Book-To-Movie Review: ‘2001’; ‘Bad Apps’ Updates

I’m sorry for posting for July so late. (This post serves as the July post, even though it's now August.) I was busy this past Friday filling out my annual fiscal year tax return for my freelance writing which, as easy as it seems considering today’s automation, is always time consuming and a headache. And that was on the due date. I usually don’t wait until then, but this fiscal year of ‘25/’26 has been exceptional. But I wasn’t going to let you go without a Book-To-Movie of the month or the latest on my upcoming book of short fiction, “Bad Apps”!

Book-To-Movie Review: Arthur C. Clarke's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

Credit: Pixabay

Good science fiction makes us wonder about the universe and our place in it, even to the point of terror in certain cases. Both Arthur C. Clarke's short story, "The Sentinel", and the Stanley Kubrick film adaptation, "2001: A Space Odyssey”, definitely do that well. The two works make people think about the possibility of intelligent life in other parts of the universe and that we may not be the highest form of intelligence. Both make us realise just how big the universe is and how little we really are. Clarke’s short story and its movie adaptation convey these ideas using the premise of an artefact from an alien civilization that dates back to before the birth of the human race. 

The Short Story: 'The Sentinel'

Clarke wrote "The Sentinel" in 1948, but it wasn't published until 1951 which was in the magazine, "10 Story Fantasy", under the title "Sentinel of Eternity", according to a Wikipedia article. The story is about a geological expedition on the moon where the unnamed protagonist, who serves as the narrator, discovers a pyramid-like structure of alien origin. The structure is a multifaceted, jewel-like object twice as big as an adult male. While the narrator speculates the origin and purpose of the pyramid, he does so in a way that is convincing of the possibility of that origin. First, he attributes the alien artefact to "a lunar civilization" that had died off or disappeared millions of years ago (145).1 However, then he says, "Suddenly, and with overwhelming force, the belief came to me that it was as alien to the Moon as I myself." (147) But the uncanniness of the pyramid isn't the only thing that overwhelms the narrator and astonishes the reader. It's also the artefact’s age. 

The narrator jumps ahead in the story to several years later and says that in the course of studying it, the pyramid turns out to have been put on the moon before any lifeform on Earth came out of the sea. He guesses that the alien object is a device that had been used to search for other life in the universe and communicate the discovery to the alien civilization that sent it. It is believed that that civilization is far more advanced than Earth's human civilization and far older. He compares the human race as an infant to the alien civilization that had begun when the universe was relatively young itself. 

Because the pyramid is broken into several fragments in the course of studying it, the signals that it supposedly sent out to its extraterrestrial origin stop generating.  The narrator fears that this has alerted the aliens and that, as a result, they will be coming to earth and may not be happy with the humans. The story ends with this  bit of cosmic horror, giving the impression that something so much bigger than anyone has ever imagined is coming to get us. 

The story being "hard science fiction", Clarke emphasizes the scientific phenomenon over the characterization. However, he keeps us intrigued with the subject matter, which is the mysterious origin of the alien pyramid, and the vivid details of the moon’s environment

The Movie: '2001: A Space Odyssey' 

"2001: A Space Odyssey" was directed by Stanley Kubrick ("A Clockwork Orange", "The Shining"), the screenplay written in collaboration with Clarke, and was released in 1968. The release was nearly perfect timing since man would be landing on the moon the following year. However, unlike “Sentinel”, only a small portion of the film, during the first half, is set on Earth's moon. The alien artefact is not a jewel-like pyramid but, instead, a huge black slab referred to as “the monolith”. It has been excavated on the moon where Dr. Heywood Floyd (played by William Sylvester) along with a group of other scientists go to examine it at the excavation site. 

Later, an expedition is sent on the spaceship, Discovery One, to Jupiter's orbit to trace a signal that the monolith sends there. When the expedition arrives, it discovers a much larger version of the monolith orbiting the planet. It’s there that the monolith opens a doorway to another dimension in which one of the expeditionist, Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood), by way of a pod enters through and then things get freaky.   

Kubrick does a superb job of interpreting the events with his direction and the cinematography under it. Like Clarke captures the moon’s setting in vivid detail, Kubrick captures the visuals of both Earth and moon’s landscapes with panorama. He employs special visual effects that give a psychedelic/surreal depiction of the alien dimension that Poole travels through. A haunting soundtrack in the scenes of the monolith consists of wailing and moaning sounds, giving a sense of menacing, alien origin. This is an effect that seems to interpret the short story’s narrator describing his encounter with the pyramid as “haunting”. 

Clarke's "The Sentinel" makes the reader think about how large and old the universe is by involving an advanced technological artefact from an alien civilisation that long preceded the human race. Kubrick's movie adaptation does the same for the viewer. While the first achieves this through the protagonist's speculations, the second does so with its convincing visuals through camera style and soundtrack. 

Notes

1. “The Sentinel”. Panther Books/Granada Publishing. 1985.

‘Bad Apps’ Updates

The illustrator is now in working in the final details in the painting stage of the book cover’s illustration. While he’s been working on that, I’ve been formatting the manuscript to upload to Kindle Direct Publishing. KDP requires the manuscript to be formatted and uploaded to the platform before the cover can be made using the Cover Creator tool.  As soon as I receive the final product from him, upload the manuscript and make the full cover, I’ll do a cover reveal first to my beta readers (who will also be receiving a downloadable version), then to my newsletter subscribers, and finally to the public. So, I’ll be working on those things this week and am aiming to release “Bad Apps”, finally!, by next week sometime. Look out for a “countdown” to launch at my Facebook page!

Do you want to be one of the first to see the finished book cover for “Bad Apps”? Then subscribe to my free newsletter! Not only will it have the cover reveal, but future issues will have detailed updates on my latest projects such as “Bad Apps”, (including behind the scenes), expanded versions of my blog posts, and more! 

Be here this Wednesday for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog hop!