"The Sentinel" is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, famous for being expanded (and extensively modified) into the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke actually expressed impatience with the common description of it as "the story on which 2001 is based." He was quoted as saying, it is like comparing "an acorn to the resulting oak-tree".
The Sentinel was written in 1948 for a BBC competition (in which it failed to place) and was first pu...
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"The Sentinel" is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, famous for being expanded (and extensively modified) into the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke actually expressed impatience with the common description of it as "the story on which 2001 is based." He was quoted as saying, it is like comparing "an acorn to the resulting oak-tree".
The Sentinel was written in 1948 for a BBC competition (in which it failed to place) and was first published in the magazine 10 Story Fantasy in 1951, under the title "Sentinel of Eternity". It first appeared in the USA in The Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader published by Avon Periodicals, Inc. in 1951. It was subsequently published as part of a short story collection in Expedition to Earth in 1953. Despite the failure of the story, it changed the course of Clarke's career.
The Sentinel (published 1982) is also the title of a collection of Arthur C. Clarke short stories, including the eponymous "The Sentinel", "Guardian Angel" (the...
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