2001: A Space Odyssey.

CLARKE, Arthur C. and Stanley Kubrick.

Item Number: 100875

New York: New American Library, 1968.

First edition of the novel of the landmark “proverbial good science fiction movie” he and Stanley Kubrick created. Octavo, original half cloth. Boldly signed by Arthur C. Clarke on the title page. Fine in a fine dust jacket with a touch of shelfwear. A superior example.

“Kubrick wrote to me in the spring of 1964, asking if I had any ideas that would enable him to make the ‘proverbial good science fiction movie… I had already given Stanley a list of my shorter pieces, and we had decided that one—‘The Sentinel’—contained a basic idea on which we could build… Stanley suggested that before we embarked on the drudgery of the script, we let our imaginations soar freely by writing a complete novel, from which we could devise the script. This is more or less the way it worked out, though toward the end, novel and screenplay were being written simultaneously, with feedback in both directions. Thus, I rewrote some sections after seeing the movie rushes—a rather expensive method of literary creation, which few other authors have enjoyed” (Clarke). With the success of both film and book, Clarke “became perhaps the best-known science fiction writer in the world” (Clute & Nicholls, 231). His novel (the first in an eventual tetraology) is “about the two things Clarke seems to think we mortals would most like to know in a universe in which we can only hope that the odds are in favor of the race’s survival: that we are not alone and that we have not lived in vain” (John Hollow). Clarke wrote this novel while Stanley Kubrick created the film, the two collaborating on both projects. The novel is much more detailed and intimate, and definitely easier to comprehend. Even though history has disproved its "predictions," it's still loaded with exciting and awe-inspiring science fiction. -Brooks Peck Dazzling...wrenching...a mind-bender" (Time). "By standing the universe on its head, he makes us see the ordinary universe in a different light" (New Yorker). 2001: A Space Odyssey is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Sight & Sound magazine ranked 2001: A Space Odyssey sixth in the top ten films of all time in its 2002 and 2012 critics' polls editions; it also tied for second place in the magazine's 2012 directors' poll. In 2010, it was named the greatest film of all time by The Moving Arts Film Journal).