2010: Odyssey Two

'''Clarke, Arthur C. 1982. 2010: Odyssey Two.''' New York: Ballantine, 1984.

Sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey and source of the film 2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT (1984).

See for the interactions between SAL 9000 and Dr. Chandra—to give the simplified form of his name—"Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana," in ch. 3, and his relations to HAL, introduced in ch. 3 and developed later in the book. Chandra's assertion of ethical responsibility to Hal (a name by this stage of the narrative) is met with, "Hell, Chandra—he's only a machine!", to which Chandra responds "So are we all, Dr. Brailovsky" (267; ch. 45). Note also the title of chapter 42 and line in the novel, "The Ghost in the Machine": most directly as a reference to a manifestation of an entity that can identify itself with "I WAS DAVID BOWMAN" (238; ch. 41). Cf. and contrast Helen, a neural network AI that may also hail from Urbana-Champaign and the U. of Illinois, in R. Powers's Galatea 2.2, listed this section.

See also for the "mysterious dark spot [that] appears on Jupiter and begins to grow. HAL's telescope observations reveal that the 'Great Black Spot' is, in fact, a vast population of monoliths, increasing at an exponential rate, which appear to be eating the planet. By acting as self-replicating 'von Neumann' machines, these monoliths increase Jupiter's density until the planet achieves nuclear fusion, becoming a small star."

RDE, Initial compiler 06/01/00, 25May19