A breakthrough into the twenty-first century, this novel and movie puts the man of today into the credible environment of tomorrow, when he has conquered the perils of interplanetary travel and is ready for what comes next.You are hurtling across the abyss of space on an expedition to unexplored planets. Your only companion is a fellow astronaut: The three hibernauts who lie in a deep-freeze sleep will not be awakened until their skills are needed.An essential member of your crew is Hal, the electronic, almost-human brain that ceaselessly guides your course. For months your atom-powered craft Discovery has been carrying you away from earth at a hundred thousand miles an hour. You are now farther from home than any man in history.Your living quarters within the 400-foot-long spacecraft is a centrifugal drum equipped with an electronic library of literature and music. Here you relax, eat, exercise, sleep, and chat with Hal, the conversational computer who never forgets anything-not even your birthday.Your mission is of such importance that it has been surrounded by the deepest official secrecy. You are probing a fantastic frontier, following a trail that has led to the outer edges of the Solar System. You are searching the stars for evidence that man is not alone.On the Earth colonized Moon, deep in the crater Tycho, a discovery has been made that has shattered the human concept of the universe. You are journeying towards something. You do not know what it is. You only know it has been waiting for man to find it for four million years.Arthur C. Clarke, Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a writer of science fiction, has produced this work that compares to the prophetic novels of Jules Verne. Author of the novel and co-author with Stanley Kubrick of the screen play for Kubrick's motion picture production, Clarke creates the cosmic desolations and splendors that man will someday see as he travels gigamiles into time and space.