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2001
- A Space Odyssey
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
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This allegory about humanity's exploration of the universe, and the universe's reaction to humanity, was the basis for director Stanley Kubrick's immortal film, and lives on as a hallmark achievement in storytelling.
Featured Article: The Best Sci-Fi Book-to-Film/TV Adaptations
Beyond raising fascinating possibilities, the best works of science fiction ask big questions: What does it mean to be human? What will the future look like? What mysteries does the universe hold, and what do they mean for life on Earth? Whether you choose to escape via audiobook, movie, or television, these science fiction stories are truly out of this world—in all their incarnations.
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Good primer for Young Adults new to sci-fi!
- By Philip Maddox on 10-09-22
By: Evan Graham
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Altered Starscape
- Andromedan Dark, Book 1
- By: Ian Douglas
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The year is 2162. Thirty-eight years after first contact, Lord Commander Grayson St. Clair leads the Tellus Ad Astra on an unprecedented expedition to the Galactic Core, carrying more than a million scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and AIs. Despite his reservations about their alien hosts, St. Clair is deeply committed to his people - especially after they're sucked into a black hole and spat out four billion years in the future. Civilizations have risen and fallen. The Andromeda Galaxy is drifting into the Milky Way. And Earth is most certainly a distant memory.
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painful
- By AndyVee on 02-04-17
By: Ian Douglas
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Starplex
- By: Robert J. Sawyer
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett, Robert J. Sawyer
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Twenty years after the discovery of artificial wormholes launches Earth space exploration to unforeseeable heights, Starplex Director Keith Lansing investigates a mysterious vessel that soon threatens the station with intergalactic war.
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Tribute to Arthur C. Clarke
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 06-23-12
By: Robert J. Sawyer
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The Tar-Aiym Krang
- A Pip & Flinx Adventure
- By: Alan Dean Foster
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Moth was a beautiful planet, the only one with wings - two great golden clouds suspended in space around it. Here was a wide-open world for any venture a man might scheme. The planet attracted unwary travelers, hardened space-sailors, and merchant buccaneers - a teeming, constantly shifting horde that provided a comfortable income for certain quick-witted fellows like Flinx and his pet flying snake Pip.
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The First of the Flinx and Pip Novels AT LAST!
- By Chris on 01-20-09
By: Alan Dean Foster
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The Atlantis Gene
- The Origin Mystery, Book 1
- By: A.G. Riddle
- Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Seventy thousand years ago, the human race almost went extinct. We survived, but no one knows how.
Until now. The countdown to the next stage of human evolution is about to begin, and humanity might not survive this time. The Immari are good at keeping secrets. For 2,000 years, they've hidden the truth about human evolution. They've also searched for an ancient enemy - a threat that could wipe out the human race. Now the search is over.
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Pretty bad, but not the worst I've ever read
- By january on 03-20-14
By: A.G. Riddle
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Solaris
- The Definitive Edition
- By: Stanislaw Lem, Bill Johnston - translator
- Narrated by: Alessandro Juliani
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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At last, one of the world’s greatest works of science fiction is available - just as author Stanislaw Lem intended it. To mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Solaris, Audible, in cooperation with the Lem Estate, has commissioned a brand-new translation - complete for the first time, and the first ever directly from the original Polish to English. Beautifully narrated by Alessandro Juliani ( Battlestar Galactica), Lem’s provocative novel comes alive for a new generation.
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A comment on negative reviews
- By Burns on 09-20-11
By: Stanislaw Lem, and others
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Seeing in the Dark
- How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril
- By: Timothy Ferris
- Narrated by: Timothy Ferris
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Anyone can get started in astronomy, just by going outside on a dark night with a star chart and learning their way around. Timothy Ferris tells us what's been seen out there - the Ring nebula, the Silver Coin galaxy, the Virgo supercluster, and how to find them.
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About astronomy as well as astronomers
- By Gary on 04-09-03
By: Timothy Ferris
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A Talent for War
- An Alex Benedict Novel
- By: Jack McDevitt
- Narrated by: Gregory Abbey, Jack McDevitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knew the legend of Christopher Sim. Fighter. Leader. An interstellar hero with a rare talent for war, Sim changed mankind's history forever when he forged a ragtag group of misfits into the weapon that broke the back of the alien Ashiyyur. But now, Alex Benedict has found a startling bit of information, long buried in an ancient computer file. If it is true, then Christopher Sim was a fraud.
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Very good - but the cover and title are deceptive
- By Brian on 09-25-10
By: Jack McDevitt
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A Book Wholly Equal to its Subject
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The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city - intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands: unify earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. With little rebellion, humankind agreed, and a golden age began.
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For eons, Earth has been under observation by the Firstborn, beings almost as old as the universe itself. The Firstborn are unknown to humankind - until they act. In an instant, Earth is carved up and reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Suddenly the planet and every living thing on it no longer exist in a single timeline.
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I expected better from these two
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The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city - intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands: unify earth, eliminate poverty, and end war. With little rebellion, humankind agreed, and a golden age began.
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Food for Thought
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I expected better from these two
- By Kennet on 06-04-08
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Earthlight
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The time: 200 years after man's first landing on the Moon. There are permanent populations established on the Moon, Venus, and Mars. Outer space inhabitants have formed a new political entity, the Federation, and between the Federation and Earth a growing rivalry has developed. Earthlight is the story of this emerging conflict.
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A brilliant science fiction spy work
- By Daniel Davis on 06-13-16
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A Fall of Moondust
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Time is running out for the passengers and crew of the tourist cruiser Selene, incarcerated in a sea of choking lunar dust. On the surface, her rescuers find their resources stretched to the limit by the mercilessly unpredictable conditions of a totally alien environment. A brilliantly imagined story of human ingenuity and survival, A Fall of Moondust is a tour-de-force of psychological suspense and sustained dramatic tension by the field's foremost author.
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Old Fashioned Science Fiction
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 12-03-11
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The Fountains of Paradise
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Vannemar Morgan's dream is to link Earth to the stars with the greatest engineering feat of all time: a 24,000-mile-high space elevator. But first he must solve a million technical, political, and economic problems while allaying the wrath of God. For the only possible site on the planet for Morgans Orbital Tower is the monastery atop the Sacred Mountain of Sri Kanda.
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Hard
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 04-30-11
By: Arthur C. Clarke
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Islands in the Sky
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
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- Unabridged
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The story of Island in the Sky centers around a young man, who, after brilliantly winning a space-related competition, requests a vacation on a space station as his prize. It is written with Arthur C. Clark's obvious knowledge of science, but moves at a page turning rate throughout the entire narrative. The short novel gives a realistic possibility of work and play in future space, heightened with constant excitement and action.
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Fun early novel, aimed perhaps at teens
- By Darryl on 10-28-12
By: Arthur C. Clarke
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The Sentinel
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The Sentinel was first published in the spring 1951 issue of 10 Story Fantasy. It later served as the starting point for the film and novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) is regarded as one of the most-influential science fiction writers of all time. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
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Great Story and Narrated Very Well
- By Michael on 12-25-18
By: Arthur C. Clarke
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The City and the Stars
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Diaspar is Earth's last city - surrounded by deserts, on a world where the oceans have long since dried up. It is a domed, isolated, technological marvel, run by the Central Computer. Diaspar has conquered death. People are called forth; they live for a thousand years and then are recalled, to be born thousands of years later, over and over again. No child has been born for at least 10 million years. Until Alvin....
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A Classic
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 12-10-11
By: Arthur C. Clarke
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Blade Runner
- Originally published as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
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- Unabridged
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It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there lurked several rogue androids. Deckard's assignment: find them and then..."retire" them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn't want to be found!
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This is the original Do Androids Dream of Electric
- By D. ABIGT on 08-29-10
By: Philip K. Dick
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The Deep Range
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
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It is the 21st century and humans have finally conquered the sea. Professionals now harvest plankton to feed the world. However, the sea has not given up all its secrets...and men like Walter Franklin are determined to find them out.
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nice Clarke at sea this time
- By Darryl on 11-04-12
By: Arthur C. Clarke
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A Meeting with Medusa
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"A Meeting with Medusa" was first published in the December 1971 issue of Playboy. Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) is regarded as one of the most-influential science fiction writers of all time. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
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Prelude for the Reynolds / Baxter collaboration
- By Michael G Kurilla on 02-28-17
By: Arthur C. Clarke
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Sing Like Fish
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- By: Amorina Kingdon
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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For centuries, humans ignored sound in the “silent world” of the ocean, assuming that what we couldn’t perceive, didn’t exist. But we couldn’t have been more wrong. Marine scientists now have the technology to record and study the complex interplay of the myriad sounds in the sea. In Sing Like Fish, award-winning science journalist Amorina Kingdon synthesizes historical discoveries with the latest scientific research in a clear and compelling portrait of this sonic undersea world.
By: Amorina Kingdon
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The Martian Chronicles
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor - of crystal pillars and fossil seas - where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn - first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.
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The Original. Great Stories, Great Narrator.
- By Troy on 04-05-16
By: Ray Bradbury
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Solaris
- The Definitive Edition
- By: Stanislaw Lem, Bill Johnston - translator
- Narrated by: Alessandro Juliani
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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At last, one of the world’s greatest works of science fiction is available - just as author Stanislaw Lem intended it. To mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Solaris, Audible, in cooperation with the Lem Estate, has commissioned a brand-new translation - complete for the first time, and the first ever directly from the original Polish to English. Beautifully narrated by Alessandro Juliani ( Battlestar Galactica), Lem’s provocative novel comes alive for a new generation.
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A comment on negative reviews
- By Burns on 09-20-11
By: Stanislaw Lem, and others
What listeners say about 2001
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Douglas
- 12-10-08
The Movie Makes More Sense Now
While the movie left me confused and wanting an explanation of what I'd just spent hours watching. The book made me exited to listen to the next in the series.
I, by chance, saw the movie before deciding to pick this up. To me the movie just slowly moved through the paces of, mysterious mission to Jupiter, crazy computer, triumph, crazy drug trip. The ending killed it for me because it made zero sense.
The book fills in the gaps to explain the imagery of the movie and so very much more, the story is well explained and engrossing, so long as you let the imagery take you and are not impatient with the time devoted to detail.
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71 people found this helpful
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- Katherine
- 10-29-12
The glory and horror of space
Originally posted at FanLit (come visit us!)
“The thing’s hollow — it goes on forever — and — oh my God — it’s full of stars!”
2001: A Space Odyssey is the novel that Arthur C. Clarke wrote so that Stanley Kubrick could develop it into the now-famous movie. It’s partly based on two of Clarke’s short stories: “Encounter in the Dawn” (1953) and “The Sentinel” (1948). The first story tells of a technologically advanced race that visited Earth millions of years ago, discovered early humans, and gave them some technological jumpstarts (and “one small step toward humanity.”) In the second story, humans have finally reached the moon. Much to their excitement and consternation, they discover an ancient alien artifact that may be an alarm to alert aliens when humans manage to get themselves off their little planet.
If you’ve seen the movie, you know that we see these plotlines unfold and connect in 2001: A Space Odyssey. A related plot involves a spaceship traveling to Saturn that’s controlled by a new self-conscious computer named HAL 9000. Perhaps the most famous scenes in the movie (and I think these are some of the best scenes in the book, too) occur when HAL decides to override the astronauts’ commands because of his own interpretation of his original instructions (this reason is not explained in the movie). These scenes are probably even more frightening today than they were back in 1968. Clarke perfectly captures our fear that the artificial intelligences we create may become smarter than we are and, therefore, out of our control.
I can’t resist Arthur C. Clarke’s visions and I have enjoyed everything I’ve read by him. It’s exciting and awe-inspiring to read his speculations about creation, the mysteries of space and time, extraterrestrials, artificial intelligence, the freeing of the spirit from the body, the existence and nature of God, and what’s “behind the back of space.” I also enjoy his theoretical arguments about the speed of light, physics, relativity, wormholes, etc. Clarke’s awe of space and his expectation that humans will conquer it is infectious and thrilling. At the same time, the possibility that we, who thought we were alone, may not be, is both exciting and disturbing. Clarke writes beautifully of both the potential glories and horrors of space.
I listened to Dick Hill narrate Brilliance Audio’s version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dick Hill narrates a lot of old science fiction and here he is as wonderful as he always is. His voice for HAL was so creepy it gave me chills (“Hey, Dave… what are you doing?”). The audiobook begins with an interesting talk by Arthur C. Clarke in which he gives us some context and background for the story, talks a bit about his writing process and collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, and mentions some of the pop culture that the book and movie have spawned. Three sequels to 2001: A Space Odyssey continue the story and address some of the questions that Clarke leaves us with.
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42 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Venu
- 07-04-09
Excellent Narration - Great Book
The book needs no introduction and it would be sacrilege to write a review on it. I will confine myself to the audiobook details. Dick Hill brings the book to life. He has many voices and he uses them wisely. His narration leaves us spellbound.
I wanted to listen to the other books in this series. Sadly I don't find them on Audible.com :( Hope you guys add it to the library pretty soon.
Even if you have read the book before, listen to this performance by Dick Hill now. You will not repent it.
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37 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Katelyn
- 05-16-09
Get it!
The book is much better than the movie! The movie does not describe anything that is happening and half of the time you're wondering what just happened or if you missed something. This is a nice short audio book and is well worth the price. It's great on a road trip!
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28 people found this helpful
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- Jim "The Impatient"
- 01-09-15
IT'S FULL OF STARS
2 CHILD LAWS, NEWSPAD (I-PAD), STARGATE
I have lost track of how many times I have read the book, listened on tape, watched the movie, and now I have downloaded it. Arthur C. Clarke is in a class, all by himself. To hear his voice in the introduction was a real treat. It is amazing the amount of things he wrote about in the sixties that are now everyday things.
Kids under 40 may find this book and the movie to be a little slow and a little technical. That is only in parts. The story as a whole is a masterpiece.
The book differs from the movie slightly and that is explained by Clarke in the introduction. A good look into the making of a movie and the writing of a book. To be honest I felt that the tension built by dealing with HAL was done better in the movie. I loved this, but I really liked (The City and The Stars )and (Rendezvous with Rama) better.
I had not realized until this reading that Clarke was part of the group warning us about overpopulation, Pohl, Harrison, Asimov, and Silverberg among many. He talks about Americans having meatless days and about many countries having 2 child laws. If you are over 50, you may remember the hysteria about overpopulation and the dire predictions for the turn of the century. Things we need to think about as today's writers call us stupid for not freaking out over there warnings about the most popular predicted crises of today.
Dick Hill is my favorite narrator.
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25 people found this helpful
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Overall
- DKW
- 10-16-09
Great Read
Dick Hill did a great job with the characters, including HAL, and the "preface" interview with Arthur C. Clarke was very interesting and shed light on the movie as well. I haven't watched the movie in years, and I have to admit that listening to this didn't bring back memories of the movie at all, which I think is a credit to the book. This is a great, introspective, and thoughtful journey through space and time, both in the story, and in the context (a lot has changed since this book was written). Enjoy!
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23 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Ryan
- 09-14-10
Great story, questionable ending
In my opinion, this was a 5 star book until the last hour. Most of the story was really straightforward, clever, suspenseful, enjoyable sci-fi until the end. Seems like Clarke was trying to cram all his deeper meaning and allegory into the last few chapters. That being said, the rest of the book was fantastic. I would still recommend it, the ending just wasn't for me.
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- Vincent E. Allen
- 05-02-10
A great read.
I loved this book, it is a well paced novel. Clarke's ability to pull you into a world is amazing.
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- Michelle M
- 07-09-18
Worth the first half
After the halfway point it picked up. Hard for me to get into initially, too much description and technical information. But the second half was hard to stop listening to! Excellent narration.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-11-19
Skip the Intro, Great Book
Starts with an introduction by the author which is not well recorded, which is about 50 minutes.
The book's narrator, Dick Hill, was fantastic and his narration was well recorded. Read the book even if you've seen Kubrick's movie. The movie was a nice artistic rendition of the book but does not hit the level of detail of the book.
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10 people found this helpful