jupiter—why, he could have been dead for as much as five years!

Just what date is it? he asked, as calmly as possible.

Professor and Matron exchanged glances. Again Poole felt that cold wind on his neck.

"I must tell you, Mr. Poole, that Bowman did not rescue you. He believed—and we cannot blame him—that you were irrevocably dead. Also, he was facing a desperately serious crisis that threatened his own survival…

"So you drifted on into space, passed through

Reviews for 3001

[themulhern · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lightweight futurism, plus an alien threat. The notes at the end, justifying the predictions through the current state of the science or engineering, are conscientious and interesting.

[razinha-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Too many problems with this book to go more than two stars. Science fiction imagines futures...distant, disconnected futures and sometimes alternate futures with familiar elements. Frank Herbert did a good job taking a disconnected reality and jumping it forward 4,000 years. Stephen Donaldson also did a good job when he wrote the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (also 4,000 years forward in that fantasy universe). Clarke was ambitious in trying to take his Odyssey saga 1,000 years into the future...but he didn't do it well.

Because he resurrected a dead Poole (sorry, couldn't resist, though I don't read comics)he spent a lot of time trying to acclimate the reader through Poole to his imagined future. The first part of the book seemed to be a What's What of Clarke's Bucket Wish List for what he hoped would happen to humanity. Because he was tied to an alternate past and (I'm guessing) wanted to connect the reader to his future, he dropped a lot of 20th century anchors that really hurt in a cliche way that was beneath Clarke. Star Trek? please. I'm sure Roddenberry would be flattered that space captains 1,000 years from now would not only know what Star Trek was, but had watched it. A thousand years from now??!! That's where Clarke really stooped to an early Stephen King level...product placement is unbecoming to a grandmaster.

And language... We're to believe that someone awakened from a 1,000 year frozen death would only have a marginal difficulty understanding the language? 400 year old English has numerous differences from modern English and 1,0000 years ago, English was in the waning years of Old English, making its way into Middle English, which is pretty unintelligible to us. Ray Kurzweil has had limited luck predicting technological advances more than 10 years out (unless you ask him...he thinks 60-80%) - I would think rather than trying to nail 1,000 years down the road it would be easier to just not try to connect with current technologies.

I'm not even going to go into the Independence Day bit (that came out three years before this did...did he not know?), and I thought the hat tip to Asimov cute (Susan Calvin...).

So, it's not worth picking all the low hanging fruit on this one. It was just okay and a sad conclusion to an okay series.

[jgolomb_2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The elements that make "2001: A Space Odyssey" a classic -- the pacing, dramatic tension, smartly efficient plot lines -- are mostly missing from Arthur C. Clarke's "Space Odyssey" finale, "3001". What it retains is Clarke's obvious exuberance for biological, technological and cultural evolution. Each book in the series represents an evolution in itself even, of Clarke's own perspective and thinking on the growth of humanity overtime, while providing a platform for his reflections on extraterrestrial life and evolution.This story follows Frank Poole, murdered by the omnipresent HAL in "2001", found preserved and alive after floating in the cold vacuum of space for 1000 years. It's through Frank's eyes, mind and mouth that Clarke exposes his views on the future. Religion is no more; and technology is the new religion. And while technological advancement has skyrocketed beyond Poole's own age, one character comments that "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Poole doesn't understand it, but has faith enough to accept it.In connecting this story to the previous three novels, Clarke writes in a couple 'guest appearances' by David Bowman and HAL - now a single entity called Halman. They appear, literally and figuratively, as mere shadows of their former selves. Poole's character, and the smattering of future humans he interacts with, are not nearly enough to carry the story itself, however.In tying up loose ends, we learn more about the entities that sent the Monolith's to earth as well. Much of this is speculated in the previous novels so don't really count as 'spoilers':"And because, in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everhwere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.""For years they studied, collected, catalogued. When they had learned all that they could, they began to modify. They tinkered with the destiny of many species, on land and in the seeas. But which of their experiments would bear fruit, they could not know for a least a million years. They were patient."The last two novels in the "Space Odyssey" series are weak; are really no more than long novellas (about 200 pages) and do little to build on the mythology started in "2001". Unless you feel compelled to 'complete' the Clarke's quadrility, you miss out on little by reading only "2001" and it's very strong sequel "2010".

[mikemillertime · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

If "2001" the movie is perhaps the greatest film of all time, there is an undeniable symbolic irony that "3001: The Final Odyssey" is perhaps the worst book ever written. It was impossible to beliee that the mind who invented such a cornerstone of science fiction could somehow have fathomed this unmitigated disaster... until the writer's afterword explains how all of his previous books have been coauthored while this was the first one he ever wrote alone. Even if this were the crudest fan fiction, it is mind-boggling that the writer's friends, editors, etc. could allow him to print such a blasphemous defamation of this classic legacy. Where to begin? The author must've struggled to find enough to say as this lightweight tome barely escapes orbit from a novella, weighing in at a measly 180 pages. The first half of the book is dedicated to an awestruck protagonist swooning at the magic of the future, one that's so juvenile in its conception that dinosaurs are babysitters while virtual reality is used to fly with scantily-clad women riding dragons. The book is pathetically anachronistic, dating itself by marveling at the wonders of the pocket calculator. The writing is dreadfully uneven as it meanders around a poor pastiche of strange logs, stage conversations or plain old piss-poor prose. Yet in the end the plot is a poor reject from the most cliched Hollywood story about aliens, and NONE of the headier ideas demonstrated in the first installment are on display anywhere. Why, I even had to reread the entire ending to be sure that I caught the most sudden and anticlimactic conclusion ever committed to paper. In conclusion, this book is very bad.

[myopicbookworm · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A poorly written vehicle for some more of Clarke's technological future-gazing. The format is just another take on H. G. Wells's The Sleeper Wakes using the 2001 astronaut Frank Poole as the central character. The author confesses to what I instantly spotted - that five of the chapters are lifted from earlier books in the sequence. An afterword traces the sequence from the original short story written in 1948: it's a pity that, other than updating of technology, the style of the prose is still stuck in 1948.MB 14-vi-2013

[janettleewawrzyniak · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lords of the galaxy rove at will as energy with no body restraints. Never human they did seek fellowship in the stars with the power they possessed. They encountered life throughout the worlds and watched the faint sparks of intelligence die in the great cosmos. Planting life they valued mind above all. They reaped and weeded life forms dispassionately. Ages had passed as they returned to earth they began to study, catalog and modify the destiny of life forms. Now they set goals of their own, not being immune to the corruptions of time they use memory. Their indifference through science may exclude plans for a future. This well written book endures time and steps into the future with striking insight.

[skuldomg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great conclusion to an awesome series of books. I love the picture Clarke paints of the future, although some ideas are obviously "vintage" (like the Braincap). Must read for anyone interested in science (fiction).

[csayban · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

3001 isn’t a terrible story, but it does fall way short of 2001 and 2010. The storytelling doesn’t have the same resonance and the plot itself was forced and felt unnecessary. The humanity feels like it has been stripped away. There is no longer any mystery to the fates of Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, nor is there any sense of danger. It seems that 3001 was an attempt to resurrect the series after the flat reception of 2061. Instead, it is simply a continuation of a once great story that has fallen into mediocrity.

[waianuhea · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this almost as much as 2001! A really fun take on the man from the past dropped into the future story. I was so glad he didn't actually kill Frank. That was just such an evil way to die.

[andyray_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a wonderful ending to the four volume series, even if it has a Hollywoodish ending. But hey! Would anyone REALLY want mankind wiped out by those transcendental beings who gave us intelligence through the monoliths? larke is nearing his mortal end, and the simplism of the writing and shortness of the chapters shows this. Too bad as another sequel, say, 5001; another galaxy, could have sprung from D Bowman's statement: "I don't want to talk about it, but a couple of times I thought I felt two or three intelligences that were even greater than the one I belong to."

[sf_addict · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Frank Poole was killed in 2001, and here, 1000- years later, he is revived!A superb book!

[ck2935 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this series. Arthur C. Clarke is pretty much my favorite sci-fi writer, well at least he was when I was younger. I say that because this was probably the last sci-fi non-Star Trek book I have read. I'm glad that I have added this to the list because it reminds me how much I enjoyed his books.

[edwartica · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

My initial reaction to 3001 is "Do not waste your time with this piece of tripe." The plot is thin at best, the presumptions of the future by the author are idealistic, and the characters are two dimensional. However, if you are a fan of this 2001, 2010, and 2064, you might want to read this just because it provides a nice and tidy wrap up to the series.

[darla_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My main quibble is the preachiness. Yes, a LOT of science fiction is preachy, but it doesn't have to be in your face about it. And the fact that I agreed with much of what he was preaching about didn't help. It was still annoying.

[cleverusername2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Earlier this year I made a vow to read all of the Space Odyssey books before 2010. By golly I did it. I was warned that the last two were rather lackluster, and while 2061 struck me as rather perfunctory I did enjoy reading 3001 : the final odyssey even if it did meander and then come to a shuddering halt like a stalled car. I am not a fan of transhumanist, post-scarcity speculative fiction particularly if everyone has abandoned their bodies and are living in some computer server somewhere. Iain Banks and his Culture novels were the sole exception to the genre that I sought out. 3001 is transhumanism with a light hand giving the reader Clarkes’ idea of what the far-flung Third Millennium might look like. Here we find Frank Poole, that guy in the yellow spacesuit that HAL 9000 murdered in the first book floating out in the Kuiper Belt. His corpse is rescued by a deep space mining ship (nice touch) and revitalized after a thousand years by advanced medicine. Through Poole we see how humanity has advanced and expanded through the solar system. Many things I found interesting, such as superstructure of spaceports surrounding the earth, tethered at the Equator by four space elevators. Most people have a chunky human-brain interface implanted in the scalp which I found rather clunky in light of nanotechnology developments. The best parts of Final Odyssey is when we emphasize with Poole’s cognitive vertigo when he comes to grips with being 1,000 years out of touch with his species.There is a plot about the creators of the Monoliths making judgments about which species they advance being worthy and which need extermination so they don’t become a violence menace, much of which contradicts previous information on how fast the Monoliths can communicate with one another; but the suspense plot seems a bit mechanical and a token offering in comparison to Poole’s journey. Even his reuniting with HALMAN, the HAL 9000/David Bowman hybrid entity is a bit of a distraction. Everything works out in the end and then wump, the ride comes to a stop the bar lifts off your shoulders and it’s time to exit your seat. The Space Odyssey is over.

[dirtpriest_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a novel, 2001 is by far the best of the series, the other books simply relay certain events of a future that is completely believeable and realistic. As individual books, though, the sequels are lagging in the quality department, relative to 2001. That one should be required reading for anyone who considers themselves a SF fan, but the sequels exist only for the readers interested enough to see what a genius like Clark can imagine.3001 is the best of the sequels, as it shows the difficulty of someone removed from their time and forced into a new one. Astronaut Frank Poole ('killed' in 2001 by the computer HAL in 2001)is found drifting, Buck Rogers style, in an orbit out near Neptune. He is rescued by a comet wrangler, out nudging icy comets towards the sun to harvest their water in a project to terraform Venus, and resuscitated a thousand years after his 'death'. The story is rather humdrum, but Clarke always has an interesting idea working, even if it doesn't make for the most gripping of stories.An odd thing to quantify, how to phrase a recommendation of the series. They are good stories from a great imagination, but if SF isn't your cup of tea then the sequels are honestly best left at the bookstore. They are simply a vehicle for his idea of a future world of space faring and space living humans, really.

[garrison0550 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I couldn't finish it. Looking back I should have stopped with this series at 2001.

[unclebob53703 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very entertaining final sequel to 2001, it brings back to life the astronaut who was killed by Hal while doing an EVA!

[valleyguy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great ending to the series. This book, along with 2001, gave me more to think about than the other books in the series, gave me more insight into theoretical technology and had the most interesting character story of them all. The epigraph at the end of the book filled me with an eery insecurity as a human after reading all of the bold moves mankind made in this series (and in real human history).

[anagarika0sean · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This one left me feeling a little disappointed. I greatly enjoyed the first three, but just didn't enjoy this one as much.

[baubie_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As with the first three (2001,2010,2061), 3001 is a fun read that was written for the inquisitive mind wanting a glimpse into the possible future. Clarke doesn't just paint you a picture of magical technologies, he delves deeper and gives explanations for how they work and why they were developed. This feeds the craving I often have with futuristic novels to learn the science behind fantastical inventions.As a story this isn't the most exciting book in the series and I found the ending to be rather lacklustre. Without giving anything away, the ending felt forced and implausible given the context of the entire series. That said, I enjoyed being brought back into the 2001 universe and I feel like the series ended where it should have ended.

[pauliharman · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Largely unintelligible - a disappointing sequel. Doesn't seem to bare any relation to previous Odyssey books, other than the name "Frank Poole"

[avar_8 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A disappointing end to the otherwise excellent Space Odyssey series. If you've read the other three you should read, if only because it presents an interesting conclusion to the saga.Unfortunately it's not good as a stand-alone novel.

[cbradley_77 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The exciting conclusion to Clarke’s most famous series ever. 3001 brings back a character from 2001 so that we can experience a fantastic future through the eyes of someone we can relate to. I found this to be a worthy successor to the other novels in this series and a satisfying end to one of the most amazing stories ever told.

[dulcinea14-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not as enjoyable as the previous novels, but a nice way to wrap up the series.

[empress8411 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As the ending to the series, this was okay. It was a bit slow. Lots of leading up to the climax, and then all the action took place in about 2 pages, and then, it was just a clean-up effort for the characters. I felt there could have been more action and less scientific explanation of things with no bearing on the plot. And yet, for all this, it is a strangely satisfying last chapter to the entire series. I can't explain it. But, I would recommend reading this one, and the three before it.

[nadineeg-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

And everything is explained and tied up in a bow.

[marklacy-355086 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

[July 27, 1997] If anyone suggests you read this book, just say NO! Why? How about: NO plot, NO characterization, NO answers, NO drama, NO tension, and above all:

NO sense of wonder! Of all the books I would have loved to see convey a sense of wonder over the mysteries of the universe, this would be it. A very disappointing Cincinnati-to-San-Francisco-on-Delta read.

[aug3zimm-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Alternates between repetitive (several chapters are pretty much copied and pasted from previous books) and really freaking weird (gardening velociraptors anyone?). Maybe I'm not a match for sci-fi.

[david_fosco · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A thrilling conclusion to the series that ends all to soon. I feel an investment into this story that I've not felt in a while.