A couple of hundred years from now an enormous object is detected drifting into the solar system. Scientists discover that it's probably artificial in nature and a ship is dispatched to match orbits with it and investigate. They discover an enormous tube with an atmosphere inside of it. (The thing really is huge, 20km in diameter and 54 km long. Which is metric so who knows how big it really is. But those sound like big numbers, don't they?)
The crew of the ship explore the object, nicknamed Rama, and that's really the heart of the book. How they deal with gravity and how they set up exploration. They find some surprises but nothing terribly earth-shaking.
Arthur C Clarke is one of the giants of science fiction and this is one of his most highly regarded books. It's definitely a 'hard' sci-fi book. The enjoyment is in the creation of such a huge thing as Rama. As authors look to write books about traveling to other stars, one of the hardest questions to answer is how can it be done. Usually this is done by asserting some kind of FTL travel but the more interesting way is to use nothing more than modern technology. Rama is in that tradition. Clarke has created an interstellar craft capable of seeding new colonies.
Unfortunately, the rest of the book fell a bit flat for me. I didn't care about the people. There never felt like real danger, certainly not on any grand scale. Maybe Clarke just isn't my style. I thought this was only Ok.
1 comment:
Honestly, I've tried to read Clarke's novels, and they're really tough for me as well. I know I tend to come off as a "zap the aliens" kind of guy (ME?), but in college, I sat down with a lot of the Old Masters and gave them a whirl.
Clarke was one I just couldn't enjoy, which is too bad.
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