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This may be my favorite Odyssey. (although I thought that after each of the Odyssey books)
But really, I am just so thrilled with this one, how genius to bring back Frank Poole from the dead and to put the 21st century scientist in the 31st century.
I savored every word, every image, really and it read so plausible.
Hope we will achieve that society from 31 century. (Clarke seems to think so in other of his books, there is always some kind of Utopia there)

Check this out:
"It was generally agreed that Communism was the most perfect form of government; unfortunately, it had been demonstrated—at the cost of some hundreds of millions of lives—that it was only applicable to social insects, Robots Class II, and similar restricted categories. For imperfect human beings, the least-worse answer was Democracy, frequently defined as “Individual greed, moderated by an efficient but not too zealous government"

But really, the life on Europa and the images and thoughts like this (also there in 2061 Odyssey I know) really made me feel out of this world. It was so disappointing having to be back in this plain, old, depressing century, every time I closed the book. Just look at this description:
"He was searching a world more than a hundred times the area of Earth, and though he saw many wonders, nothing there hinted of intelligence. The radio voices of the great balloons carried only simple messages of warning or of fear. Even the hunters, who might have been expected to develop higher degrees of organization, were like the sharks in Earth’s oceans—mindless automata. And for all its breathtaking size and novelty, the biosphere of Jupiter was a fragile world, a place of mists and foam, of delicate silken threads and paper-thin tissues spun from the continual snowfall of petrochemicals formed by lightning in the upper atmosphere. Few of its constructs were more substantial than soap bubbles; its most awesome predators could be torn to shreds by even the feeblest of terrestrial carnivores. Like Europa on a vastly grander scale, Jupiter was an evolutionary cul-de-sac. Consciousness would never emerge here; even if it did, it would be doomed to a stunted existence. A purely aerial culture might develop, but in an environment where fire was impossible, and solids scarcely existed, it could never even reach the Stone Age."

The idea of a Braincap is great. I am not sure how we would manage all that with all the crap that we see on the internet now - but it's such a great concept.

I see there is a movie coming up in 2017. I hope they stick to the story.

And the story is so plausible, even the civilization which created the Monolith can't just travel across the universe in matter of years, even if they could travel at the speed of light. (that is something that really bothers me in the distopyan sci-fi, they don't even try to solve that problem in any plausible way...)
I am even filing this under my science shelf (I know, I know I shouldn't, but still, theoretically, it is all possible, right?)

Anyway, so sorry this was the last Odyssey. Wish there was more. But i am off now to read other Arthur C. Clarke. (I am so glad he was such a prolific writer)