I found myself slightly more excited by this book than by its predecessor. Again there were parts, especially in the beginning, when the book really does feel like floating in space, and (just as the characters in the book are saying) space of course really is a sheer inconceivable cause for awe; yet, while its vastness will make you feel a bit lost, the story does a good job to give structure to space. In fact, when finishing it, I felt quite eager to get into the third book very soon (something I did not expect).

In this Space Odyssey we follow a Russian ship, the Leonov, that is sent into space with an array of objects (of varying priority): (i) It is to gather information on what happened to the Discovery, the ship from the first book and that had been abandoned when David Bowman approached the mysterious monolith on Jupiter (or Saturn, as it was originally) and never came back. (ii) If possible, they are to bring the Discovery back to Earth. (iii) They are to explore Jupiter, and, if possible, (iv) find out more about the "monolith" and about what happened to Bowman. There is some back-story to the Russian and American members of the crew, though (as it is common in these kinds of stories) nothing overly interesting. Towards the end there are some things happening that actually add a bit of tension, too, something that will probably be appreciated.

Since some the events that are particularly hard to comprehend are depicted from a different perspective, things become slightly easier to accept this time around. I have to admit that I'm still not entirely sure if I really like the ending of 2001 (spoiler alert for the first book).
It's kind of cool to discover how other intelligent species have established some sort of a universe-spanning network and that they interfere in what is happening on many planets (an idea we find in Clarke's other novels as well). But bodiless substances that float through space? I know that it's a science-fiction topos by now, and I realize that we do approach this ideas of uploading consciousness, but it still feels too fantasy and I'm not sure if I want those ghosts in my fictional universe.
What I do find interesting, though, is the fact that these beings are not always successful. We get to know that they are conducting experiments (of whose nature we get to know very little and that might be incomprehensible for us) and from what we gather success isn't guaranteed. Also, the fact that, in this universe, minds can be extracted from bodies and re-enter other beings (like the computer HAL 9000) gives an interesting twist to Ryle's idea of a Ghost in the Machine (actually hinted at in the novel itself). So yes, I guess I'm finding some peace with this aspect of the story.

I was also amazed by how much this actually feels like a follow-up. Many topics of the first book - such as the characters, the events, the monoliths, HAL 9000 - reappear in a surprisingly natural way. Moreover, there are some gentle reminders to what actually happened in 2001, highly appreciated since it's been almost a year since I've read the first book (and for many readers it has been 12 years when the book first came out).