It began four million years ago when a gleaming black monolith cast its shadow on the stark African savanna *an inexplicable apparition that ignited the spark of human consciousness, transforming ape into man. It continued at the dawn of the 21st century when an identical black monolith was excavated on the moon *propelling Dave Bowman and his deputy Frank Poole on a mission to Jupiter that ended in the mutiny of the supercomputer HAL. Only Dave Bowman would survive to encounter a third, and far more massive monolith on Jupiter's moon Europa *and be forever transformed into the star child. It is the world of 2001: A Space Odyssey. And now, the odyssey enters its perilous ultimate stage. In 3001, the human race, incredibly, has survived, yet lives in baffled fear of the trio of monoliths that dominate the solar system--until a ray of light beams forth from a totally unexpected source. The body of Frank Poole, believed dead for a thousand years, is recovered from the frozen reaches of the galaxy, restored to conscious life, and readied to resume the voyage that HAL abruptly terminated a thousand years back. He knows he cannot proceed until he reestablishes contact with Dave Bowman. But first he must fathom the terrifying truth of what Bowman *and HAL *have become inside the monolith. In 3001: The Final Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke brings the greatest and most successful science fiction series of all time to its magnificent, stunningly unforeseen conclusion. As we hurtle toward the new millennium in real time, Clarke brilliantly, daringly leaps one thousand years into the future to reveal a truth we are only now capable of comprehending. An epic masterpiece at once dazzlingly imaginative and grounded in scientific actuality, 3001 is a story that only Arthur C. Clarke could tell.