This is a decent collection of short stories, written to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Arthur C. Clarke. I thought that the idea that each of the stories had to be 2001 words in length was a great idea, which meant that no words could be wasted. This also meant that there was no rambling and each story moved along well. There was only one story that I really didn't like, but I'll keep its identity to myself. My favourite was probably 'Providence' and I also really enjoyed 'Golgotha.' ( )

An anthology commissioned to commemorate the centenary of [[Arthur C. Clarke]]'s birthday with the quirk that each story should be exactly 2001 words long. This was commissioned by the Arthur C. Clarke award and NewCon press (independent SF publisher in the UK) and authors who had previously been shortlisted for or won the Arthur C Clarke award were asked to contribute new fiction.

I initially wondered whether the strict word requirement would mean the quality of the stories would suffer but on reading I really couldn't see that this was the case and this was a very strong anthology.

Of particular note were:

Golgotha by Dave Hutchinson where a priest gets involved with first contact.
Murmuration by Jane Rogers - another first contact story but this time with a tragic end.
Dancers by Allen Stroud where an AI called HAL seems to be going wrong.
The Ontologist by Liz Williams - would struggle to explain what this one was about but it was beautiful.
The Collectors by Adrian Tchaikovsky where the remains of an ancient alien civilisation are discovered.
Roads of Silver, Paths of Gold by Emmi Itaranta - where ancient myth and aliens meet.
Last Contact by Becky Chambers (I think the title is explanation enough)
Ten Landscapes of Nili Fossae by Ian McDonald - art on Mars
Providence by Alastair Reynolds - a final sacrifice made to save the human race.

Some great stories by authors I knew I already liked and some new authors to look out for too (Jane Rogers, Allen Stroud and Liz Williams were new to me). ( )

I was sorely disappointed by this collection. Being a big fan of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, I really looked forward to a collection of mystery science fiction in that vein, but found these stories to be more of the weird LSD kind of scifi with little to no bearing on the book that inspired it. ( )

This is an excellent collection of science fiction short stories in honor of Arthur C. Clarke. I really enjoyed the range and variety of the visions in this collection. Each story is 2001 words long, which makes the stories wind up in interesting ways. Thank you to the Early Reviewer Program. ( )

https://speculiction.blogspot.com/2018/10/review-of-2001-odyssey-in-words-ed-by.... ( )