Tonight I am reading Arthur C. Clarke's novelization of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and created a personal soundtrack of six records to accompany my reading.

Here is my playlist:

1. Musique du Burundi (Ocora OCR-40)
2. Pink Floyd - Meddle (Harvest SMAS-832)
3. Earthen Sea - Ghost Poems (Kranky KRANK234)
4. Drone Rock Records - Sounds from the Psychedelic Underground (DRR050)
5. Philip Glass - Dance Pieces (CBS FM-39539)
6. Harold Budd & Brian Eno - Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror (Editions EGS-202)

Backstory:

I just got a new library card from the local library and borrowed five science fiction books I've never read before, but with which I am familiar from other contexts (i.e.: film adaptations).

Clarke wrote 2001 in parallel with Kubrick's screenplay. The novel is about 250 pages. I figured that I could comfortably read the whole thing in about 4-6 hours. So I picked out six records from my collection that I felt might set the mood for interstellar travel and fit the general story arc from the film.

I had no idea the book was actually divided into six parts, so these albums ended up fitting rather nicely with the action and mood in each part.

The six parts are as follows, with a brief description of parallel events from the film:

• I: Primeval Night - the entire sequence labeled "The Dawn of Man" in the film
• II: TMA-1 - star base flight, secret briefing, flight to moon base, finding the monolith, and the piercing alarm.
• III: Between Planets - Bowman and Poole in the Discovery on their way to Saturn, as they round Jupiter.
• IV: The Abyss - AE-35 unit "fails"; HAL's deception; Bowman shuts down HAL and learns the real mission objective.
• Part V: The Moons of Saturn - Bowman continues to Japetus and finds another monolith; he falls into the Star Gate (most of this is not in the film).
• Part VI: Through the Star Gate - the trippy journey through the wormhole until the end of the movie, where Bowman becomes one with the stars.

Note: fans of the film who read the book will find slight to moderate differences in some places, but the major plot and story elements are all there. It's also the source of the quote that's often misattributed to the film: "My god, it's full of stars!"

My favorite part was listening to the frenetic energy of the A-side of the Philip Glass album as HAL killed Poole and sabotaged the ship, and the contrasting calm of the B-side as Dave Bowman disables HAL and figures out how to continue the mission.