sorry, I assumed ‘2001: Space Odyssey’ was referring to the movie, which I’ve watched many many times (one of my all-time faves) but I never read the book version, nor these other books you just mentioned
Clarke’s sexuality was I think well-known - indeed there was a Michael Jackson-type ‘scandal’ concerning the many boys in his life in Sri Lanka - so I’m not surprised that homosexuality would feature in his works. But, as a gay guy, I never once in my many viewings detected homosexual undercurrents in the 2001 movie - guess I was too fixated on Kubrick’s amazing (even today) visual images