3001: The Final Odyssey (Space Odyssey Series) Kindle Edition

Arthur C. Clarke was a Grand Master of Science Fiction for a reason and this story demonstrates that mastery as well as any classic science fiction could. Clarke built stories that put you in the action and included just enough science fact (and supposition) to make the story realistic and believable. 3001 is an excellent end to a wonderful story of the future of mankind.Clarke's stories stand the test of time, and although there are moments that date his writing, the reader can still see his influences on the future (our present) for both real science and for science fiction.Read Arthur C. Clarke whenever you have the chance!!

Overall this was a very good book. It was able to reanimate one of the characters, presumed dead and forever lost, from the original 2001: A Space Odyssey. Frank Poole was found floating out by Neptune, brought back and then brought back to life. This story revolves around his character and also brings back HAL and Dave Bowman. The story is original for it's time and again shows Clarke's uncanny ability to see the future. This was the perfect ending for the series. I really enjoyed the book for the most part. I took off a star because Clarke, again, chose to copy paste two complete chapters from earlier books. This was the second time that he did this. I also felt compelled to re-read these chapters because I didn't want it miss something that he might have changed, so I was a little annoyed that the chapters were verbatim from the earlier works. I still highly recommend this book and this series.

Based on what several friends have told me, I was expecting this to be an absolutely horrible novel. Either very low expectations set me up for a generally pleasant read, or people are just too damn critical. While there was very little in the way of conflict or excitement until the last few chapters, Clarke is still an outstanding writer just from a technical point off view. Good enough to make what could have been a dreadfully boring narrative actually enjoyable. While I certainly think this was the worst of the series, it was still far superior to much of the popular sci-fi on the market. If the option was available, I would rate this 3 1/2*'s, or somewhere in the neighborhood of 73-75 out of a hundred off you would like an even more precise rating, but alas it is not, so we're stuck with 3. I thought the novel succinctly wrapped up most of questions that were hovering around the series, although it did introduce a couple more in the last few pages. Still,I believe the conclusion was eminently satisfying and I would definitely not recommend ignoring this final installment as my "friends" suggested I do. I'll have to reconsider if they're worth keeping around after this gross misinformation. Most assuredly, if they are similarly dead wrong about the remainder of the Dune series, I'll be looking for new chums. Feel free to submit a resume in the comments section if you want to get ahead of the game and be one of the blessed few who might be up for consideration. ' So I've been rambling on for too long already, and I'll wrap it up simply by saying that you should not let the bad hype dissuade you. I'll give you my personal guarantee (which means absolutely nothing by the by), that you will not regret the few hours that are required to finish up one of the finest science fiction series ever written.

I didn't know this existed. I read all the others over 30 years ago. RIP, ACC.

Frank Poole, or rather, the body of Frank Poole, has been floating through space for a long time. After nearly 1000 years, he's picked up by a comet mining ship and his vacuum preserved body returned to life via medical technology available in 3001. Poole spends the first half of the novel examining and adjust to a future 1000 years beyond the time in which he live, before embarking on a flight to Ganymede with the crew that rescued him. Upon arrival, he's able to "hijack" a shuttle and set down on Europa, which has been denied to mankind since the warning from the Starchild (Dave Bowman) in 2010. Poole, however, is allowed to land and overjoyed to find that his old crew mate, Bowman, and the ship AI, HAL, are both still "alive" (and linked to the Europan Monolith) and despite their combined persona and 1000 years of incorporeal existence, remember him. However, the happy reunion is disturbed years later when "Halman" again communicates with Poole, informing him that the "supervisor" monolith 450 light years away has sent new information to the local (Europan) monolith, and the information it has sent does not bode well for humanity. Poole and "Halman" find themselves the only hope to save humanity from what may be a malfunctioning monolith.There are a lot of negative reviews for this novel and honestly I can understand why. I was in the same boat about halfway through but had a bit of a revelation. 3001: The Final Odyssey isn't so much a short novel as it is a really long prologue for the entire 20xx series. At first, 3001 felt like it was written by an author lost in the universe he'd created. Clarke isn't the first and wont be the last author to fall into that trap. As a fan of many sci-fi and fantasy authors, I've seen it happen before. Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind...it happens to quite a few good authors, even the occasional master like Clarke. After thinking about it for awhile though, 3001 grew on me. It doesn't tie up all the loose ends, and it treats some of them in a manner that doesn't make a lot of people very happy, but ultimately I was okay with that. Sometimes things don't work out how we want them to and that seems to be the road Clarke took - this many not be what you wanted, but it's what happened.For sure, a lot of the novel is spent as a political and religious outlet for Clarke in his later years. Yes, the conclusion can be seen as unsatisfactory and one can almost hear Jeff Goldblum in the background repeating his line from Independence Day; "we'll give it a virus...a computer virus..." but in the end, 3001 brings the 20xx line of stories to a conclusion that may not satisfy everyone, but really should be seen as a ray of hope - Humanity, given freedom to develop as it will.

Not as good as the 1st three, but does finish the story satisfactory

Great read! Book arrived on time and of high quality like advertised. Highly recommend this seller!

Just reading bits of it again, a beautiful ending to the saga and lots to learn from it as a human being :)

Worth reading

2001: Odisea en el espacio es un merecido clásico de la ciencia ficción, una obra auto-conclusiva.Las posteriores entregas, si bien pudieron ser necesarias para el desarrollo narrativo, no cumplieron con los estándares que generó la obra de Stanley Kubrick, cuya influencia se ve claramente marcada en el primer tomo de la saga.La conclusión de dicha saga es todo cuanto pudo ser: el final discreto de una trama casi inexistente.

Great reading