Spoiler alert!

So, I read the book a long time ago, after seeing the movie. As previously mentioned, Arthur C. Clarke is one of my favourites.

There are really two stories in 2001, the story between HAL and Dave, and the story of the monoliths. I’m going to explain the latter.

There are three monoliths.

The first one is the one on Earth with the apes. It was placed there, to stimulate evolution. The apes come in contact with the monolith, their brains start a-firin’ and they figure out how to use a weapon. A race of aliens placed the monoliths on millions of planets and left them to their own devices with triggers to signal the aliens if a species actually evolved to a level worth knowing.

Which brings us to the second monolith—the one on the moon. What a great trigger! Once a species has figured out how to leave their planet and travel into space, they are probably worth talking to. So when the monolith on the moon is uncovered, it sends a message to the aliens and points where to go next for the humans.

The third monolith! It is out on the other side of Saturn. Our friend Dave is the only one to make it out there and discoverers a box full of stars and a psychedelic trip though space. The third black monolith is a gateway, to the galaxy that the aliens came from. By now they have evolved into beings of energy. They take Dave, he lives in a super cool hotel room, the rest of his life passes in seconds, and he is re-born. The aliens have jump started the next stage of evolution for him and he becomes an omnipotent being of energy, symbolized by the fetus/moon above Earth.

The End.