This is, in essence, the plot:
Some scientifically advanced extra-terrestrials happen by
planet Earth some three million years ago and see an infant world, populated by, amongst other things, so-called ‘man-apes’. These they recognize as having intellectual promise, so they leave a teaching machine in the form of a giant
monolith.
After the initial panic at its sudden appearance in their midst, as it seems inert and poses no threat, the man-apes carry on their aimless existence, totally ignoring it.
This is when the machine sets to work, probing their minds, concentrating on the ones with the most potential and implanting in their brains the concept of using bones from sunbleached carcasses as tools. Inevitably, these crude implements find a new use as weapons and the first murder on Earth occurs, as man-ape kills man-ape in a dispute over a waterhole.
In an instant it is the late 20th century and the once simple weapon of death has developed over the millennia into a cluster of nuclear bombs orbiting the planet. The prehistoric monolith has given the evolved man-apes, now fully-fledged human beings, the ability to totally annihilate themselves.
In 1998, another monolith has been unearthed on the
Moon. Apparently, it has been deliberately buried. As the
sun’s rays finally hit it, it emits a powerful radio signal aimed at the planet Saturn. A manned space flight, originally scheduled to visit Jupiter, is hastily rearranged to follow the radio beam to the ringed planet.
On the Saturn
mission are five astronauts, three in hibernation, two manning the
ship, the USS Discovery. These two spacemen, David Bowman and Frank Poole, are, in fact, superfluous, for the running of the vessel is actually undertaken by the onboard computer, the super-intelligent HAL. Only the three hibernating astronauts and HAL know the true aim of the mission and this causes the computer to mutiny, killing Poole while he is on an EVA, then turning off the hibernating crew’s life support systems as they sleep.
HAL then tries to murder Bowman, too, by opening the pod bay doors, letting all the air out of the Discovery. Bowman outwits him and is forced to carry out a disconnection, meaning he must then run the ship himself. It is at this point that he is told the real reason for the mission. He decides to go it alone and complete it.
The ship reaches Saturn and, on the moon Japetus, Bowman sees a large white oval area, with a black dot in its center. On closer inspection, this turns out to be a third monolith, of huge proportions. Bowman leaves a final message and ventures out in one of the ship’s space pods, for a closer look. The monolith appears to turn itself inside-out, becoming, as Clarke calls it, a ‘Star Gate’, swallows up Bowman in his tiny craft and takes him on a fantastic journey through space and time. Eventually he plunges into the middle of a giant red sun, so colossal the heat and gravity would have destroyed him in an instant - if he were not being protected by some enigmatic power.
He ends up in what appears to be a 20th century hotel room, of all places. All amenities are provided for him, except that they seem to be like props from a movie set. Even the food provided for him is a blue mush, which happens to taste differently, according to what he wants to eat. He feels he is on a TV program. It is here that he lives out the rest of his life.
As he physically dies, a transcendence takes place and the essence that once was David Bowman is saved and then reborn in a new, spiritual form. He is a newborn child, but something more than human.
With consummate ease he travels the unimaginable distance from the red sun back to his home planet. With a mere thought he is able to detonate harmlessly, in the upper atmosphere, the cluster of nuclear weapons, which has stirred into action and is preparing to initiate world war three. The Earth is once more safe. He, a mere child, is master of the world.
This deceptively simple plot carries philosophical and religious overtones and tackles issues like man’s conflict with the intelligent machines he has created. Clarke is, on the whole, optimistic with his predictions of the future (the story was written in 1968, a year before Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon) and the impression that the book and its sister opus, the film, has left on millions of people will remain with them for a long time.
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