I counld not belive the ending it was very poor.

There's nothing I enjoy more on a Saturday morning than a Friday night pizza. Somehow it manages to satisfy some base need. Maybe it's the nomadic sense that I'm foraging for food. "3001: The Final Odyssey" is the cool leftovers from an intense evening before.

That said, I wasn't expecting anything particularly profound. I wanted to finish the series and 'see what happens.' No car chases, no lewd or baudy scenes. And while I get the distinct impression - from the notes in the back of the book - that Mr. Clarke is beginning a new genre: the pre-historical novel, I enjoyed the read. He absolutely makes clear what the future is like: the world is a kindergarten class on Ritalin. One can have fun imagining what we only do in our dreams, and in that respect the book offers some fresh ideas. The novel is a reflection of what life is like: it's a lot less interesting and romantic...it usually plods along with a couple of punctuations for flavour. Is it the best A.C. Clarke book ever written? No. Is it A.C. Clarke? Most definitely. Should you read it? Hey, it costs less than a movie and is better than most of what's out there on film.

This book is a big disappointment. After the thrill of the original 2001 and the two subsequent books, I was looking forward to a capstone book where we learn much about the social and political structure of the universe. I expected this to come from some knowledge regarding the builders of the monoliths and their real purpose in creating them. However, it turns out that they are just stupid machines, most likely not even as intelligent as HAL, yet somehow sophisticated enough to absorb the personality of David Bowman, who still manages to 'live' and influence the actions of the monolith.
The book begins with the discovery of the body of astronaut Frank Poole in deep space, where he is still alive after a thousand years. He is revived, and the story largely revolves around his attempts to acclimate to a new society. This gives Clarke the opportunity to make some predictions about the future course of social and technical advancement, most notably the near abolition of religion. While such a situation is of interest, the real point is to reach some understanding concerning the purpose of the monoliths, and that is just not covered.
I read the book because I felt the need to complete the series. However, it lacks the drama and mystique of the previous books, even the social commentary is not up to Clarke's previous high standards.

This book tries to give us a small hint of what the future may be. Arthur Clarke tries to describe the future as his creativity imagine. It was writen in 1986, but I read it in 1997, so some of book's predictions seems idiot to me. In my point of view, Arthur Clarke should focus on a story, not fortune-telling. Of course science ficcion must do some wild guess, but a good book is sustained by the plot, not the situation.

Arthur C. Clarke is one of the 20th century's greatest writers of fiction-certainly of science fiction-and, as many of us know, of accessible science writing. However, this book is not an essential piece of his canon. It's interesting, to be sure, some of Clarke's visions of the future are novel and worth thinking about. There are several noteworthy situations outlined, including a possible scenario for World War III (this scenario however, shows the hazards of prophecy... apparently Clarke failed to forsee the fall of the Berlin Wall, for Germany is still referred to here as "East" and "West".) A lot of the writing doesn't really sound like Clarke... especially the medical chapter, it comes off as a bit dry and boring in places, lacking his trademark wit. It almost seems as if these chapters and scenarios were written by someone else and merely edited by Clarke. I'm not knocking the book-it is interesting, nicely laid out, and very professional and highly ambitious in scope-but Clarke has SO MUCH superior material available that there's no reason for you to pick this up unless you've nearly exhausted his output.

Gave up after 220 pages. Hidden plot, cardboard characters, disjointed storyline. Clarke must have had little to do with this yawner.

Having thoroughly enjoyed Clarke's solo works, especially Rendezvous with Rama, I thought I would give Cradle a shot as that story idea looked interesting. I would soon be disappointed however as I began sinking in the quicksand that is Gentry Lee. If you are looking for a really good science fiction book, you should pass on this one and continue your search.

The first few hundred pages are filled with more-or-less pointless character development, clearly written by Lee, that would be perfectly at home in a Harlequin romance novel. A few pages of sci-fi, clearly written by Clarke, are interspersed so that the reader may be reminded that they paid $6 for a Clarke novel and not $2 for a grocery store romance tome. To be fair, I will admit that the general character interaction and background does come into play later on. But it just drags on and on and is littered with unnecessary sex scenes. I fail to understand Lee's obsession with writing about sex in the middle of a science fiction novel. Once would be OK, but after about the 4th time I found myself dropping the book and thinking "again?!" In addition, Lee's obsession with race, with each character being introduced as being black, white, Arab, Mexican, etc. is very annoying. The way that the race is then portrayed in the most cliché way is increasingly so. Lee may be an able and accomplished scientist, but his writing does not belong on the same pages with that of Arthur C. Clarke.

For some reason, probably because I had paid 900 yen for the book, I decided to stick with it and see the story through to the end. Around page 250 (of 408 total) the book got interesting. From that point forward I found myself wanting to continue to see what would happen next. But 250 pages is a lot to plod through before hitting something worth reading. In the end, the book wasn't that bad. The story could have been rather good had Clarke gone at it alone and focused the book on the sci-fi. As is stands, the bulk of this novel has very little to do with! sci-fi. So all-in-all, Cradle disappoints. The back cover says basically that something terrifying lies at the bottom of the ocean and could mean the extinction of the human race. This whole concept lasts maybe a dozen or so pages at the end of the novel and is never terrifying. The "scary" part is introduced and resolved so quickly that there is hardly time to assimilate it. And as the final words were read, I found myself wondering if the duo had just grown tired of the story as it seemed to suddenly end with several issues unresolved.

I read this book when it first came out back in 1990, and it took me three days to finish it. It was stolen along with my car and because it had held my attention so completely, I just had to go out and buy it again so I could read it once more and add it to my collection. The first pages of Cradle caught me by the immagination, and from then I was hooked. Maybe I'm not as much a hard core sci-fi reader as the rest of these other people are but I didn't seemed to be bogged down a bit in the character development that was assumably Gentry Lee's contribution of the novel. I say that it served its purpose to make the novel more personal. I found myself rooting for our reporter friend and her two co-conspirators that they keep the knowledge of their find away from the treasure hunting "bad guys" for their own sakes, The coincidence that the military would lose on of its missiles in the same vicinity just turned up the heat on the plot. I felt sorry for Winters, that he couldn't escape his own life and duty. I had to read this book twice because I thought it was that good!!!

A collection of sci-fi stories. All of which are dated , writen in an old style without any action OR science. It's all about satelite problems and stuff like that in the 21th century.

I'm not saying that it was'nt good when it was relevent as sci-fi , but those stories are just not the kind that lasts forever. And anyway Clarke's writing was always WAY too slow for me. He's just not part of the real mindblowers generation of sci-fi - A pioneer , but not an immortall giant , in my opinion.

For a better read of the old fellows , read A.E.Van-Vogt , Heinlin , or E.E.Smith (Lensmen series).

Both Against the Fall of Night and The City and the Stars are wonderful stories, beautifully written

Gregory Benford's "sequel" is incoherent mishmash. I kept jumping paragraphs hoping the story would get clearer. It didn't.

Forget this book entirely and get the original Arthur C Clarke story (Against the Fall of Night) combined with The Lion of Comarre.

I've never read a Gregory Benford story before and this turned me off so much I don't plan to read another.

'Against the fall of night', and 'City and the Stars' were one of the best stories ACC wrote.

It is a pity that Mr Benson didn't read either of them.

'Beyond the fall of night' takes some of the characters of ACC's book and reduces them. In fact, he appears to change so much of the original story that it is virtually unrecognisable. I find it difficult to believe that this is an 'authorised' sequel, since it contradicts much of what is written in the first book. The packaging of the book (putting the original in with the sequel) means that the contradictions are glaring (how come the moon was restored to completeness when it was destroyed by the weapon at Shalmarine?). The magnificence of the original novel has been lost in a hodgepodge of characters, ferris wheels and a pineapple spaceship. What?

Not recommended for anyone who has read the original. I think it was a mistake for Mr Benson to write this novel, and a mistake for Mr Clarke to let him.

I read "Against the Fall of Night" about six times in the last sixteen years. It is by far my most favorite sci-fi book. I can't say the same for Mr. Benford's continuation.

The great fun of Clarke's portion is the sense of wonder it gives you. He never goes in great depths about the technology or history of this universe. He gives you a general idea and goes no further. Since this story is placed billions of years in the future, this is fine. Could one of us really understand such a world? Benford goes to great lengths to explain the workings of technologies. In doing so, he takes out the fun. He also de-humanizes many of the original characters. Clarke left it to us (mostly) to determine what these people are like. Benford turns them into bubble-headed aliens.

Another problem I have with Benford's novella is massive inconsistencies. As an example, Clarke sets up a future where the moon was destroyed long ago when it began to fall out of orbit. Flip over to Benford's tome and the protagonist visits the moon and it is inhabited!! Never does Benford explain why the moon suddenly exists.

If you have never read "Against the Fall of Night", you should get this book. However, I wouldnt waste my time reading the second half.

this book is definitely not worth wasting wour time on

There was something about this book that was not quite right. Originally written in the late 1950's, this book lacks the creativity of Clarke's full novels.

Perhaps Clarke has discovered this also, because recently he stays with short diatribes on television shows and co-authors most of his recent works.

This book is only for the collector looking to complete their Arthur C. Clarke collection.