2001: A Space Odyssey (novel) top sellers with 300,000 hardcover copies and 1.75 million first paperback editions printed. 2001: A Space Odyssey (novel) 2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. It was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's and published after the release of the film. Clarke and Kubrick worked on the book together, but eventually only Clarke ended up as the official author. The story is based in part on various short stories by Clarke, including "The Sentinel" (written in 1948 for a BBC competition, but first published in 1951 under the title "Sentinel of Eternity").
2001: A Space Odyssey (novel) trying to tell us something?" Clarke himself directly addressed the spelling issue in chapter 19 of "The Lost Worlds of 2001", explaining that he simply (and unconsciously) used the spelling he was familiar with from "The Conquest of Space" (1949) by Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell, presuming that the "J" form is the German rendering of the Greek. The film "2010" was released in 1984 resulting in movie tie-in editions of both the "2001" and "2010" novels. At the time Signet Books reported that over 2.8 million copies of "2001" were in print and that "2010" was one of 1983's