One thousand years after the Jupiter mission to explore the mysterious Monolith had been destroyed, after Dave Bowman was transformed into the Star Child, Frank Poole drifted in space, frozen and forgotten, leaving the supercomputer HAL inoperable. But now Poole has returned to life, awakening in a world far different from the one he left behind--and just as the Monolith may be stirring once again . . .***When 2001: A Space Odyssey first shocked, amazed, and delighted millions in the late 1960s, the novel was quickly recognized as a classic. Since then, its fame has grown steadily among the multitudes who have read the novel or seen the film based on it. Yet, along with almost universal acclaim, a host of questions has grown more insistent through the years:
Who or what transformed Dave Bowman into the Star-Child? What purpose lay behind the transformation? What would become of the Star-Child?
What alien purpose lay behind the monoliths on the Moon and out in space?
What could drive HAL, a stable, intelligent computer, to kill the crew? Was HAL really insane? What happened to HAL and the spaceship Discovery after Dave Bowman disappeared?
Would there be a sequel?
Now all those questions and many more have been answered. In this stunning sequel to his international bestseller, Clarke has written what will truly be one of the great books of the '80s. Cosmic in sweep, eloquent in its depiction of Man's place in the Universe, and filled with the romance of space, this novel is a monumental achievement.***Imperial Earth is the fascinating odyssey of Duncan Makenzie, traveling from Titan, a moon of Saturn, to Earth, as a diplomatic guest of the United States for the celebration of its Quincentennial in the year 2276. Titan, an independent republic, was originally colonized from Earth three generations earlier. Duncan's initial challenge is to prepare, physically and intellectually, for the 500-million-mile trip to Earth. Once there, he is caught up in a sweep of new experiences, including the social and political whirl in Washington, a strange visit to a carefully preserved ancient city once prominent in the 20th century, and a search for and meeting with a woman he loved since she visited Titan years before
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Here is the compelling story of the launching of Prometheus -- Earth's first true spaceship -- and of the men who made it happen.
Dirk Alexson:
Chronicler of the greatest space adventure of all time, he was chosen to immortalize the incredible story of the men and their heroic mission.
Sir Robert Derwent:
Direct-General of Interplanetary -- London Headquarters for the international space-flight project -- he was the man who got the mission off the ground and into the pages of history.
Professor Maxton:
The world's leading atomic engineer, he designed the huge ship's drive units and he waited with the rest of the world to see if the project would be a success.
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For a million years the bubble had been growing, like a vast abscess, below the root of the mountains. Now the abscess was about to burst. Captain Harris had left the controls on autopilot and was talking to the front row of passengers as the first tremor shook the boat. For a fraction of a second he wondered if a fan blade had hit some submerged obstacle; then, quite literally, the bottom fell out of his world.It fell slowly, as all things must upon the Moon. The sea was alive and moving . . . Every stage of that nightmare transformation was pitilessly illuminated by the earth light, until the crater was so deep that its firewall was completely lost in shadow, and it seemed as if Selene were racing into a curving crescent of utter blackness – an arc of annihilation.
In darkness and in silence, they were sinking into the Moon. . . .