The sequels to 2001: A Space Odyssey are 2010: Odyssey Two, (1982) and 2061:
Odyssey Three (1987). However, several critics consider The City and the Stars (1956), Clarke's masterpiece. It compares two Utopias, the urban Diaspar and the pastoral Lys, and finds each an incomplete response to the challenge the universe presents. The people of the closed Diaspar are immortal, recreated by passing through the crystalline memory of the Central Computer, life after life; with no navels, they are abstracted from the cycles of nature.
The people of Lys die, having achieved telepathic communication in their woodlands; but they have renounced analytic reason. The quest of the protagonist Alvin opens up both communities to the galaxy, to discover humanity's ancient failures and triumphs, to accept such risks again, and to remain open despite the.....
