Rating: 
Summary: inferior sequel
Review: Despite its title, "2061" is no odyssey. Though "2010" was a worthy successor to the original "A Space Odyssey", this third book in the series is inferior to it in every way.
RECAP: the series concerns itself with a mysterious and never-seen race of aliens use living computers to stimulate the growth of intelligence in primitive but potentially productive life-forms. In "2001", one of these computers - contained within an enigmatic monolith - targets hominids, early men 3 million years in our past. Ages later, a second monolith is discovered on the moon by advanced humans, and signals this discovery by beaming a message to a third, and much larger monolith, floating near Jupiter. Working in secrecy, Americans dispatch a spaceship, "Discovery", crewed by astronauts having no idea of what their mission is about, and helmed by the chatty-yet-psychotic computer HAL-9000. By the end of the book, HAL has been terminated, and Dave Bowman - the sole survivor of the mission - confronts the monolith, never to be seen again. In "2010", Heywood Floyd, the boring scientist from the first book, accompanies a Russian expedition to recover "Discovery" and solve the many mysteries left over from the last book - like what happened to Dave Bowman and HAL, and what's up with those monoliths? By the end of the book, the monoliths have converted Jupiter into a subscale sun, turning its many moons into a miniature version of our own solar system. All of these new worlds are ours, except for Europa - the watery moon that likely harbors life.
In "2061", man has colonized all of the Jovian moons, save Europa, and space travel has evolved dramatically. Heywood Floyd, now over a century old, plans to spend his next vacation on a trip to Haley's comet. Looking and feeling well for his age (though prolonged time in zero-gravity means that he can never return to Earth), Floyd is decidedly upbeat. Meanwhile, Floyd's grandson finds himself marooned on Europa when a spaceship he's on is hijacked. Clarke tosses in dissident Afrikaners, a mountain-sized diamond, and the possibility that the monoliths may have been damaged in the fiery creation of the new Jovian sun.
So why doesn't this novel boldly go? With "2010" being a welcome surprise follow-up to the iconic "2001", Clarke may have missed how difficult it is to flesh out a franchise. Nothing much happens in the first half of "2061", and it's soon clear that nothing is going to happen. Clarke maintains the same air of enigma to the monoliths that made the first books a lot of fun, but he gives them little to work with - they loom, boding some dramatic event, but otherwise do nothing. The "action" of the book has Floyd's grandson trying to stay alive on Europa, while Heywood commandeers his space-cruiser, using ice from Haley's comet as fuel. Bowman returns, this time accompanied by a transformed HAL-9000, now also an advanced being. There is talk of Europa and the monolith's experiment with Jupiter being at a crossroads - interesting, given that it's been scarcely more than 50 years since Europa was thawed out, and what's that to the cosmos? (How and why the Europans survived the radical change to their environment is never explained.) Little actually happens, and there are none of the fun characters of the second book - Walter Curnow doesn't appear, and Dr. Chandra did not survive the return trip in "2010". At best, "2061" is a passable novella, but hardly a novel, and certainly not an adventurous one.
Rating: 
Summary: You CAN miss this book.
Review: I really loved the first two Odyssey books by Arthur C. Clarke but the third was a bit of a let down.
I feel that the whole book really lacks any climax within it's 300 pages. Certainly nothing worthy of 2010's page turning countdown to day 15! 2061 is like an episode of your favourite TV show when nothing really happens, it's just a closer insight into a major character.
Instead of providing excitement, the complications just serve as devices to get characters together so they can communicate and THEN it's the talking that drives the story forward.
The story itself is really just taking us through what Haywood Floyd is doing with himself in the year 2061. They mention Dave Bowman and HAL on the back of the book's cover but they only appear in what would be cameo appearences and have no bearing on the actual story. It's interesting, but you can miss this book if you'd prefer to read 3001.
And anything you want to know about the Europans is detailed a lot better in the epilogue of 2010 which was titled '30,001'.
Another quick tip, don't think Lucifer goes nova (ie. blows up) at the end of this book, it just gets less bright. Not sure why yet since I'm only half way into 3001 - but it's NOT an error Clarke has made which one previous review has stated. Clarkes only changes which he alludes to in his Author's Notes are just things like the names or workings of technology to keep up with modern discoveries.
Rating: 
Summary: Second sequel to 2001.
Review: Though this sequel does not compare to Arthur C. Clarke's original, 2061 offers much suspense and some enjoyment throughout. Our 7th grade class was told to read this for a Language Arts assignment. An average read, but very slow to finish. The story is about Heywood Floyd, now 101 years old in earth years, who has volunteered to ship aboard a spacecraft traveling to Halley's Comet. In his way, Floyd is embroiled in solving the mystery of a freak landing on Europa by the ill fated spacecraft "Galaxy". His son, Chris, also percieves to investigate the emergency, since nobody has landed on Europa since the warning in 2010. Heywood Floyd attempts to contact Dave Bowman for desperate advice. The result is very climactic with the monoliths and the Great Wall.
A slow paced novel, though a nice entry by Clarke. Takes a long time for the story to get going, the first 5 chapters or so. Do not read this before 2001 or 2010. Worth the very low price, which is about a dollar! The story has a nice twist, and Floyd meets an interesting fate here. Recommended for hardcore fans of Arthur C. Clarke.
Rating: 
Summary: Now we get to learn about life on Europa!
Review: This book is a great extension from the others in regards to the "great monolith" and the unseen-but-advanced race that keeps getting Heywood Floyd and humanity in general involved with the evolution of life elsewhere within our solar system and more. A great addition to such sci-fi books as: "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Puppet Masters", "2001", "2010", "Rendezvous with Rama", "Ringworld", all the "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" books, as well as books as new to the genre as "Advent of the Corps" and others.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not his best
Review: Overall, the book really isn't that bad. However, when stacked up against such an ingenius work as 2001, it is extremely paled. Here we are not taken on a wild ride in which the very limits of our minds are expanded, such as I experienced with 2001 and Childhood's End. There are no incredible shockers in the plot (just one big secret that I think Clarke gave away too early). Also, this isn't so much Clarke's fault as the editor's, but I noticed a lot of grammar and spelling errors in the text. Really, if I can catch so many on the first read, I don't see how an editor could have missed it. Did they not read over the book before it was published?All this being said, I think 2061 lacks the material to be a really astonishing masterpiece (which I have taken for granted with Clarke) but not does not really make it a bad book. I thought Clarke made some interesting notes about human scientific and social prospects. The plot was fairly intriguing as well. It's just that I expect more from Clarke...
Rating:
Summary: Typical downward spiral from Clarke
Review: This series is SOOOO typical of Clarke. He astounds us with a mind-blowing idea then, because of his inability to develop characters with which we can identify, he must rely on the original story or variations thereof. The same thing happens here. 2001 was a masterpiece of writing (and a cinematic jewel to boot). Then came the almost as good 2010. No novel characters were added, though, and we are stuck with the original plot only it's fifty years later. This might have been a good story if it had not tried to be a sequel...the story of the flight to the comet, the message from Dave, the rescue - these are all good in themselves IF - and this is a big if - there are interesting characters. There aren't and it fails in this respect.
Rating:
Summary: Boring, Especially If You Made It This Far
Review: I loved the first one, liked the second and really thought this one would finally get to answering the questions floating around after the first two books, not so. With a little mystery surrounding the actual fate of HAL and Dave Bowman raised towards the end of the book there appears to be little else from this book that actually contributes to this universe. I thought this book was disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Scientific and mundane awe -- An excellent book!
Review: 2061 is one of my favorite science fiction books. I love the way it goes into technical detail. (If you know of science fiction that has more technical detail, please e-mail it to me!) This book had potential to degenerate into a horror book. It didn't take that route, and for me that made it more eerie. You need to suspend disbelief for this book. In real life humankind has not had any widely observed direct evidence of extraterrestrial life or a "creator". In this book series, humanity finds such evidence... when Jupiter becomes a small star and the Discovery's computer sends a mysterious message calling for humans to make peace and granting humans permission to explore the solar system with the exception of Europa-- no other commandments or explanations. Humankind knows it's powerless against something that could create a star, and so it obeys the monolith's laconic directives. Imagine the scene at the end of the movie 2010. We are shown that Euopa is changing thanks to Jupiter having been turned into a sun. We see water an plant life. In the distance we hear movement. Could animal life have developed? Although it looks like a swamp, we know the atmosphere is mostly methane-- the environment is nothing like anything on Earth. Then we see the monolith silently towering over the swamp, influencing it perhaps as it influenced Earth a billion years ago. Now for 50 years human kind has diffidently avoided Europa. There has been no further activity associated with the monolith. They have tired to observe from a distance, but clouds of vapor resulting from the heat of Jupiter obscure Europa most of the time. Humans are getting more and more daring about how close to Europa they venture. In this book, humans decide to risk sending down a probe. While they're launching the probe, a hijacking forces them to land on this forbidden planet. The stranded researchers focus on staying alive and cautiously exploring Europa while they are waiting for a rescue. They come in contact with many natural phenomena and one supernatural phenomenon. If you can imagine contact with something as powerful and laconic as the monolith appearing and you can imagine the awesome temptation to study it while trying to remain as dispassionate as possible, you will really enjoy this book.
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