Product Description

Rama is a vast alien spacecraft that enters the Solar System, A perfect cylinder some fifty kilometres long, spinning rapidly, racing through space, Rama is a technological marvel, a mysterious and deeply enigmatic alien artifact. It is Mankind's first visitor from the stars and must be investigated . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15768 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
Only superlatives will do for Arthur Clarke's dazzlingly polished, wonderfully original exploration of a gigantic alien space ship that passes briefly through the solar system on its way to an unimaginable destination. Christened Rama by its human discoverers, the worldlet seems dead at first but comes remarkably and hazardously to life as a crew of earthmen probe its mysteries. When Rama leaves the solar system as precipitously as it arrived, more questions remain than have been answered, but the reader, like Rama's explorers, has seen wonders undreamt of in mere human philosophy. A perfect science fiction novel. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
Rama is a vast alien spacecraft that enters the Solar System, A perfect cylinder some fifty kilometres long, spinning rapidly, racing through space, Rama is a technological marvel, a mysterious and deeply enigmatic alien artifact. It is Mankind's first visitor from the stars and must be investigated ...

About the Author
Arthur C. Clarke was born in Minehead in 1917. During the Second World War he served as a radar instructor for the RAF, rising to the rank of flight-lieutenant. After the war, he entered King's college, London taking, in 1948, his Bsc in physics and mathematics with first class honours.One of the most respected of all science-fiction writers, he has won Kalinga Prize, the Aviation Space-Writers' Prize and the Westinghouse Science Writing Prize. He also shared an Oscar nomination with Stanley Kubrick for the screenplay of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was based on his story, 'The Sentinel'. He has lived in Sri Lanka since 1956.

Customer Reviews

Good premise, unsatisfying ending
The idea behind the story is good, but ultimately fails to deliver. There is lots of suspense and it holds interest throughout. However, the ending leaves one a bit unsatisfied as little is explained. We still have no idea what Rama is or what much of what's described about it actually does. Clarke's writing style is rather bland with little character development: very definitely a scientist trying to write a novel. Bit of a curate's egg for me, leaving me a little disappointed, although still worth reading. 3.5 Stars.

Not a great book but a cracking read
Arthur C Clarke couldn't write for toffee. His characters - inevitably dedicated professionals straight out of a Boy's Own adventure - have all the dimensions of a Euclidean line. His dialogue is heavily expositional or psychologically unbelievable: would a man about to go on what might be his final mission really fill up his last message to his spouse saying things like, "Each lock is a simple revolving cylinder with a slot on one side. You go in through this opening, crank the cylinder round a hundred and eighty degrees - and the slot then matches up with another door so that you can step out of it"?

Clarke's descriptions also tend towards the cold and analytical. Metaphor and simile have little or no place in his worlds. But what worlds they are.

The late knight's linguistic skills may have made JK Rowling look like Proust but he more than made up for them with both his technical expertise and his gift for fast-paced plot. The worlds and technologies he describes may be strange and exotic but, thanks to Clarke's deep understanding of what he is describing, they feel real - far more real, in fact, than the characters that encounter them. As to keeping the plot going, Clarke had enough of the pulp fiction writer about him to end every chapter on a cliff-hanger and to turn more tables on his protagonists than even Aristotle could have asked for.

It's doubtless for these reasons that Rendezvous with Rama is seen as a genre classic. When a vast asteroid hurtles into the solar system, it is at first nothing more than an excuse for academic bickering. When that asteroid turns out to be an alien artefact, possibly even the ark of some interstellar Noah, it becomes the object of a race against time to explore its hidden depths and - possibly - to destroy it before it becomes a threat. Though predictable in form and, frankly, dull in its casting, Rama keeps the reader avidly scanning through it looking for ever more unexpected wonders, just as its characters do. It's not a great book, not even a good book but it is a cracking read.

ok.
i just finishd rading this book to gt to the nd. the story has a sns of wondr and supense about it which carries towards the end.
however ,thd charachters in the book are a great let down . they seem to be two dimensional and never act out of type.
as such it seems like only half a story which boils down to "look how amazing and wonderful this strange land is" and that is about all there is to it.