2061: Odyssey Three (Space Odyssey, #3)

2061: Odyssey Three (Space Odyssey #3)

3.41 of 5 stars 3.41  ·  rating details  ·  9,660 ratings  ·  196 reviews
Arthur C. Clark, creator of one of the world's best-loved science fiction tales, revisits the most famous future ever imagined in this NEW YORK TIMES bestseller, as two expeditions into space become inextricably tangled. Heywood Floyd, survivor of two previous encounters with the mysterious monoliths, must again confront Dave Bowman, HAL, and an alien race that has decided...more
Paperback, 302 pages
Published November 1997 by Voyager (first published 1985)
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Henry Avila
Dr.Heywood Floyd, is back for the third installment of the 2001 series,still vigorous at the ripe old age of 103.Apparently the good Dr. requires excitement to live.His next mission is to land on Halley's Comet, in the year 2061.When the most famous comet there is, comes back,past the orbit of Earth, which it has done for 20,000 years.AS A CELEBRITY,HE GETS A FREE RIDE ON THE Spaceship Universe, a luxury liner,Heywood has been in a lot worse crafts in his trips.The best feature in the space line...more
holy_fire
Sep 25, 2008 holy_fire rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who likes SciFi with a big emphasis on the Sci-part
third book in Clarke's Odyssey-Saga...

short plot description: set (obviously) 51 years after the events in "2010: Odyssey Two" we meet again Dr. Heywood Floyd, now 103 years old. Mankind has build bases on the moon and Ganymede (where a scientist makes an astonishing discovery about Europa) and advances in science have made interplanetary space travel economical feasible, which paved the way for private enterprises. One of them is Tsung Spacelines where Chris Floyd, grandson of Heywood Floyd, wo...more
Bobby
Continuing the Spacey Odyssey series, this third installment may seem repetitive of the previous two, especially the mysteries of space, the appearance of ghosts, and the fantastic functions of the monolith. The pace, as the previous two, is slow at first, then escalates quickly and ends abruptly.
Clarke's hard science fiction is absolutely believable and it is clear that he has put in a great amount of research to extrapolate action from real theory. Because of this, the mysticism is not far-fe...more
Mutlu
Jüpiter'in yabancı zekalar tarafından minik bir yıldıza dönüşmesi, eski Jüpiter'in uydularının artık terraform için uygun koşullara gelmesinin 2 önemli sonucu vardır. İnsanlar evrende yalnız olmadıklarını anladıkları için eski kan davalarını unutup birleşmeye başlarlar, Dünya Devleti kurulur. Bu organizasyona katılmayan çok az sayıda ülke vardır. İkincisi ise Yıllardır insanların dikkatini cezbetmiş olan buz dünyası Europa uyanmıştır. Lucifer ( eski Jüpiter ) 'in ısısıyla buzları erir ve yaşama...more
Michael Duarte
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Byron Miller
I must admit, I didn't enjoy this as much as the first two books. Sure, I love scifi and I love the intrigue of the monoliths and what they're up to, but this book seemed more haphazard than strong story. It was enjoyable and an easy read but it felt more like the script of a made for tv movie than a connection to the previous books.

I wish there was a better reason why things were the way they were, everything was miraculous in concept but mundane in execution. It just seemed like oh darn, we'r...more
Ivan Stoikov - Allan Bard
Usually, only one book of a sequel is considered good enough. And usually, it is the first one, probably because it includes the denouement itself and the next books couldn’t surpass that, no matter how much suspense, scientific and other important facts, etc they describe.
Actually, after reading the 3rd Space Odyssey, I think every one of the sequel have their good qualities and they complement one another. So, they could be classified as an exception from the rule and I could not say which on...more
Ben
Dec 31, 2011 Ben rated it 1 of 5 stars
Shelves: sci-fi
Haywood Floyd is back, and this time he is part of a celebrity cruise to visit Haley’s comet. The celebrities are poorly written and this reader couldn’t care less about them. If the reader thinks that the monoliths have anything to do with Haley’s comet, which would be a reasonable assumption based on the first two books, they will be disappointed as the Haley’s comet story goes nowhere.

About a hundred pages in we get to the point of the story: Haywood Floyd’s grandson has crashed on Europa, wh...more
Andreas
This series started as a one-off book released in conjunction with the Stanley Kubrick movie of the same name. The series consists of:

* 2001: A Space Odyssey
* 2010: Odyssey Two. (Also made into a film)
* 2061 Odyssey Three
* 3001: The Final Odyssey

The first and second books are enthralling. 2061 is more of the same, and thus decent but somewhat pointless as part of the arc. 3001 is an attempt at closing up all the loose threads, and does so in a satisfying way.

For a long time, these books frus...more
Cura
Some might look at this book as a bore fest riddled with not only redundant inquiries but anticlimactic events. I, on the other hand, look at Odyssey three as an installment of subtle, yet wondrous adventure. True, we weren't given the plot twists the previous two books possessed, and if there were any, they were about as hidden as the dust in the air. Odyssey three however presents more of a siphon from Odyssey two to the final installment of this incredible space story. So then, why compose a...more
Jason Golomb
This is not a great book. It's really more of an extended novella or perhaps part one of Arthur C. Clarke's Odyssey finale, "3001". This story has none of the depth, nuance or scale of Clarke's classic original, "2001" nor its solid follow up "2010".

Clarke creates two focal points 60 years after modern man first comes across The Monolith buried deeply beneath the surface of the moon. One story thread follows Dr. Heywood Floyd, a centenarian whose medical condition forces him to live full time o...more
William Perry
My family and I are very close. We eat dinner together and spend our weekends doing activities we can all partake in. We truly care about one another, and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way. Just like my family, in 2061: Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke, Dr. Floyd cares about the ones he loves. Heywood Floyd, while exploring the surface of Halley’s Comet, receives word that his estranged grandson, Christopher Floyd, has made a crash landing on the planet Europa, where super intelligent ex...more
Nicholas
This series is very rapidly taking a nose-dive. 2061 continues the story of Heywood Floyd as he returns to Earth in the wake of the Leonov mission and tries to find some meaning in his life in his elder years. The first half of 2061 reads like a novel of exploration. Floyd is tapped to be part of an all-star manned mission to Halley's Comet and as you'd come to expect, there's plenty of the accompanying scientific explication - Clarke never misses a teachable moment. Greater technological advanc...more
Guillermo
Much things have changed in the last 50 years since the new sun was created, one that leaves you wondering if evolution can take place that quickly.

Unlike with the previous parts, Arthur C. Clarke seemed to have lost his edge. Before I was glued to my seat, turning page after page of the novel. It was only through the sheer fact that I promised myself that I'd read all parts to the Space Odyssey series that I continued onward (I have 3001 sitting on my desk as we speak, looking straight up at me...more
Nuno Magalhães
Este é terceiro e penúltimo livro da séria iniciada com "2001: Uma Odisseia no Espaço" e continuada com "2010: Segunda Odisseia" e que revisita novamente a interferência do monólito, que foi deixado por uma civilização extraterrestre no sistema solar, na evolução da espécie humana . Não sendo uma continuação directa dos livros anteriores, é mesmo assim uma narrativa da continuação da história dos protagonistas dos livros anteriores, em particular do astronauta Heywood Floyd, sobrevivente da viag...more
T
And I thought 2010 was underwhelming... Odyssey Three feels like a book that was written simply because it was expected to be written. Once again, Heywood Floyd (now over a hundred years old?) is dragged into the "mystery" of the black monoliths, following up on the events of Odyssey Two. And, like Odyssey Two, almost nothing happens across its almost 300 pages. Any intelligent person should be able to call the ending before they're even a quarter through the book, because it is extremely obviou...more
Bill
I'm not quite sure what the point of this book was except as an obvious transition between 2010 and 3001 (at least I hope that's obvious, as I haven't yet read 3001.

Yay! They landed on Halley's comet. Boo! They left. Yay! They found a diamond the size of a mountain! Boo! It sank. Boo! The ship was hijacked and landed on Europa, where it's not supposed to be! Ya! It was rescued.

There's also a sighting of the monolith, and HAL and Dr. Floyd Heywood who is either dead, nor not, or both. But I didn'...more
Christopher Harris
What can you really say about this book? It's Arthur C Clarke so the storytelling is compelling and has brilliant expansions on accepted theories of science into the fictional future. However the book whilst interesting does not really seem to go anywhere, and there is no real sense of danger but there is a wonderful sense of discovery. However the book poses more questions than it answers in the Odyssey storyline. It is almost as if Clarke was unhappy that he answered too many of the questions...more
Bryan
2061 starts off okay, but...: I love the series of stories about the monolith, and I began the story with excitement, but in the end I felt unfulfilled. At the beginning, I thought, "How cool, landing on Halley's Comet. How cool seeing some of the steps to figure out what Mt. Zeus is."

(Beware: Spoiler here...) This is a story that is ultimately about a rescue mission to Europa, but at the end of the book, he doesn't even talk about the actual rescue! He skips to Ganymede base, after the crew of...more
Randal
I didn't particularly like 2010: Odyssey Two, but got a lot out of this one. Clarke is one of those scifi authors (see William Gibson) who can make you go hmmmm, and this is one of the books that did it for me. I think he's off by a century or three in the date of when we get to Europa, but it's a worthwhile read. A tidbit: I particularly liked his critique of his own, earlier, speculation about building a space elevator, and the resources it would require.
I would classify it as "hard science" o...more
Ali Ünal
İlk iki kitapla birlikte Clarke'ın teknik dozu gitgide artmaya başlamıştı. İlk kitap, hem karbon hem de silikon bazlı canlıların psikolojisine çok iyi eğilmiş harika bir kitapken, ikinci kitaptan itibaren durum biraz daha teknik bilgiye ve biyoloji ya da astrofizik kitabı okuyormuş hissine bıraktı. Hâlâ üst düzeyde bir bilimkurgu olsa da heves ve heyecan eğrisi gitgide düşüyor. Dördüncü kitabın adının 3001 olması bu kitabı biraz daha istekle bitirmeme sebep oldu desem yalan söylemiş olmam. Sırad...more
MisterFweem
You know, I really like Clarke's old stuff. Old, relatively speaking, of course. But 2061, well, not so much. I felt like he was writing to a bad sci-fi checklist:

()mutliethnic character pallette
()golly-bob-howdy sneaky thing on the ship (swimming in the fuel tanks)
()obligatory sexy time, albeit really vaudevilleian
()metaphysics
()technobabble
()more metaphysics
()multitudinous reminders that he knows a lot more sciency stuff than we do
()Flash Gordon music
()even more metaphysics

And so on.

And what u...more
Craig
2061 was a better written novel than Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two. Here Clarke went back to his un-alloyed storytelling, incorporating familiar heros/characters. I especially appreciated the 'family reunion' theme that healed a distant relationship between Grandfather and Grandson. Clarke's assertion that family and social problems will continue to occur despite all our technological advances reminded me of Ray Bradbury's works. But I feel that it is true. Give us interplanetary travel, cryogenic...more
Gregory Koprowski
It seems that with every step this series is becoming more and more bland. The sense of mystery and the struggle of just a few people stranded out in deep space were the things that first drew me to this series. But this book in particular felt almost like a really long travel brochure for a space vacation of the future. The sense of mystery is almost completely absent. The struggle of the characters lacks any sort of edge so that the whole plot feels superficial. Only a precious few moments wer...more
Holmes
This third installment of Clarke's Odyssey series pales in comparison to the earlier two. Nothing much happens in this book except for the revelation that a mountain-sized diamond crashed into Europa (and even that is not really an impressive plot). Floyd's excursion to Halley's Comet does not seem to serve any critical purpose. Galaxy's being hijacked and subsequent crash landing are also quite awkward.

Overall, this whole book just feels a bit unnecessary. I guess at the age of 70, when Clarke...more
Matthew
Dec 04, 2009 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Solar system and astronomy buffs
Another solid book from Arthur C. Clarke. Despite some repetition of whole chapters from previous books (which is understandable, given the 30-odd year span of publication dates), this book is a good addition to the series. Clarke distills the scientific wonders of our solar system into a cracking good yarn about the first landing on Halley's comet (set to return in 2061)and the hijacking of a spacecraft and the first landing on Ganymede after the Star Child's mysterious warning to stay away......more
Jim
Very interesting book although I don't think it was as exciting as 2001. It's nice to see a familiar main character again, Dr. Haywood Floyd, who always reminds me of Roy Schider from too movie.

This is the first book I've read that had chapters which were less than a page long. Kind of strange reading.

This book did leave an interesting ending so I'll be looking to read 3001. I wonder if Dr. Haywood Floyd will be in this; nothing is impossible in science-fiction. Still, this book did introduce hi...more
Carlos Rioja
I love the depictions of other worlds, but I think that, as a novel, this book is not very well built. It is like it was done with patches… something that also happened on 2001 and 2010, but here it is more appreciable. Anyway, the story is interesting enough to keep on reading, and if you liked the previous two installments, you'll surely enjoy this.

Me gustan las representaciones de otros mundos, pero este libro no termina de funcionar como novela. Es como si estuviera escrito a base de retales...more
Darren Worrow
After reading 2001 and 2010 i thought this was the last in the series. After a bit of research i found that Clarke wrote another 3001. Other reasoning behind reading this was that it was the first with a date actually in the future now. It was a good read, slow and gentle sci-fi; no laser beams gun fights and alein invasions. I figured after the monolith said to the humans not to go messing about on Europa and they did, accidently, the human race may feel the wrath of a higher race and we might...more
Hope
I was hesitant about this novel when I started reading it. It begins with the slightly contrived circumstance allowing Dr. Heywood Floyd to still be an active participant at the age of 103. But that's a small pill to swallow to get to the rest of the book.

As in 2010, there are no ordinary people, so the characters are all engaging, believable, and fascinating.

The over-arching plot is a bit contrived, which I can entirely forgive, especially since it's not very noticeable while read it. The st...more
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Arthur C. Clarke was one of the most important and influential figures in 20th century science fiction. He spent the first half of his life in England, where he served in World War Two as a radar operator, before emigrating to Ceylon in 1956. He is best known for the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he co-created with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.

Clarke was a graduate of King's Co...more
More about Arthur C. Clarke...
2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1) Rendezvous with Rama (Rama, #1) Childhood's End 2010: Odyssey Two (Space Odyssey, #2) The Fountains of Paradise

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