Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke

...Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. Rendezvous with Rama was published in 1973 and at the time received much critical acclaim winning various literary awards including the Hugo, Jupiter and Nebula.


When a huge meteor strikes Northern Italy in the 2077, the cities of Padua, Verona and Venice are wiped out and the world's leading scientists and politicians are forced to get their heads together and create an early warning system ...
.../> The scientific descriptions in Rendezvous are meticulously described and quite easy to follow albeit a little tedious at times - think of the first half of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and you should get the idea. The physical and temporal difficulties of space travel and the geophysical and astronomical data about the moon, asteroids and other planets are all conveyed in great detail. In particular one is able to accurately form a lucid image ... more

Arthur C. Clarke (16 December 1917 - 19 March 2008) was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist probably best remembered for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, written in collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick during the making of the film of the same name. He also participated in a number of television series in the 1980s, the most notable being Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. Rendezvous with Rama was published in 1973 and at the time received much critical acclaim winning various literary awards including the Hugo, Jupiter and Nebula.

When a huge meteor strikes Northern Italy in the 2077, the cities of Padua, Verona and Venice are wiped out and the world's leading scientists and politicians are forced to get their heads together and create an early warning system called Spaceguard to track all potential asteroids in the Solar System that might collide with the earth in future and in doing so thereby avoid further catastrophes. More than fifty years pass by and in 2130, a huge object is discovered heading close towards Earth's orbit. On closer inspection, instead of an asteroid, the object appears to be a gigantic metallic cylinder of intelligent design and it is given the name Rama after the Hindu God. Commander Bill Norton and his crew are sent to investigate the mysterious object which has been hurtling through the galaxy for hundreds of thousands of years. After some fumbling in space and political misgivings back on Earth, the crew gain access to the cylinder and once inside discover an inverted self contained world that exhibits evidence of alien life. At first the icy interior of the cylindrical craft, appears to be completely sterile, but as it nears the sun, the craft starts to warm up and things soon start simmering below the surface.

As is often the case, many of Clarke's imaginings are rooted in the scientific and technological facts of the period in which his book was written. This for many is what makes his work so thought provoking and stimulating to read. He also uses plenty of historical references that further add a sense of realism to the story. It is especially interesting to read his books now thirty or forty years after they were written, just to see how accurate were his futurological predictions. For example, the threat of an asteroid hitting Earth is nowadays taken more seriously by scientists and political authorities to the extent that the UN is presently discussing the feasibilities of creating a Spaceguard type system. It's also interesting to spot what's missing: nothing resembling a mobile phone and no digitalised equipment. Other assumptions though are way off the mark. In 1973 Clarke optimistically imagined that in 2130 many of the planets and satellites in the Solar System would be colonised and that a kind of interplanetary UN would exist. Call me a pessimist but I doubt it.

The scientific descriptions in Rendezvous are meticulously described and quite easy to follow albeit a little tedious at times - think of the first half of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and you should get the idea. The physical and temporal difficulties of space travel and the geophysical and astronomical data about the moon, asteroids and other planets are all conveyed in great detail. In particular one is able to accurately form a lucid image of Rama's interior world; its physical characteristics, spatial geometry and fluctuating atmosphere. It's just a pity that the human characters in the book seem, as in many of Clarke's novels, less real than the world they inhabit: being dull in terms of personality and so predictable in their actions. Clarke is unwilling or unable to explore an individual's psychological or emotional inner life and as such the protagonists fail to elicit empathy in the reader. The characters in this book remind me of those wooden actors in old Hollywood Sci-fi movies of the 1950s - totally devoid of warmth or personality. Arthur C. Clarke may have been a man of ideas, but he was never a great writer, not even a great Sci-fi writer in my opinion.

Although Rendezvous with Rama is not the greatest Sci-fi novel ever written (as one might be led to believe after reading some of the book's reviews on Amazon), it does have some positive attributes. It will appeal to those who like to drool over pages rich in scientific descriptions and predictions. The writing style is easily accessible and at just over 270 pages divided into 45 chapters, it is not a challenging novel to get through. The narrative, although laborious at times, does build up quite nicely increasing the readers sense of anticipation as to what will happen next. Unfortunately Clarke is unable to maintain this until the end of the novel. At around chapter 37 a diversion in the central plot takes place and for about four chapters there is a lot of waffle concerning political interplanetary infighting. This is unnecessary and is a complete distraction to the main story. It's almost as if the writer is preparing you for the rather disappointing conclusion to the novel. In the ultimate chapter the author describes how Norton is "haunted by a sense of anticlimax." That's kind of how I felt when I finished the book.

There were three rather poor follow-up novels to Rendezvous with Rama co-written by Gentry Lee that probably aren't worth considering. Arthur C. Clarke's best Sci-fi novel is generally deemed to be Childhood's End written in 1953 and I would generally go along with this view. Other works of note are The City and the Stars (1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and The Fountains of Paradise (1979). Rendezvous with Rama is available at Amazon priced £5.49.

Final Thought
One thing did have me slightly spooked when I read the first page of this book was the line: "At 0946 GMT on the morning of September 11 in the exceptionally beautiful summer of 2077 the inhabitants of Europe saw a dazzling fireball in the sky..." 

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