>> ^Kreegath:
So there was a spaceship hovering over Johannesburg for 20 years and no nation has even tried to deconstruct or even claim it? You'd think that the US and the Soviet Union would be the first to jump at the chance of an extraterrestrial technology advantage and would go to great lengths to get it, regardless if it had landed in either territory or not.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke

In the movie you already see that they have no idea how to reverse engineer the alien weapons, even though they've been trying for 20 years. My guess would be that they must have tried the same with the spaceship but also failed. They might have removed interesting bits and just let the rest of the ship hang. They also wouldn't want to break the engines because it would come crashing down on Johannesburg.

Imagine the humans of 1930 (the electron microscope was discovered in 1931) getting their hands on an iPhone. They wouldn't know what to do with it. They wouldn't even be able to see the actual circuits let alone know how they worked. It would be a long time before they could actually discover and use anything of use out of an iPhone.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

"the last 20 minutes of 2001 stretched out into a whole movie". I don't think I could take that. I loved that movie so much, but the last 20 minutes was too much Kubrick on acid and not enough Arthur C. Clarke.

"They learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. They could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter."

- Arthur C Clarke

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clark
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Foundation - Isaac Asimov
The Stars my Destination - Alfred Bester
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
A High Wind in Jamaica - Richard Hughes
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
The Call of the Wild - Jack London

This list is the product of a few moments of reflection. I read many of these books when I was young but their subject matter combined with where I was in my life left me with indelible memories.

Also, the people above me have good taste.

1. Papillon - Henri Charrière
2. Henderson, the rain king - Saul Bellow
3. Less than zero - Bret Easton Ellis
4. Altered carbon - Richard K. Morgan
5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
6. The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
7. Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch
8. The Teachings of Don Juan - Carlos Castaneda
9. Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke
10. The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut jr.

Your video, 2010 Finale - In Memoriam: Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008), has made it into your personal Highest Rated Videos listing. Congratulations on a job well done. For you contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

1. Dune - Frank Herbert
The best exploration of power and control I have read.

2. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
A manual for revolutionary action.

3. Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
Exploration of militaristic society and fascism.

4. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Don't panic.

5. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry
I found this magical when young.

Special mention: Guards Guards Guards by Terry Prachett, Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke, 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke and probably more I cannot recall now.

This list is flexible and totally depended on my largely failing memory of what I read, there was a thread like this before and my answers could be different. My most recent read list has been composed mainly of non fiction dealing with war on terror and the US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hard to pick just five:

1. Hyperion and the rest of the Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons
   
2. Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge (though everything else he's written could easily have taken this spot)
   
3. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (and any other Takeshi Kovacs novel)
   
4. Footfall by Larry Niven -- IMO the best he ever wrote
   
5. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
   

• The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
  
• Accelerando by Charles Stross
  
• Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton
  
• Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross
  
• Virtually anything by Robert J. Sawyer (particularly the "Neanderthal Parallax" trilogy)
  
• Snow Crash and Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, though I'm with dag, everything that's followed has been disappointing
  
• Domesday Book by Connie Willis
  
• To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
  
• The Golden Age Trilogy by John C. Wright
  
• Any short story by Michael Swanwick (particularly "The Radiant Doors" -- dft, there's another dystopia to be found in that one)
  

I can never, ever remember the best ones when quizzed like this. Same goes for best movies etc.

Ones I have liked of late are (in no order):
The Dark Tower series: Stephen King
The Book Thief: Marcus Zusak
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Dave Eggers (Currently reading another of his books actually)
The Mars Trilogy: Kim Stanley Robinson
LOTR: Tolkien
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams
Many Discworld novels: Terry Pratchett
Dune: Frank Herbert
The Dressmaker: Rosalie Ham (An Australian gothic novel, just brilliant, I'd love to see this made into a film)
2010: Arthur C Clarke (Yeah, I like it better than 2001, sue me)


But inevitably someone will mention some book and I'll go 'AAAH, yeah, LOVED that one'!... so yeah, there are many others that I'm sure should be here, and probably in place of others here... (I just scrolled up and added some that others had put, because I'd forgotten them)...

Catch 22 : I just wanted to say that for all the praise that this book gets, I couldn't get through it. He made his points, set up his things, and then seemed to repeat the same damn jokes/observations over and over and over again to the point where I just stopped reading it... sorry, but it bored me. Good start, lost me soon after.

1. Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke

2. Hamlet - Bill Shakespeare

3. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

4. The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins

5. Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig

honorable mention to The Left Hand of the Electron by Isaac Asimov, and The Dictionary

^so by that standard, anyone who is not religious, has no convictions?????

"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion"
--Arthur C. Clarke

^ close. that was jupiter imploding.

europa is life's backup plan.

>> ^therealblankman:
This was a fabulous movie. Perhaps not a genuine "masterpiece" on the level of its prequel, but a very worthy film.



Only masterpieces can give me shivers. This gives me shivers, therefore, its a masterpiece. I don't to hear your petty voice drawing lines that will never have any meaning. Space Odessy 2001 is a MASTERPIECE.

Tags for this video have been changed from '2001, space odyssey, low budget, cheap' to '2001, space odyssey, low budget, cheap, kubrick, arthur c clarke' - edited by kronosposeidon

The skull is probably a humbug. If you look at the evidence presented in the wikipedia article on it, it is fairly clear from examining other similar skulls that they are 19th century artifacts, probably crafted in Germany.

As with so many paranormal and "exceptional" stories, science and logic takes precedent over people with supposedly sincere motivations who claim things with absolutely no proof or evidence. This is a prime example where you have a cute little old lady spinning yarns and it just feels "mean" not to believe her since she talks with such passion about it. Ultimately though, such "evidence" as presented by her is just hearsay.

Oh, and it is very sad the Arthur C. Clarke died.