Poor Arthur C. Clarke.
I’m being facetious, of course. The late, great science fiction writer was anything but poor, literally and figuratively. To paraphrase a certain SF TV character, Clarke lived long and prospered. The author of Rendezvous With Rama, Childhood’s End and other classic novels also was credited with being at least part of the brains behind the modern communications satellite. The geosynchronous orbit, in fact, is known as the “Clarke Orbit” in his honor. But Clarke’s widest fame probably is due to his association with a movie – Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” for which Clarke collaborated on the screenplay. Yes, Clarke wrote the novel version, which is justly famous itself; the problem, if there is one, is that the film is regarded as one of the most influential movies in cinematic history.
The late director Stanley Kubrick did not believe in sequels. Clarke did, and thankfully for his readers, over a three-decade period he wrote a trio of worthy follow-ups to 2001.
To recap the original novel: A strange monolith descends from the stars millions of years ago and alters the course of history, tinkering with the evolutionary fates of many species including that which would become humankind. Fast-forward to the Space Age, as human beings discover another monolith on the moon and yet a third (much bigger) one in the outer solar system. One of the astronauts on the deep-space mission is absorbed by the big monolith…And that’s as far as plot summary should go in this case; to do otherwise would spoil a fantastic tale.
In 2010, Clarke told the story of another mission sent to Jupiter to find out what went wrong with the first one. In 2061, the tale turned on the return of Halley’s Comet to our neck of the solar system woods. And in 3001, Clarke leaped forward a millennium to revive one of the astronauts killed in the original novel.
I believe the Space Odyssey Tetralogy, as it has come to be called, is one of the greatest series of books in science fiction history. Be warned, though: Clarke himself advised readers that these books are not strictly linear. That is, the sequels take place in the same imagined universe, but Clarke alters certain rules of the cosmic game along the way. Some readers (see selected negative reviews on amazon.com) have reacted harshly to this fact. To which I respond: Hey, he was the author, wasn’t he?