2001: Beyond The Infinite by John L. Flynn, PH.D (book review)
I tend to cautious with recent books about older films, simply because the authors tend not to have been alive when they were originally released. I’ll qualify that even further, the editors probably aren’t and so mistakes not only creep in but by the avalanche.
In his introduction, author John Flynn reveals he was thirteen years old when he first saw the film. His bibliography does show he’s looked over a lot of the books about the film, so clue in heavily researched. It is a light read compared to those books. This book was originally released in 2008 for ‘2001’s 50th anniversary and this is a second printing but the mistakes build up.
Moon-Watcher didn’t find a tool amongst the bones, it was actually a femur bone. The jump wasn’t to 2001. One has to presume that the Discovery flight was in 2001, so this had to be in 1999. On the space station, Floyd didn’t stop to talk with Smyslov but with Eleana (actress Margaret Tyzack). Floyd wasn’t sent out to investigate TMA-1 but to see the investigation by the Clavius Base research team up close for his report. The hibernating crew were Hunter, Kimball and Kaminsky, not Whitehead (?), Kimball and Kaminsky. Poole’s body was not crushed in the pod’s arms but held delicately, especially as Bowman thought he might be alive. He also thought Daniel Richter, who plays Moon-Watcher was a dancer when he was in fact an accomplished mime and teacher. Describing the Discovery Bowman left as a wreck is also wrong. Off the film, he spells Patrick McGoohan’s surname as ‘McGooham’ and ‘The Dambusters’ film as ‘The Damn Busters’. I accept that any author can make one or two mistakes but when so many come up, you do have to wonder what’s gone wrong, let alone into a second edition.
To be fair, Flynn does make a couple useful comparisons to the original Odyssey in that Bowman’s name to the Archer and HAL’s single eye to the cyclops, even if HAL’s eyes are throughout the Discovery.
What is interesting is the last quarter of the book gets the hibernating crew’s names and Richter’s career right. It felt like different people had written or edited this book. I do see what becomes the selling point of this book is because it has interviews with Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, both of whom are SF fans.
There is some unnecessary padding like a mock-up of Douglas Rain/HAL interview and the SF films in ‘2001’s wake which could easily have been expanded to go into the ‘2010’ film in more detail. Moreso, because Kubrick had all the plans and many of the sets and props for ‘2001’ destroyed.
There are a lot of photos from the film inside of various size. No one seems to have noticed that some have been distorted to fit the size available.
So who was making the mistakes? Flynn or his editor, possible editors? Whoever, someone should checked.
GF Willmetts
September 2026
(pub: Galactic Books, 2019. 160 page illustrated enlarged paperback. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-1-69711-400-3)
