The third book in Clarke's belovedSpace Odysseyseries,2061: Odyssey Threereturns to Heywood Floyd, survivor of two previous encounters with the mysterious monoliths and the alien intelligences behind them. Floyd is chosen as one of a handful of celebrity guests to witness the first manned touchdown on the surface of Halley's Comet on the privately-owned spaceshipUniverse.But the touchdown is not fated to go as planned. On Jupiter's moon Europa, which has undergone a transformation after events at the end of2010: Odyssey Two, scientists have spotted the sudden growth of a gigantic, asymmetrical mountain determined to be one single enormous diamond—a fragment of Jupiter's core. TheUniverse's sister ship,Galaxy, is hijacked and forced to crash into Europa's ocean—and theUniverseis diverted from its original mission to rescue the crew.In this book, Heywood Floyd must once again survive an encounter with HAL, David Bowman, and the mysterious monolith-building race with its own hidden agenda-that will shape the destiny of the human race.