Arthur C. Clarke’s "2001"took readers and moviegoers on a fantastic
journey, from the dawn of man, to the quest for the stars. That journey was
somehow guided by strange black "monoliths": mysterious remnants of an alien
race, or possibly a direct link to a cosmic intelligence. It would be a
monolith, appearing in a primordial lake, that would encourage the
development of technology for our ape ancestors. Millennia later, man would
discover another monolith—on the moon. Later still, there would be others.
Wherever the monoliths appeared, they touched mankind, driving man onward
toward its destiny.