I had bought all four books at once so naturally I thought I’d read the full series. I’m not sure I would’ve have read the rest of the series otherwise. I can’t remember much from this book, so I’ll use Wikipedia to give you a lacklustre synopsis.

The book follows on from the film in which a joint Soviet-American crew go out to investigate the Discovery One to try and get an understanding of what happened to Bowman when he came across the monolith. Bowman is now an energy-based life-form made by the aliens. There is a discovery of a primitive life-form on Europa and the aliens lock this planet off telling humans not to go there. Also, Jupiter is destroyed by the monoliths and it turns into a new star in the solar system.

If I have spoiled this for you, I’m sorry. If you don’t follow then I’d recommend the Wikipedia plot summary or just read the book. To be honest it has actually reminded me of the story, and I think this book was better than I may have previously thought. Nonetheless it still kind of ruins the mystery of the ending of the first one.