3001 Homepage
Publisher: Del Rey
Price: $25.00/$35.00 Canada
Publication date; Hardcover, March 1997
ISBN 345-31522-7
The last revision of 3001: The Last Odyssey was completed on 17 September, 1996.
3001: THE FINAL ODYSSEY is the concluding installment of a story that began with 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and continued with 2010: ODYSSEY TWO and 2061: ODYSSEY THREE. Arthur Clarke says: "To put the Odyssey series in perspective, it must be remembered that when Stanley Kubrick and I started planning what we privately called 'How the Solar System Was Won,' the Space Age was barely seven years old and no human had traveled more than a hundred kilometers from the home planet. In 1965, travel to the moon still seemed to most people like a far-off dream. We did not even know what the lunar surface looked like at close quarters. There were still fears that the first word uttered by an emerging astronaut would be 'Help!' as he disappeared into a talcum-powder-like layer of moondust.
"This new work will discard many of the elements of its precursors, but develop others--and I hope more important ones--in much greater detail. I've never had so much fun writing, and the ideas are pouring out."
Progress on the novel was hindered by the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986. The shuttle was to have launched the Galileo space probe to Jupiter, a journey of some 390 million miles during which the vessel would have transmitted detailed observations to Earth. Without the information from Galileo, Clarke was unable to continue his research for the concluding volume of the Odyssey series. It was not until NASA successfully launched the probe years later that the author was able to obtain the data he needed to proceed with 3001: THE FINAL ODYSSEY.
As you may have heard, Dr Clarke has now signed a contract with Del Rey Books to write the above novel. He hopes to finish it this year, in time for publication at HAL's birthday celebrations (University of Illinois at Urbana, March 12) which he will be joining by satellite.
He has currently eight other movie/TV projects on option or in development. In addition the Sierra OnLine CD/ROM and Sony PLAYSTATION interactive adventure THE RAMA TAPESTRY (in which he appears as himself) will be launched at the Anaheim Worldcon in late August; he hopes to participate by satellite.
As Dr Clarke is now somewhat limited by Post-Polio Syndrome, and has to sleep every afternoon, you will appreciate that he is unable to deal with *any* but the most urgent business and personal correspondence. He cannot discuss - much less accept - any further projects: for matters of copyrights etc please refer to his agents:
David Higham Associates, London: Fx (0)171-437-1072
Russell Galen, New York: Fx 212-679-6710
He would appreciate it if this information is passed along to any interested parties, especially on the Web sites which he has been told exist, and which he hopes he may have time to access early in 1997.
Rohan de Silva, Personal Assistant
The Arthur C. Clarke Internet Fan Club Homepage
Laboratory of Integrated Systems
Svenska versionen skapad den fjärde juli 1997