To the spaceship Discovery, floating in the silent depths of space since Dave Bowman passed through the alien 'Star Gate', comes Heywood Floyd on a mission of recovery. What he finds near Jupiter is beyond the imaginings of any mere human.

Born in Somerset in 1917, Arthur C. Clarke has written over sixty books, among which are the science fiction classics '2001, A Space Odyssey', 'Childhood's End', 'The City and the Stars' and 'Rendezvous With Rama'. He has won all the most prestigious science fiction trophies, and shared an Oscar nomination with Stanley Kubrick for the screenplay of the film of 2001. He was knighted in 1998. He passed away in March 2008.