"Never explain, never apologize" may be the best advice for politicians, Hollywood celebrities and corporate tycoons, but a writer should be more considerate of his readers.So, while I don't intend to apologize for anything, the "Space Odyssey" tetralogy has a complex history that perhaps needs a little explaining. It all started on Christmas Day 1948 - yes, 1948! — I wrote a 4,000-word short story for a competition held by the BBC. "The Sentinel" describes the discovery of a small pyramid on the moon, which was placed by an alien civilization to wait for the rise of the planetary living species-human beings.Until then, the implication is that we are too primitive to be interesting.

The BBC rejected my humble efforts, and it was not until almost three years later that the story was included in a single issue of Ten Story Fantasy magazine, first published in the spring of 1951.Like the wry critique in the invaluable Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the magazine is "remembered only because it sucks at arithmetic (because there are 30 stories in it)". The Outpost remained in this state of transition for more than a decade, until Kubrick contacted me in the spring of 1964 and asked me if I had any good ideas for the "world famous" (that is, still non-existent) "Master Science Film."During our many rounds of brainstorming (all documented in the book "2001: The Lost World"), we discovered that the Patient Watchers on the Moon would be a good start to a story.It turned out to be more than that, because in the process of making this pyramid evolved into what is now known as the giant black stone slab, the "Tycho Stone".

To understand the full extent of the "A Space Odyssey" tetralogy, it's important to remember that the Space Age was only seven years old when Kubrick and I began planning the story that was originally titled "How the Solar System Was Won." Even the person who has traveled farthest away from the earth is only more than 100 kilometers away from the earth.Although President Kennedy announced that the United States intends to go to the moon "within this decade" (by the end of 1970), that must still seem like a distant dream to most people. Filming began in South London on the icy 29th of December 1965.At the time, we didn't even know what the surface of the Moon looked like on the Earth side.There are also concerns that the first words that the first astronauts will blurt out when they get caught in a layer of talc-like moon dust will be: "Help!" Generally speaking, we guessed pretty well: but Our lunar landscape is more rugged than the real moon — because the lunar surface has long since been smoothed over eons by meteor dust.This is the only point that reveals that "2001" was actually produced in the "pre-Apollo era".

We imagined in 2001 there would be giant space stations, orbiting Hilton hotels, and exploration missions to Jupiter that seem absurd today.But it may be difficult to understand now, because in the 1960s, there were serious plans to establish a permanent moon base and land on Mars-the completion time was 1990!Truth be told, I was in the CBS studio, right after the Apollo 11 launch, and I heard US Vice President Spiro Agnew excitedly proclaim, "Now we must go to Mars!" As a result, he was lucky not to go to jail.That scandal, plus Vietnam and Watergate, was just one of the reasons those overly optimistic scenarios never materialized.

When the "2001: A Space Odyssey" movie and novel came out in 1968, I didn't even think about the possibility of a sequel.But in 1979, the mission to Jupiter actually took place, and for the first time, we got a close look at the giant planet and its astonishing family of moons. The pictures from the Voyager space probe (which was not manned, of course) made a world that was, at the time, a mere point of light in even the most powerful telescopes, appear real—and surprisingly Appearances. Erupting sulfur volcanoes on Io, the impact-craved surface of Callisto, and the contours of Ganymede Line-like weird surface landscape - it's almost like discovering a whole new solar system. The temptation to explore is simply irresistible, so "2010: A Space Odyssey" also gave me the opportunity to see when David Bow What happened to Man after he woke up in that enigmatic hotel room.

When I started writing this new book in 1981, the Cold War was still going on, and I felt that describing a joint US-Soviet mission would be putting myself at risk — and of course, risking criticism.By dedicating this novel to Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov (then in exile) and Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, I also emphasized my desire for future collaborations.When I told Leonov at "Star Village" that the ship was to be named after him, he said with gusto, "That's sure to be a good ship!" When Peter Hymas made the excellent film version in 1983, I still find it incredible that he was able to use Voyager's close-up images of the actual Jupiter moons (some of which passed through Computer processing of the original source "Jet Propulsion Laboratory").At the time, however, we were expecting even better images from the ambitious Galileo mission, which would survey all major moons in detail during its multi-month mission.Knowledge of this new frontier, which in the past has only come from brief flybys, will be greatly expanded this time - and I have no excuse not to write "2061: A Space Odyssey".

Alas - on the way to Jupiter, tragedy happened.The original plan was to launch Galileo from the Space Shuttle in 1986—but the Challenger disaster ruled out that option, and it soon became clear that wanting to know more about Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Ca New information from Listo will have to wait at least another ten years. I decided not to wait any longer, and Halley's Comet Returns to the Inner Solar System (1985) provided an irresistible theme. In 2061, the comet will appear again, which will be a great time for "2061: A Space Odyssey", but I am not sure when I will write it.I asked the publisher for a rather humble advance.There's a lot of sentimentality in this, so let me quote the dedication from 2061: A Space Odyssey:

This book commemorates the eccentric editor-in-chief Judy-Lyn Derry, She bought the copyright of this book for one dollar, — but I don't know if it's worth the money. This series of four science fiction books, written during 30 years of the most breath-taking developments in technology (particularly in space exploration) and politics, is obviously hardly without contradictions.But like the introduction I wrote for "2061," "Just as "2010: A Space Odyssey" is not a sequel to "2001: A Space Odyssey," this book is not a sequel to "2010: A Space Odyssey." These books should say Variations on the same theme, with many of the same characters and action, but not necessarily in the same universe." If you want to see good analogies in different media, listen to Andrew Weber and Rachmanino Let's look at his interpretation of the same short passage of Paganini notes.

So this "3001: A Space Odyssey" threw away many elements of its predecessors, but developed other - and I hope more important - elements with better details.Readers of the earlier books who were bewildered by such a makeover, and I hope to dissuade them from sending me angry diatribes, let me borrow a rather genial remark from an American president: "Don't be stupid. , this is a novel!" And it's all my own creation, too, if you haven't noticed.But I enjoyed working with Gentry Lee, Michael Kube-McDowell, and the late Mike McQuay more—if in the future I have plans that are too big for me to grasp, and I will not hesitate to go to the best shooter in the business-but "3001: A Space Odyssey" must be a solo work.

So every word is my own: well, almost every word.I must confess that I found the name "Professor Sirignana Hills Pandamorsi" (see Chapter 35 of this book) in the Colombo telephone directory; I hope the present owner of the name has no objection to my borrowing it.I also borrowed a few words from the Oxford English Dictionary.And you know - to my surprise and delight, I found that they quoted over 66 times from my book to explain the meaning and usage of certain words! Dear OED, if you find any usable illustration in these pages, again - you're welcome, just use it. Sorry, I brag a little bit in this article (about ten!).But the reasons for their prominence seem too important to ignore.Finally, to many of my buddhist, christian, hindu, jewish and muslim friends, i want to assure you that no matter what religion "opportunity" has been given to you, religion has peace of mind for you (and as current western medical science I am sincerely pleased with the contribution that the mind reluctantly admits, the peace of the body).

Maybe it's better to be insane and happy than sane and unhappy, but it's better to be sane and happy. Whether our future generations can achieve this goal will be the biggest challenge in the future.In fact, it may even determine whether we have a future. Arthur Clark on September 19, 1996 Colombo, Sri Lanka