2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)

Clarke, Arthur C. 2001: A Space Odyssey. New York: NAL, 1968. Based on the filmscript by ACC and Stanley Kubrick.

The deep-space ship Discovery is run by the computer HAL 9000. See under Drama, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (film). Clarke's novel is highly useful for explication of the film, but is somewhat different from the film, for one thing, friendlier to the human characters (the most moving death in the film is the lobotomy of HAL 9000; that is significant).

NOTE: In Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, q.v., Michael Benson asserts, "Actually, there's no evidence that Kubrick wrote a word of the novel — though without question he contributed significantly to its contents and was certainly the chief author of the screenplay [...]" (p. 70). See Clarke's The Lost Worlds of 2001 (1972) for the importance of Kubrick's comments and "Notes," driving Clarke to brilliance as well as in the direction, anyway, of a breakdown.

See under Fiction, J. W. Campbell's "Forgetfulness."

RDE, Initial compilation, ed. 6July2018