By Arthur C. Clarke

I can’t remember where I got this. I have been toting it around, unread, for years. It cost 50 cents so maybe I bought it at the Salvation Army.

I have been hesitant to read this because I still haven’t read 2001 and because both are ‘movie books.’ Having read Childhood’s End, I decided, ‘how bad could it be?’ Suffice it to say, it wasn’t bad at all provided you like science fiction, which I do.

It is brief and the plot moves a long quickly as If squeezing it into a bite sized, movie length story, where things start to wrap up around one hour and forty five minutes of the full two, but that makes it a light and enjoyable read.

Clarke likes to believe there are some great unseen alien teachers waiting to shepherd the human race away from self destruction, which is refreshing and positive. This theme can also be found in Childhood’s End.

It features the mentally ill computer named HAL, the non-corporeal Dave Bowman, and Heywood Floyd.

I recently found the sequel, 2061: odyssey three at Goodwill for 1.99 so will be reading that next. Hopefully the sci-fi buff who recently died and donated his or her collection, also had 2001 and it is just in a sorting bin in the back waiting to come out. Maybe I will swing by tomorrow.