After graduating from middle school in nearby Taunton, Clarke left home to find work in 1936. The eldest of four children born into a farming family, Clarke became fascinated with science and astronomy at an early age, scanning the stars with a homemade telescope and filling his head with sci-fi tales from magazines like Astounding Stories.Īfter his father suddenly passed away, the financial hardships his family endured precluded Clarke from attending university despite his bright, inquisitive mind. Early LifeĪrthur Charles Clarke was born on December 16, 1917, in the coastal town of Minehead in southwestern England. Clarke died on March 19, 2008, in Sri Lanka. Clarke authored nearly 100 books, and many of his ideas around science had links to future technological innovations. He wrote the novels Childhood’s End and 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was adapted into a film with Stanley Kubrick. Clarke established himself as a preeminent science fiction and nonfiction writer during the mid-20th century. It all adds up to a nicely written, poorly constructed, and ultimately purposeless book that confirms Clarke’s original plan to leave well enough alone.Arthur C. And, to top things off, there are many and long quotes – retreads – from the previous book.

There’s a lack of clarity at one point about whether a scene is a flashback or just badly set up. The sequence of events is at times asynchronous, and there are occasional long, jarring and – I’m sorry to say it – dull asides that add very little. It’s an unfortunate exemplar of a bridge sequel, in that very little happens other than to lay the groundwork for another book. I suppose that he was acknowledging that the film reached more people, but even aware of the decision, I found it confusing, and had to keep reminding myself that this was a sequel to the film (which I haven’t seen for decades) and not to the book I read last month.Įqually troubling, there’s little real purpose to the book. That means that instead of taking place around Saturn, the action is based around Jupiter. This sequel was decidedly underwhelming.įor one thing, Clarke has chosen to follow the film version of 2001 rather than his own book version. Sometimes, it’s best to stick with the original intent.

Clarke said for a long time that he’d not write a sequel to 2001.

2010 by Arthur C. Clarke