Movies

The first is brilliant and provides an epic view of life in the universe. It is one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.

But the series goes down hill from there.

2010 is a decent novel although the "ghost" of David Bowman adds a mystical layer to what had been a strictly scientific tale. The film is far inferior to the novel, in my opinion, even though Roy Scheider is one of my all-time favorite actors, (narration is ALWAYS a poor substitute for active story-telling).

2061 goes even further into weirdness but nothing tops his final novel in the series, 3001. Guess what they find floating in deep space? Frank Poole's body which has been floating in deep space for a thousand years! Incredibly, he is re-animated and brought back to life. He's rehabilitated and studies to get up to speed in the advanced new world. Then he goes back to Europa and figures out how to block a computer program left behind by the aliens who seeded intelligent life on Earth, (remember the ape scene in 2001?). Bowman's "ghost" teams up with Poole to inject the virus into the alien system which destroys all of the monoliths. As they calculate where the aliens came from they determine that Earth has 400 years to prepare for the aliens' return when they will supposedly destroy humanity because we've grown into an evil force.

Okay.