A mysterious monolith appears at the dawn of humanity. Four million years later, another is found on the Moon. A crew is sent to Jupiter to find the source — but the ship's AI, HAL 9000, has other priorities. Clarke and Kubrick created novel and film simultaneously. Both are masterpieces. Both are different.
Clean — cosmic sci-fi.
Skip if you dislike:
Moods: Transcendent Mysterious Evolutionary Cosmic
Tropes: AI Rebellion Monolith Human Evolution Jupiter
Written alongside Kubrick's film — they diverge significantly, especially the ending.
HAL's section is the most famous, but the book spans millions of years.
More so than the film — Clarke explains what Kubrick left ambiguous.