Rating: 
Summary: Interesting.
Review: I was impressed with 3001, but I hadn't read the others in the Odyssey chain. I am reading 2010 as I thought it might shed some light on 3001 -- sort of a literary reverse engineering thing. Sure is dark in here.
Rating:
Summary: An ironic ending of Clarke's series.
Review: In spite of some who might voice disappointment in Clarke's latest effort, it is interesting that he chose to end his series the way that he did. Something that we accept as a way of life in this computer age, he has made a formidable force to disable the "monolith" network. The resurrection of Frank Poole and the ensuing storyline are not predictable which makes for good writing, an all too rare thing these days. I applaud Clarke's leap into the computer age. He is simplifying things greatly, but the concept, used again in Independence Day (the movie), would work if we knew a little bit about the alien device. Probable? Not likely. Possible? Definately! If you don't look for flashes of brilliant insight, and just read it for the irony, you will enjoy this new story.
Rating: 
Summary: Cardboard cut-out characters that are little Arthur Clarkes
Review: A thinly veiled tirade and anti-religious editorial filled with smug elitism. Mr Clarke has forgotten that we expect a story when we buy a novel.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably dull and unimaginative
Review: I can't believe that the same author wrote the previous books of the Odyssey series! 3001 was a weak speculation of the future, Clarke's rendition dull and unimaginative -- merely excerpts of other literature of our time ("Jurassic Park" and "Cult at the end of the World" for example). It was almost as if Mr. Clarke was forced to write this book! I was completely disappointed and barely made it to the end (I couldn't finish 2061). I probably should have stopped reading his books after reaching puberty.
Rating:
Summary: A huge disappointment
Review: What happened to Heywood Floyd and to HAL? I thought that they would reappear in this book but no..NO! Thay simply seemed to have disappeared. It was as if Mr. Clarke forgot to read his other books before writing 3001. The story actually does not follow the path of 2001 series and it appears as if he wrote the book just because a publisher asked him to. The life seems to be missing from the book. It definitely was a big disappointmnet to read the book and realise that the ideas postulated -- the hub around earth -- is borrowed form his previous novels. What happened to originbality. He has been the pioneer of his times and in fact the 2061 ends with the line -- Ans the monolith awaoke. At this time the monolith is supposed to be in the courtyard of the UN building ON EARTH not somewhere floating above. Simply very disappointed. Reda it if you are a ACC fan . But if you want to keep the feeling of Odeyssey series....forget it..Don't even touch this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Clarke cashes in
Review: 2001 word count: ~75000
2010 word count: ~94000
2061 word count: ~94000
3001 word count: ~67000
Those are the word counts I get by counting the words in a representative page, then multiplying by the page count (not counting non-story content). The book really does appear shorter, and I was expecting the comparison to be more dramatic, but you can see the fourth book isn't _that_ much shorter than the first three. At any rate, this book really only has one character, Poole, and you can't say you know _anything_ about his character after you read this book. All you know is what happened to him. There is not even a token attempt to describe what goes on in his thoughts. Similarly, the story is truly impoverished. It's barely there. Just like in 2061, the plot literally has only one element. In this case: Frank Poole is revived 1000 years later. Monolith gets message to destroy earth. Man destroys Monolith. An entire one page was spent in the deliberation "how should we destroy the Monolith?" Surely more creativity could have been applied to this topic. It seems to me the author just didn't care about the plot. He only wanted an excuse to describe a few elements of his vision of 3001 society. And he doesn't need an excuse, really. He's Arthur C. Clarke! If he had entitled the book "here's some neat things that might exist in 3001" I wouldn't have started the book expecting what I did, but I still would have bought it and read it. Clarke says himself that there are inconsistencies between the four books, citing the new information that has become available since the first book was written, not to mention that time has already caught up and passed by some of the events described in the first book. I'll give him that, no problem. But there is no excuse for the stories to contradict themselves in areas that were purely the invention of the author! For example, at the end of 2010 is an epilogue entitled "20001" in which it is indicated that the Monolith guarded Europa at least until then. It also indicates that the Europans were intelligent, e.g. studying astronomy and having religions. But in 3001, the Monolith is destroyed, and the Europans have proven to be a dead-end. According to Halman, they haven't changed at all. At the end of 2061, there are six towers hooked to the ring around the planet. In 3001, four. And at the end of 2061, Lucifer is extinguished. Yet in 3001 it continues to burn on as a star. At the end of 2061, Heywood Floyd's identity is copied into the monolith to join Hal and Dave. But no mention of this in 3001. A final note: The characters and society that Clarke creates are contemptuous of all religions. This offended me. Clarke is allowed to say what he wants to say about this subject. However, if you would be offended to be told that your religion is stupid, then you will be offended by this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice hard SF speculations - unspectacular story
Review: Hard SF: 9
Story : 4 The reader, I, stares bewildered through the eyes of Frank Poole at the future, compares it with his time, does a few things and that's about it. And I thought there was more. So the book disappointed me a bit. The scientific and socioeconomic speculations are nice, not necessarily true(they would be visions if they were; call me in a thousand years to evaluate), but nice nonetheless. Soothsaying isn't easy if you want to be plausible and original.
'3001' extrapolates the developments of its direct predecessor '2061', it omits the star gates mentioned in '2001' and '2061' completely. One could be angry at that, but to what avail? ACC corrects himself and puts A.Einstein on a pedestal again. He does this to give humanity a break, roughly 1000 years, before the almighty monoliths, mindless gardeners of intelligence, are given the order to weed out those barbarians of the beginning space age. It's like abortion in the 1000-th week, after you detect a genetic anomaly. (So you kill the 18-year old as an afterthought) '3001' is more a stand-alone book than a real sequel. The hard SF part is pretty cool, the hula-hoop of earth is just awesome, though ACC is not the first to think or write about one. As for characters, they seem pretty weak. Frank Poole is quite lifeless for a barbarian of our days. He doesn't go nuts, doesn't cry, no outburst, no nothing. Frankensteins Monster of the 31-st century. On the other side, if you can domesticate and control a dinosaur, so you can also do with a 20th century barbarian. Metaviruses ( Try to explain 'I always lie.' to the monolith ), Space-Elevators, Terraforming of the planets near the sun, GeneticReengineering of Species, VirtualIrreality, MindWarping, SuperWeapons - HARD SF-wise it has it all, sometimes a little bit off target ( my opinion )but always plausible. So if you like hard SF, read it!
If you like good characterizations or fast paced action, leave it be!
Rating:
Summary: A great Sci-Fi for anyone that loves Clarke's writing
Review: Most science fiction books have much to do with aliens and events that are not very believable. In the book 3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke, the aliens and events are very believable. All of the devices used in this story are carefully thought out and described in a way that are theoretically possible. However, even though the author tells the story with such fascinating technology, the story itself lacks interest. This is the fourth book in a continuing series which take place in the far future. In this story, Frank Poole who was left out to drift in space is resurrected. He encounters new experiences and has much trouble from being "asleep" for a thousand years. As in the other books in this series, monoliths appear and cause havoc among people. Monoliths are structures that supply the main source of life and intelligence. The problem with these monoliths is that they planned to exterminate humanity from the universe. When the people discovered the monoliths intentions, they realized the need for military action. The remainder of the book is spent destroying the monoliths. However, the predictability of this story is boring. Nevertheless, the idea of the monoliths is very interesting possibility in the future. Even though this story is so predictable and lacks character development, I feel that this is a an excellent science fiction novel by the best science fiction writer of all time, Arthur C. Clarke. This book makes you want to read more books by Clarke because of his insight into technology of the future. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is a fan of Clarke's past work and anyone that was mesmerized by science fiction.
Rating:
Summary: If you saw Independence Day, you know the plot of this book!
Review: I had to force myself to finish this book. It was plotless, predictable, had lifeless characters, and frankly I wish I'd never bought it. There were way too many dumb references to "quaint" twentieth century things (ie, one character -- who was born in the thirtieth century, no less -- had to explain that there were no "Star Trek transporters." Plus there was a plethora of bad cliches being used, because, predictably, the female love interest was a historian who just happened to specialize in Poole's era). ARGH! It hurt my brain to read this book! Save yourself the bother -- if you absolutely have to read it, just check it out at the library. At least that way you don't have anything invested in it and you can put it down without feeling like you wasted your money.
Rating:
Summary: The 'Windows '95' of the Oddessy series
Review: Well. uhmn. Touted, lots of anticipation based on reputation. Like climbing into a Mazzerratti (sp) And discovering it has a salvaged 1967 VW Bug engine. Best things to say here are 1) Technologically, interesting. 2) Didn't suck. Not completely at least. In my uninformed opinion, ACC is tired, and may well have been pressured into this by his adoring public. In my mind, where there is an afterlife in which you are free to roam the cosmos and time at will, and all things are known, all answers revealed, this final oddessy will become more palatable.
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