Rendezvous With Rama

The first Arthur C. Clarke I read was his short story, The Star, in the Asimov-edited Hugo winners anthology. I liked it, so when I happened upon a copy of Childhood's End a few weeks later, I snatched it up and read it in the next day or two. It had the steady, organic procession of Greek tragedy, and the description of alien vistas and technology were breathtaking and very cohesive. Clarke excels at first contact stories, whether it involves giant saucers or monoliths and Rendezvous with Rama is no exception.

A big part of the novel is the slow discovery of what lies inside Rama, so I'll try not to give away too much. The set-up's simple, a large object is discovered moving at an astounding rate towards the solar system, a probe discovers that it's a massive spaceship and the only Earth vessel in range goes to investigate.

The best portion of the book for me was the middle, as the spaceship crew enter Rama and begin to explore Clarke delivers some of his great description- it's completely alien, unknowable, but it all fits together, what little we understand makes sense. It's the same feeling one gets with the monoliths in 2001, especially the first encounter on the moon.

It almost reminded me of Lovecraft's Elder Ones, so high above and beyond humanity that we might as well be insects. The Ramans, what ever they are, don't really care about humanity's contact with them.

He paces himself well too, there's no real sudden jerk as something's discovered or explored, it flows at a steady pace. This makes it easier, I suppose, to digest the incredible things he's talking about.

Clarke makes comparisons between the exploration of Rama and Earth-bound archaeology- this is very fitting. There is no life here, it's sterile, at least at first.

As the novel progresses the first mysteries are more-or-less solved, but this only digs up new ones, another Clarke standard (curiouser and curiouser!). After the slow build-up, however, the eventual discovery of life in the form of 'biots', while intriguing, didn't quite live up to my expectations- no monoliths! While an interesting idea and well-done it seemed too much like a science fiction conceit, not a part of the discoveries that have gone on before. It made Rama become a little too human, especially since several of the biots, including the first encountered, came close to actual creatures.

Clarke picks back up soon after the first biot scene, with a crewmember's journey through a suitably strange landscape. It may just be me, but this sequence (and the biots), seemed really close to the stories and ideas written a generation before Clarke, Stanley Weinbaum's short story A Martian Odyssey, for example. While I enjoy reading this kind of Sci-fi, it felt a little out of place in Rama.

Still, it was an excellent book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It ranks with Childhood's End and 2001: A Space Odyssey as some of Clarke's best work, the atmosphere of the first half alone is well worth the read, and I'll definitely be re-reading it.

Have thoughts of your own on this or others of Clarke's work? Leave a comment!