IIRC: The novels of 2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001 were all in separate continuities. Like the Highlander films.
The destruction of Romulus in the novelverse
- Thread starter Voth commando1
- Start date
IIRC: The novels of 2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001 were all in separate continuities. Like the Highlander films.
Yep, Clarke said specifically that they were each meant to be in separate universes (in part because of what Christopher said about Clarke not really liking sequels or continuity).
There's also the third option of "just ignore the continuity changes entirely and keep pressing forward with your own version"; see, for example, the Stargate movie novel series that kept in print well into SG-1's time on air without any acknowledgement of anything from the show, even a wink.
Another example; David Morrell took the job of novelizing Rambo; First Blood, Part II, the sequel to the film based on his novel First Blood. The novel and the film have several differences, including the ending, but Morell wanted to see that the novelization included characterization the sequel film.....lacked.
Or this one. Max Allan Collins wrote the graphic novel Road to Perdition, which was adapted into a very good movie. Collins was hired to novelize the film, and he went all out with it, fleshing out characterizations and backstory. Unfortunately, it wasn't at all what DreamWorks wanted -- they wanted something basic, something that exactly matched the film. So he chopped it down into something he wasn't happy with, then went on to write two prose sequels to his graphic novel. He's now publishing the original novelization, but restoring some of the name changes the film made, so that the "ultimate novelization" works with the sequels.
That may be my new favorite example. 
The funny thing was, I didn't even know Collins' unpublished novelization was being published until I went to make the comment and decided I'd better make sure my recollection of events around the novelization was correct. Now there's a new book I need for my library.
There's also the third option of "just ignore the continuity changes entirely and keep pressing forward with your own version"; see, for example, the Stargate movie novel series that kept in print well into SG-1's time on air without any acknowledgement of anything from the show, even a wink.
Isn't that because legally the Series beyond some of the basic characters has its own IP and thus couldn't be used anyway?
(anyone?).
I imagine that's part of it, yeah; there's just something about that situation that amuses me, so I like referencing it.
The movie novels couldn't really tie into anything from SG-1 conceptually anyway; they're a pretty wide departure from where the show went, since they were based on Emmerich and Devlin's original ideas back when they wanted Stargate to be the start of a series of films, which the show kind of ignored in favor of going their own direction.
The thing is, we're talking about a lot of different things here. The matter with the Stargate novels vs. SG-1 is one adaptation of the movie vs. a different adaptation of the movie. It's not the same as a situation where the creator of the original work does a sequel that changes to reflect an adaptation, as with the Logan sequel novel or 2010.
The third, fourth, and fifth Highlander films are set in the same continuity as the first film and the TV show (the third film via a number of references in the recent comic books), while the second film only connects up with the first movie (and not the TV show), and you could also just have the original 1986 film as its own, standalone, "one-and-done" thing, if one desired.
Although I do kinda love the notion that the entire second film can potentially exist as a weird-ass, drugged-up fever dream of Connor's during those ten years he spends in the Watcher Sanctuary during the events of Highlander: Endgame (someone posed this theory on the Internet years ago).
Last edited:
ARE the 2001/10/61/3001 books all separate, though? maybe there's a couple fast/loose details that mix up, but all read as pretty explicit sequels. Entire premise of 3001 is built off of 2001 events, no? How's that story even work without those events? What limits them from flowing naturally?
Not quite getting that (dis)connection...
Not quite getting that (dis)connection...
It's been forever since I read any of the sequels, but I think you've got the idea. Clarke maintained connection so far as the broad strokes and even many of the details, but he didn't feel constrained to tweak, ignore, or update certain bits if he felt like it.
That's my recollection, anyway. I keep telling myself I want to reread them soon. It's too bad the first one in particular doesn't seem to be available as an audiobook.
That's my recollection, anyway. I keep telling myself I want to reread them soon. It's too bad the first one in particular doesn't seem to be available as an audiobook.
It's not like the only two choices are completely consistent and completely separate. Two different works can be based on the same ideas and concepts and characters yet still interpret them in incompatible ways -- like Greg Cox's version of the Eugenics Wars and Khan's exile on Ceti Alpha V vs. IDW's versions of the same events, both of which are based on "Space Seed" and The Wrath of Khan but are completely incompatible with each other.
As I said, the novels of 2001 and 2010 are not in entirely compatible realities because 2010 is based on the movie version of 2001 rather than the book version (although it does use a couple of elements from the book that weren't in the movie). As for the third and fourth books, yes, they're both sequels to 2001 (presumably the movie version again), but my understanding is that they're not consistent with each other or with 2010.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010:_Odyssey_Two#Discontinuities_between_2010_and_the_other_works
Sequels just were not Arthur C. Clarke's thing. That was always what stood out to me about his work. The other SF writers whose work I read a lot of, like Asimov and Niven, liked to tie their books and stories together into these big interconnected universes, often even taking works that had started out independent of each other and writing later works that tied them together into a larger continuity. But Clarke never did that. All his books and stories (aside from the White Hart humor shorts) were in completely self-contained realities, usually totally incompatible with each other, and often ending in ways that made sequels pretty much impossible (e.g. showing the end of humanity in one way or another). That's why it took him 14 years to do a sequel to 2001 even though fans were clamoring for it from the start -- it took that long for him to give in to the pressure despite his complete lack of interest in revisiting old universes. And so, when he did give in, he still managed to avoid continuity by making it a sequel to the movie instead of the book. And as Clarke himself said, the others were more "variations on a theme," updating the science and concepts with new discoveries. He didn't care if they contradicted what came before, because continuity was never a feature of his work.
The 3001 wiki page also lays out some of the contradictions. The date thing always bugged me; I mean, I get why a 1997 novel couldn't say 2001 happened in 2001, but it's a series of books with dates in the title! It happened in 2001 whether you like it or not, Sir Arthur.
Tell that to the folks who wanted to do a re-edited edition of Space: 1999 called Space: 2099.
Besides, if he's explicit about each book being a separate reality, why can't he change the date of the original event in those realities?
Doesn't Marvel have the copyright on 2099?
'Cause the year is still in the title of the first book in the series. It'd be like retconning the star trekking out of Star Trek or the star warring out of Star Wars. Change whatever else you want, but you thought "2001" was so important you put it in the title!
(Please no one explain to me that the title was actually Kubrick's. I know this.)
Well, I would submit that it's not the 2001 series, it's the Odyssey series. The books are called 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, and 3001: The Final Odyssey. The only constant in the titles is the word Odyssey, and each one has a different date (although, granted, they do all reflect the 2001 date in one way or another).
Besides, strictly speaking, the original book takes place in 1999-2001, as well as 3 million BCE. It takes a couple of years for Discovery to get out to the giant planets.
Wikipedia calls it the "Space Odyssey series" to differentiate it from Clarke and Stephen Baxter's orthogonal Time Odyssey series.
Has anyone read Jack Kirby's 2001 comics?
Long ago and far away. It's main legacy, in the terms of Marvel Comics, was creating the character of Machine Man, who first appeared (as "Mister Machine") in the pages of the 2001 comic-book series.
