(Note: This is a review of the book, which is quite different from the movie...)

2001: A Space Odyssey is a story of people trying to uncover the mysteries of how Earth was created and why. It is placed in the future, though the year is 2001 because it was written around 1968.

The chairman of the National Council of Astronautics, Dr. Heywood Floyd, who is involved in the finding of the TMA-1 (Tycho Magnetic Anomaly-1), also called the Monolith. It is a black rectangular slab of impenetrable material with a size Ratio of 1:4:9, also known to be the 1st 3 squares. It was buried under so deep, it was probably buried before any human had been there. When out observing the Monolith, as the sun shone on it for the first time after it had been uncovered, it shot some sort of signal toward outer space.

Later a mission was mounted to Saturn, where the signal was supposedly sent, was underway. The spacecraft Discovery was heading out toward Saturn. Its crew of six included David Bowman and Frank Poole, the two astronauts who work on the ship, the 3 science crew members, who were frozen in sleep until the arrival at Saturn, and a Computer, the HAL 9000, which would control all the important functions of the ship.

On their Journey, out past Jupiter, HAL reported the impending failure of the AE-35 unit, which controls the fine tuning of the Radar dish’s direction towards earth. After Frank Poole replaces the AE-35 with a spare unit, not only does the first unit have no problem detected after an inspection, but HAL reports that the other unit will also fail in a shorter time. After a conversation with Earth, they say HAL may be malfunctioning, so they should pat some attention to him in case of anything happening.

Shortly later, HAL Reports the AE-35 Unit has failed. Frank Poole goes out to replace the unit, but his pod accidentally rams him and pulls him off into space. Bowman, however, is unable to do anything. Later, HAL opens the pod bay Airlock doors, and all the oxygen is pulled out of the ship. Luckily, Bowman was able to acquire a space suit. Bowman finds that the science crew were killed when HAL turned off the life support systems. He proceeds to the main control of HAL, and disconnects his circuits to turn him off.

After reconnecting contact with earth, Bowman learns about the Tycho Monolith, and that the real mission is to investigate the signal sent to Saturn. After he puts Discovery into a parking orbit, he encounters another Monolith, identical to TMA-1 in every way, except in size, being very large. He sets out in a pod to investigate, but the monolith pulls him in, after he sends his last message: “My God! It’s full of Stars!”

He lands in a modern hotel-like room, and after checking for oxygen, he removes his space suit. After sleeping, he turns into the “Star Child“.

This is how the book ends. It is a very long mystery that goes through 4 books, so there are quite a few missing answers, like why HAL went crazy, who the Star Child really is, and others.

This is, for some reason, different from the Movie, in which Bowman did go out to save Poole. When he returned , HAL would not let him enter the ship. Because he had no helmet, he could not easily exit his pod and enter the airlock for people, instead of bringing the pod. He blows the Hatch and engages the airlock manually as quickly as he can. And Also, the signal was sent to Jupiter, not Saturn.

This is a great Sci-Fi, and Mystery book. I would recommend it to anyone.

Final score: 10/10