2001 A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
I have a confession to make: I've never watched 2001 A Space Odyssey. Don't ask me why1, I'm not proud of it, I love science fiction but it's a genre I mostly enjoy in written form. Let's fix it, but first read the book :)
I've had a copy lying around at home for ages (I think it was a 2 for £5 at Fopp, god I miss Fopp). The first thing I learned is that the film is not based on the book, Clarke and Kubrick developed the novel in parallel and published it after the film. Part of me was a bit disappointed, I really wanted to add it to my list of "the book was better" films that people love to hear me talk about. But mostly I was intrigued by the uncommon situation, I wanted to understand why they thought a novel was necessary (I guess the simple/cynical answer is, if you are Arthur C. Clarke, why would you say no to free money?).
Like everything I've read by Clarke (by far my favourite of the Big Three), 2001 immediately feels iconic and influential. Interestellar, Cixin Liu, Adrian Tchaikovsky, among many others have drunk from this well and paid their respects. It's a short novel that gets to the point but its central ideas hit hard. I'd venture to say it won't add anything to the film (which I still haven't seen, so I might be wrong), but I enjoyed it enough to want to read the sequels and The Sentinel, the short story it's based on.
Conclusion: read more Clarke, the guy knows what he's doing
My excuse is the same one I had with The Godfather, it's such an influential film that I felt like I had seen it already. I did end up watching and really enjoying The Godfather, I expect the same with 2001. Will report back.↩