2061

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2061 (Magill Book Reviews)

It is fifty-one years after the events recounted in 2010: ODYSSEY TWO, which culminated in the mysterious black monolith’s creators detonating the planet Jupiter, forming a new sun (renamed Lucifer) and turning Jupiter’s moons into a new planetary system. The aliens conveyed only one message to the Russian spacecraft Leonov as it fled the new solar-system-within-a solar-system: ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS-- EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.

In the years that followed, an era of unequaled peace and prosperity flourished in the silent presence of the aliens. Man continued to expand slowly into the solar system, careful not to violate the alien’s injunction--until a report is received that a spaceship has crashed into Europa’s ocean and is floating helplessly. Heywood Floyd, head of the American contingent of the 2010 Leonov expedition--still hale and hearty after all these years because of the age-retarding effects of his zero-gravity orbiting rest home -- finds himself thrown into the action when the Halley’s comet expedition on which he has been invited is diverted onto a high-speed sprint to Europa and a rescue attempt.

It soon becomes evident that the landing was not an accident at all, but a planned mission aimed at discovering the nature of a stupendous mountain that had appeared suddenly on Europa’s cloud-shrouded surface, in defiance of all laws of geological evolution--a secret that turns out to be literally shattering.

Chris Floyd, Heywood’s grandson, and a South African scientist, both on the crew of the downed ship, set out in its small shuttle to explore the mysterious mountain. What they find could destroy the economy of nations but could also provide a highway off the Earth and allow a massive expansion of man into the solar system. Continuing their search, they find even more: a giant monolith, unaccountably toppled on its side, brooding over a small city built by the Europans, who, freed from their ice-encased oceans by the warmth of Lucifer, are evolving rapidly under the monolith’s tutelage.

In the end, Heywood Floyd joins David Bowman and Hal (from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY) on a strange mission in which Clarke’s imaginative time machine moves farther into the future, to 3001, to an ominous event that undoubtedly means another sequel.

In this book and its immediate predecessor, 2010, the themes of 2001 have grown magnificently and beyond expectation. A book that will please the scientist, the adventurer, and the metaphysician in all of us, it is not to be missed.

See Also:

• Arthur C. Clarke (Cyclopedia of World Authors)
• Arthur C. Clarke (Short Fiction)
• Arthur C. Clarke (Long Fiction)