'2001: A Space Odyssey'

This is an interesting book only because it was based on Arthur C. Clarke’s short story from 1948, “The Sentinel.”

In 1964, director Stanley Kubrick approached Clarke with the idea of a movie adaptation and the author volunteered to write the screenplay. Kubrick instead recommended turning “The Sentinel” into a novel and thus basing the film on the full work. The novel was published several months after the release of the film.

So it’s a novel first written as a short story and basically commissioned for the sake of turning it into a movie. The cart didn’t come before the horse; the horse was riding in the cart.

Clarke was a very technical writer, more so than other science fiction authors. He had worked in communications and technical advances with the Royal Air Force and he even penned the paper purporting geostationary communications satellites. A futurist, Clarke’s interviews and articles (and stories) tended to mark lifestyle shifts in the future even predicting things like online banking and commerce.

Clarke spent most of his life in Sri Lanka after moving there to pursue his interest in scuba diving. Some believe Sri Lanka’s lax attitude toward homosexuality as opposed to England. He never expressly “came out” although his sexual preference is well-documented.