Rating: 
Summary: Fizzling filler, and an end.
Review: The entire space odyssey series delivered to us by Arthur C. Clarke was centered around a few central themes: mankind and his walk towards something possibly better, man against the unknown, against his superiors. These all come together in this final chapter in the tale: one that could have been better executed.I will not call this book a failure. To be honest, after leaving so much time between novels and finally being able to bring himself to finishing this series, there is little mystery behind the final product's quality. It also has any number of fun tidbits left for a quiet Sunday afternoon. It should be kept in mind, however, that those tidbits can be as annoying as entertaining. A placid, distant future, where phantasies of modern cults become reality, and into it the anomily of a being from a distant past. Intermix a bit of fanciful projections, a good amount of scientific theory and prototype experiments from our day turned into applied features of society, and a stomp to a conclusion that reminds one a bit too much of a few other Clarke novels, and you have 3001. One audience in particular will enjoy this book more than the rest: those who have only seen the movies, not read the series. So for those who want to have some sense made of those hairy apes beating each other to death, this may give it to you. For the rest, perhaps speculation would be better.
Rating:
Summary: Not with a bang but a whimper
Review: Midway through Childhood's End (one of Clarke's best books), there is a chapter that summarises the change of human culture from present state (cold war, dark ages) to utopia (peace, atheism). It's a quick transitional chapter (maybe 10 pages in the middle of the book) that serves to make a millenial leap in the narrative and gets the reader ready for the next part of the story--the really good part. If you took that one chapter, fleshed it out so it's about 200 pages and slapped a monolith on the book cover, you'd have 3001: The Final Odyssey. Unfortunately, while Childhood's End had a powerful evocative story to get on with, there's almost no story here and certainly no really good part. Taken on it's own, 3001 is an interesting little fiction of what life might be like in the next millennium. The first half of the book takes a visitor from the year 2001 (Frank Poole, from the first book & movie) on a tour through life of the thirtieth century. Here Arthur does a good job of fulfilling his role in writing razzle-dazzle engineering fiction. The descriptions of life in the future are breathtaking. Taking a change from a lot of his work, though, Clarke is not happy with just writing compelling spacescapes. He spends a lot of time criticizing the 20th century: putting our current prison system, using female genital mutation as an example of life during our dark ages. Clarke takes a lot of swings at what he sees as the root of almost all of our problems--organised religion--and offers us the religion of Science. Science, the way Clarke describes it, is practised devoutly in the thirtieth century and has solved all of the problems that religion has caused. Frank Poole, being an astronaut and a Clarkian Protagonist, puts up no defense for the near-barbaric times he was born in and comes to believe that life in 2001 is as squalid and barbaric as those from 3001 think it is. If this is your kind of thing, go to it and good luck! As the final chapter in the "Odyssey Quartet", however, this book leaves so much to be desired. Being spoiler free, I'll say that there are two pervasive problems: massive inconsistencies with earlier books (both in size and frequency), and lack of scope. While Clarke felt a need to update the science from 1965, many of the inconsistencies (especially the ones dealing with HAL, Dave Bowman, and the beings responsible for monoliths) are unnecessary. Worse, they rob the book of much of the charm, solemnity, and wonder that earlier installations had. Many of the inconsistencies are done to simplify what little story there is and accentuate the preaching described above. A catalog of all the gaffes (most of which Clarke himself acknowledges) would be very long and lend itself to spoilers. Suffice it to say that science that worked in 2001 doesn't work in 3001, characters that made a great impact in 2061 never happened in 3001, events that happened one way in the first three books happened a completly different way within the context of this book. As for scope, the book was a half-day's read. Unlike the 4 million-year journey of the first book, or the interplanetary exploration in the first two, all of the conflict/action takes place in the last 20 pages and there is never any doubt of what will happen. The book has all the drama and conflict of a travel brocheure. Which is pretty accurate because at this point it seems like Clarke would rather espouse the virtues of Science then tell a good story. In case you missed things, though, Arthur adds 15 pages of notations for you; most of which focus on what he predicted accurately, and what he thinks should be our focus as a race. When you're done, all questions are answered and everything is explained for the reader (who, one imagines, is expected to write to their congresspeople demanding that sceintists get the grants they need to bring 3001 about). Clarke's best works (City and the Stars, 2001, 2010, Rendezvous With Rama, Childhood's End) tell great stories and leave the preaching (such as it is) to marginalia. 3001 has replaced wonder with the dogma of scientific reason; the story is tossed in almost as an afterthought.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad stumble by a master
Review: I wish Clarke had stopped with the first book. 2001 was Science Fiction at its finest; a perfect blend of science and fiction, showing a mastery of imagination that affirmed Clarke as one of the maestros of the genre. Some of the best parts of that book were the questions it left unanswered. What did the star-child actually do? Why did HAL mutiny? What is the nature of the progenitor civilization? All good fiction shares this one virtue: it allows the reader a private mental space. Our imaginations are given room to breath and we are afforded the opportunity to reach our own conclusions because enough of a resolution is provided to complete the story, but no more. Too much exposition fences in a universe that must remain, if it is to compel us, both expansive and elusive. 2001 also dealt successfully with big themes: humanity's place in the universe, the nature of sentient thought, the definition of life, moral judgment in a machine. These are all elements that are missing from 3001. An astronaut is resurrected who should have remained dead. A society is exposited that is fundamentally no different from ours. This is a poor resolution, especially after an event as momentous as the emergence of the star-child. It's all terribly anti-climactic. It's as though we were given a thorough and detailed exposition of Odysseus' retirement after his great struggles. Enjoyable for Odysseus perhaps, and certainly well deserved, but hardly the compelling stuff of epic, and of no interest to posterity. Blandness is the great pitfall of science fiction. Plot, character, setting, themes, even the quality of the writing can be second rate, but the imagination must scintillate. In 3001, the imagination plods and Clarke tries to make up for its absence with a series of vignettes that make no new contributions to the human story. We end up with a work that is too clever by half and too comfortable by far. All in all, one of Clarke's weakest contributions within a lifetime omnibus of the highest achievement.
Rating:
Summary: The worst book I've ever read
Review: The reason science-fiction exists is largely to comment on modern issues by placing them in a sci-fi context (well, that and the neat-o laser guns), but this book goes so overboard. There really isn't any story, David Poole's character isn't memorable enough to be even a cliche, the science is foolish. Instead it's mostly David Poole wandering around what Mr. Clarke considers to be a utopia. Basically it's an excuse for Mr. Clarke to deliver self-righteous sermons about the 20th century, that are unfailingly childish and annoying. For example, nobody in the future is religious, they even shrink from the mention of god. The reason why is because a past pope released secret church documents on the cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition. People around the world were so shocked at the hypocricy that they simultaneously gave up on religion. I remember another utopia of Clarke's in Childhood's End, where racial difficulties were ended by black people being commonly referred to with a certain racial epithet, but not complaining about it. Both these examples are childish, offensive, and don't even make any sense - how did they make it past an editor? I read this book because I enjoyed the author when I was very young. Now I know better, and believe this to be the worst book I've ever read, by an author who has no real talents other than milking his association with Stanley Kubrick's 2001.
Rating: 
Summary: 3001 Good or Bad?
Review: Well having never written a book review, figured it was time. Having enjoyed 2001 and 2010, I figured it was time to find out the ending to the great epic. Arthur retains his vision for the future in a much more reserved fashion then previously. I found some parts tend to drag, the visualization was great, but a little overboard at times. Too many references to recent current events and pop culture seemed to pull you away from the solitude of space that was very much present in the first two novels making the story seem less immortal. I found the idea of freezing Poole for one thousand years and thawing him out to be great, however I had a hard time believing it was really the same quiet, reserved, Poole we met in 2001. Besides those few things this is a great book, it has interesting dialogue, questions human existance, gives great visualization, and takes you into a whole new world only one man could envision. I cannot wait to see how much Hollywood messes this one up when they make it a movie.
Rating:
Summary: It actually offended me.
Review: All right, the basic premise of this novel is just plain wrong. According to the speed of light, the Alien Overlords are just finding out what humanity is like and that maybe we are not that nice. Didn't Clarke read his own book. The speed of light can be gotten around. The aliens knew EXACTLY what we were like right from the start! His vision of the ring around Earth is kind of cool, and the best thing about this book. It needs to be said that Clarke's condescending comments about religion and religious people are so callow and insulting that I lost much of the respect I had for him. I now assess most of the credit for 2001 to Stanley Kubrick. Judging by this book, the aliens were wasting their time putting the monolith on Earth.
Rating:
Summary: An Intelligent Voyage Through the Future
Review: As with 2061, you'll be disappointed if you spend most of the book waiting for the monolith to appear -- Bowman/Hal/the monolith don't appear until around the last 30 pages. But in the meantime, Clarke shows a fascinating and intelligent vision of the future. I personally went back and forth with Clarke's scientific notes at the end of the books as I passed the appropriate chapters, and Clarke provides some insights into the future that few authors are knowledgable enough to invent -- and all of it is based on present day science. Concepts like the space elevator are shown as plausible, reasonable, and surprisingly useful. As with 2061, you best appreciate the book if you just treat Clarke as a tour guide and prepare for a voyage through a fascinating world. As for the monolith story, you could easily skip 2061 and not miss a beat. (In fact, the book would be slightly less confusing if you did so.) As with the previous books in the saga, this is not a direct "sequel" and it takes some liberties with established history. (If you take everything as fact, Frank Poole was five years old in 2001.) But there are some fascinating insights into the monolith. A series of anticlimaxes proves a little disappointing, but it is followed by a surprising message at the end of the book. (If the end gets you thinking about ID4, you'll appreciate Clarke's notes on that slightly embarassing matter.) Almost certainly the worst of the series, but still a fascinating romp through Clarke's nigh-impeccable vision of the future.
Rating:
Summary: Read something more worthwhile.....
Review: This book is, thank God, better than the atrocity that was 2061. There are some interesting ideas about the future - especially religion. The story is mildy entertaining, though quite uneventful. However, three quarters through this book, Clarke decides he needs to go ahead and end the series. He slaps together an extremely anticlimatic, sloppy ending, leaving you completely dumbfounded that more thought and effort wasn't put into concluding this series. Clarke's inconsistencies throughout these books were annoying as well. It seems as if each book changes or contradicts something that happened in a previous story. Bottom line - 2001 was great. 2010 was a cool addition, although not necessary. 2061 and 3001 are simply superfulous to the storyline and add little to the original masterpiece. Life is too short for such mediocre, unentertaining books.
Rating:
Summary: Vintage Clarke!
Review: This novel begins when Frank Poole, the Discovery astronaut from the novel 2001, and who was killed bt HAL on the first mission to Jupiter, is found by a deep space crew, frozen. He is re-animated by advanced technology, in the year 3001, so all of his previous friends and acquaintances are long dead, dust forever. Poole is able to explore much of the human occupied solar system and later has contact with the mysterious black monolith on Europa, and also with what used to be Dave Bowman and HAL from 2001. This is the novel that concludes the four volume series that began with 2001 back in 1968. Clarke includes a lot of foreseeable future technology in this book, including nano-assembly of a person from information stored in a memory device to braincaps that connects a person directly to the global information network and even allows a person to recieve in minutes knowledge that now takes years of study. 3001 is a very descriptive novel, Clarke has a lot to say about possible life and technology as it may exist in a thousand years, it seems he does an amazing job, but no one can tell for certain until the year 3001 is here, in the past just predicting things only 10-20 years in the future has been very difficult indeed. 3001 contains thoroughly modern thinking, typical of Clarke, and I am pleased that he wrote it himself without relying on a co-author. I also enjoyed the several pages of notes Clarke has at the end of the book. The major criticism I have for this novel is that the human relationships are only briefly sketched and could have been in more detail. All told though, a fun and easy read.
Rating:
Summary: Bang, Mediocre, Mediocre, Fizzle
Review: There is nothing technically wrong with this book. As always, Clarke writes flawlessly. However . . . "2001: A Space Odyssey" - both film and book - hit the world with a wake-up call. We might not be alone, we need to plan for that, and our space program has unimagined wonder in its future, if we don't let it die. "2010" and "2061": When I read these books right after they came out, I remember thinking that they were well-written, coherent, followed a rational progression from their predecessors, and created vivid mental imagery. At that time, I would probably have given them four, or possibly even five, stars. So, how come I cannot remember either of them? I certainly remember 2001, but that might be because of the movie. However, I read, enjoyed, and clearly remember the entire "Rama" series. The only thing that I can think of, is that these books are technically very good, but just have nothing wonderful or spectacular about them. The "Rama" series left me with indelible memories. Neither 2010 nor 2061 did that. "3001": So where does that leave us? The series ends (dies) with a whimper or a fizzle. As I stated above, the writing is technically fine, but there is nothing exciting or memorable here. The book is sketchy, and it seemed like Clarke was writing it just to give in to popular demand, or to make the letters seeking closure to the series stop coming in. The non-closure ending of "2001" was fitting. Please let sleeping (dead) dogs lie!
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