I wasn't as disappointed by
3001 as many other people.
Frank Poole is found in deep space and brought back to life (he was
cryogenically frozen, so it isn't that hard to work out). He spends a lot of time finding out about the development of society in the
Third Millenium, and then saves humanity.
The first two-thirds of the novel is pretty interesting, as long as you think of it as Arthur Clarke's summary of his dream of the future. Unfortunately, Clarke felt obligated to include a plot in his book, and so he tacked on a story about the monolith to finish it off. He would have been better off publishing the beginning on its own as a sort of travelogue of the future, or taking the time to write a story big enough to be proportionate to the intro--this would have tripled the size of the book, but would have been an improvement.
As long as you don't expect to read a conventional novel, you'll find this book to be about as rewarding as 2010 and a lot better than 2061 (which still doesn't make any sense to me).