3001: The Final Odyssey

3001: The Final Odyssey
First UK edition
Author Arthur C. Clarke
Cover artist Chris Moore
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Voyager Books (UK)
Del Rey Books (US)
Publication date
 1997
ISBN 0-345-31522-7 (US hardback edition)
OCLC 35919386
823/.914 21
LC Class PR6005.L36 A618 1997
Preceded by 2061: Odyssey Three

3001: The Final Odyssey is a 1997 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. It is the fourth and final book in Clarke's Space Odyssey series.

Plot summary

This novel begins with a brief prologue describing the bioforms — dubbed the First-Born — who created the black monoliths. They evolved from "primordial soup", and over the course of millions of years, became a space-faring species. Perceiving that nothing was more precious than "mind," they catalysed the evolution of intelligent species wherever they went, by increasing the intelligent species' chance of survival. After visiting Earth, the First-Born found a way to impress themselves into the fabric of space and time, becoming effectively immortal. Meanwhile, the monoliths—implied to have been forgotten by their creators when they ascended to a higher state of being—continued to watch over their subjects.

3001 follows the adventures of Frank Poole, the astronaut killed by the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. One millennium later, Poole's freeze-dried body is discovered in the Kuiper belt by a comet-collecting space tug named the Goliath, and revived. Poole is taken home to learn about the Earth in the year 3001. Some of its notable features include the BrainCap, a brain–computer interface technology; genetically engineered dinosaur servants; and four gigantic space elevators located evenly around the Equator. Humans have also colonised the Jovian moons Ganymede and Callisto. TMA-1, the black monolith found on the Moon in 1999, has been brought to Earth in 2006 and installed in front of the United Nations Building in New York City.

It is determined that following the events of 2010: Odyssey Two and 2061: Odyssey Three, the Jovian monolith had sent a report to its superior monolith 450 light years away, and is expected to receive its orders toward humanity after the nine-century round-trip. Presumably, the monolith was empowered to obliterate the nascent biosphere of Jupiter, but needed a higher authority's approval to do the same with the technological civilisation on Earth. There is considerable worry that the judgment, based on the monolith's observations of humanity up to 2061, will be negative, and the human race thus destroyed as the Jovian bioforms discovered by David Bowman were wiped out (while making Jupiter a small sun to assist intelligence on Europa). Frank conscripts Bowman and HAL, who have now become a single entity—Halman—residing in the monolith's computational matrix, to infect the monolith with a computer virus. The monolith does receive orders to exterminate humanity, and starts a duplication cascade, whereupon millions of monoliths form two screens to prevent Solar light and heat from reaching Earth and its colonies. Due to Halman having already infected the first monolith, all the monoliths disintegrate.

Halman uploads itself into a petabyte-capacity holographic 3D storage medium and thus survives the disintegration of the monoliths, but is infected with the virus and is subsequently sealed by scientists in the Pico Vault. At the close of the story, Poole and other humans land on Europa to start peaceful relations with the primitive native Europans. A statement is made that the monolith's makers will not determine humanity's fate until "the Last Days".

Characters

Main characters

  • Frank Poole: 3001's protagonist, Frank Poole has been revived by highly advanced medicine, a thousand years after being killed by HAL during the Discovery's original mission. Given Frank's role in a very important sequence of events for humanity, which among other things led to the artificial creation of the star Lucifer from Jupiter, Poole is warmly received by humanity as an important, if ancient and strange, personality. All this, Poole takes in stride.
  • Dr. Indra Wallace: A specialist on the history of the early twenty-first century, Wallace acts as Poole's cultural guide. As time goes on, Poole and Wallace recognize their attraction to one another, and so start a family, having children named Dawn Wallace and Martin Poole, before separating amicably some years later.
  • Halman: a merging of the entities that were once HAL 9000 and Dave Bowman, Halman communicates with Poole at various points throughout the novel, warning Poole of the possibility that the monoliths may issue negative judgment against humanity.

Minor characters

  • Dimitri Chandler: Captain of the Goliath, Chandler mines the outer solar system for ice material which is slowly pushed towards the inner solar system, to make the inner planets habitable through long-term terraforming. While in this region of space, Chandler discovers Poole's body. Later, after Poole's recovery and cultural acclimation, Chandler ferries Poole to the Jupiter (now Lucifer) system, to see the intervening developments which have taken place in the solar system over the past millennium.
  • Professor Anderson: a medical doctor, Anderson leads the medical team which revived Poole, and works with Indra Wallace both to aid Poole's convalescence, and also to manage his cultural shock at awakening into a strange future world.
  • Dr. Stephen Del Marco: Alive at a future time (2513 AD) which is yet in the novel's distant past, Del Marco is the discoverer of TMA-0 in Africa: an earthbound monolith matching the lunar monolith which had been discovered hundreds of years earlier, in 2001. The implications of this discovery are that humanity finally becomes aware that it was artificially conditioned to evolve intelligently (already known omnisciently to readers of 2001), thus permanently discrediting all major religions.
  • Dr. Theodore "Ted" Khan: A resident of Ganymede, Dr. Khan is contemptuous of religion, identifying it as a mental disorder. Poole's exchanges with Khan about the redeeming qualities of religious people in his own period are part of a larger theme in the novel, of religion versus irreligion, with the "primitive" Poole sometimes resenting the future world's blanket condemnation of religious people, despite himself being a man of science.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

It was reported on Yahoo Entertainment in 2000 that MGM and actor/director Tom Hanks were in discussions regarding turning both 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey into movies. (Hanks would reportedly play Frank Poole in the 3001 film.) An update in 2001 stated that there was no further development on the project.[1]

On 3 November 2014 it was reported that the U.S. cable channel Syfy had ordered a miniseries adaptation of 3001: The Final Odyssey into production, planned for broadcast in 2015. The miniseries would be executive-produced by Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker and Stuart Beattie; the latter would also be the primary script-writer. The estates of both Clarke and 2001: A Space Odyssey director Stanley Kubrick were reported as having "offered their full support", but the extent of their involvement was not known at the time.[2] In February 2016, the series was mentioned as one of Syfy's "in development pipeline" projects during their press release for Prototype,[3] though no further announcements have been made since that time.

References

  1. ↑ "3001: The Final Odyssey - Greg's Preview - Yahoo! Movies". Web.archive.org. 12 February 2016. Archived from the original on 27 June 2007. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  2. ↑ Ausiello, Michael (2014-11-03). "'2001: A Space Odyssey' Sequel Ordered at Syfy — '3001: The Final Odyssey'". TVLine. Retrieved 2017-07-09.
  3. ↑ "Prototype: Syfy Orders New Thriller Series Pilot - canceled TV shows". TV Series Finale. Retrieved 2017-07-09.

Further reading

  • Clarke, Arthur C. (1998). 3001: The Final Odyssey (1st ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. p. 272. ISBN 0345423496.
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