Space Odyssey
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Space Odyssey series is a science fiction series of four novels and two films created from 1948 to 1997, primarily by the writer Arthur C. Clarke. Two early short stories by Clarke may also be considered part of the series.
- "The Sentinel" — short story written in 1948 and first published in 1951 as "Sentinel of Eternity"
- "Encounter at Dawn" — short story first published in 1953 as "Encounter in the Dawn"
- 2001: A Space Odyssey — film and novel — produced concurrently and released in 1968
- 2010: Odyssey Two — 1982 novel, turned into the 1984 film 2010 with screenplay by Peter Hyams
- 2061: Odyssey Three — 1987 novel
- 3001: The Final Odyssey — 1997 novel
The 2001 screenplay was written by Clarke and Stanley Kubrick jointly, based on the seed idea in "The Sentinel" that an alien civilization has left an object on the Moon to alert them to mankind's attainment of space travel. In addition, the 1953 short story contains elements of the first section of the film, in which the ancestors of humans are apparently given an evolutionary "nudge" by extraterrestrials. The opening part of another Clarke story, "Transience", has plot elements set in about the same time in human history, but is otherwise unrelated.
The 1972 book The Lost Worlds of 2001 contains material that did not make it into the book or film.
Clarke was not directly involved in the production of the second film, although he did appear in a cameo. Kubrick had no involvement in any of the later projects. As of 2008, there are no plans for a third or fourth movie.
The Space Odyssey series combines several science-fiction narrative conventions with a metaphysical tone. Since the stories and settings in the books and films all diverge, Clarke suggested that the "continuity" of the series represents happenings in a set of parallel universes.
Clarke stated that the Time Odyssey novels are an "orthoquel" to the Space Odyssey series.
