For good reason, whenever we talk about classics we tend to laud their influence rather than their readability. And that is certainly the case with Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is perhaps the most influential in science fiction – itself a genre which, as genres go, has a lot of real-world cultural influence – and its impact on writing style, composition and content is so complete that often you don't notice it, and retrospectively it can look quite ordinary. But this is only because it has been internalized and mimicked so reverently by its successors.

Its astonishing influence aside, the book is very dry writing. For a book about the worth of having humanity amongst the stars, our main characters Floyd, Bowman and Poole are disappointingly bland; ironically, it is the sentient computer HAL which has the most personality. Despite the occasional aridity, Clarke carries a sense of mystery and wonder that keeps us reading, and he draws his key scenes very well (Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do…). The ending was a bit of a weird mess, in my opinion, but I also thought the same about the movie.

Speaking of the movie, it is difficult to separate Clarke's book from Kubrick's visual masterpiece, and any discussion of the influence of 2001: A Space Odyssey has to weight both of them carefully. Reading Clarke's book, I was not sure how much of my enjoyment came from the book itself or from my foreknowledge of the visuals, and Hal's voice, from the film. In many respects, it is irrelevant; the two are thoroughly interlinked, having been developed concurrently, and speaking of them separately can seem unseemly.

it is sad to think that a sci-fi novel this erudite and original might not get published nowadays – or, at the least, it would not become popular and influential in our more trash-thirsty times. It has a slow pace and resolves its story beats quickly, while dropping masses of scientific exposition. It is a marvel that a book of this type made its mark: on the genre, on NASA and the Apollo missions, and on our conceptual understanding of space entirely. In the sort of world where the real 2001 saw not the development of a Moon base or the discovery of alien life, but instead the medieval tribal brutality of the World Trade Center attacks, we should be thankful that there are genuine visionaries who are dedicated to keeping our gaze towards the stars. ( )

ODYSSEY