Normally I don't get as bored reading books as I did this one. I think though, it wasn't just my lack of attention, but Clarke's approach to this book. Roughly half the book is only concerned with how wondrous the future is, or how silly it is (for instance, God is a vulgar word, replaced with Deus for some strange reason), and isn't concerned with the least of dealing with the plot.

Warning: There be spoilers ahead, but read on, since I doubt you'll want to read this book.

A further ten percent of the book is direct quotes from the previous two. Clarke started this trend with 2010, and I must say it's damned annoying to be re-reading the same book all over again. The remainder of the book is the story, but it's rather silly. Clarke can't seem to make up his mind one what the monolith is for, and in the end, it turns out that they're going to wipe us out because we aren't worthy. So, we do the only thing we can do, open up the big secret vault of computer viruses and infect the vault. I cringed when this happened in Independence Day, but at least in that movie I was willing to let it slide. Not here, Clarke spends too much time after the book explaining how the technological feats are possible. I don't care what he says about computers emulating other computers, it's just not possible for a virus written five hundred years ago to infect another device of foreign origins developed millions of years ago. Or am I to believe a race that advanced doesn't understand the concept of security.

In the end, I would have just preferred that the monoliths remain mysterious, and the second odyssey be the last, and Clarke have the Poole dead.