Rendezvous with Rama the Novel Discussion

[stonester1]

Loved the book, loved the series, for all the reasons mentioned here so far.

Plus, it may be the first book that had a descriptive passage detailing what zero gravity does to a bosomy woman.

 

[Candlelight]

It's my favourite novel. The sheer enigmatic qualities of Rama are left to the imagination rather than spell it out for you, which is awesome.

I once wrote a synopsis for the novel as a six-part tv show. Should dig it out. I remember I limited it to 12 characters and set it entirely on the Endeavour/Rama, to increase the sense of isolation.

 

[sonak]

it's been a while since I read it, but I remember being very bored by it and finding it very slow. The only good scenes were the council ones back on Earth. The scenes on the ship were just variations of long descriptions of things-"there was a gold sink on the wall" sort of stuff.

as others have said, the lack of characterization makes it a very cold and distant feeling book.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Ah, my favorite book of all time. It's pretty much the quintessential example of SF as "the literature of ideas" and "the sense of wonder." I've lost track of how many times I've read it over the years.

I put the sequels in the same category as the second Foundation trilogy. Some nifty stuff that should have been done as an original work, rather than screwing with a classic.

For all we know, actual contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence or its creations might go a lot like that. Odds are it would be so advanced that we could barely comprehend it and might barely be able to attract its notice. Clarke did have a way of approaching aliens that way, as pure enigma, as in 2001. He recognized that being alien might well mean being incomprehensible.

Yeah, whatever we expect, reality will surprise us-- and likely leave us with more questions than answers. When Clarke died, I wrote a short story in his style as an homage and that's the theme I used.

Yeah, I concur with Christopher. Just getting a relatively brief glimpse of the Raman artifact is the whole point. The point of the last line of the book is....

Spoiler: The point of the last line of the book

There will be two more chances to learn more. And, being forewarned, missions can be prepared and ready to take full advantage of the brief opportunities.

Spoiler: But....

Maybe. What if the one they explored was the third?

Even as a teenager I remember thinking that was pretty stupid.

Even as a 50 year old, it's something I would dearly love to see.

Oh, and I originally read the book when it was serialized in the late, lamented Galaxy magazine. I was very lucky to get the first part because the next issue came out just a couple of days later. I still have those issues-- not replacements, but the actual copies I bought at McGraw's in Columbian Square:

 

[Candlelight]

it's been a while since I read it, but I remember being very bored by it and finding it very slow. The only good scenes were the council ones back on Earth. The scenes on the ship were just variations of long descriptions of things-"there was a gold sink on the wall" sort of stuff.

as others have said, the lack of characterization makes it a very cold and distant feeling book.

Completely the opposite. The council stuff was dull and distracted from the exploration of Rama. I felt the ship should've had a couple of scientists on board so the council scenes could've been dropped completely and the entire book set on Rama.

The politics was dull, and should've been dropped completely, save for the Mercury bit.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, I concur with Christopher. Just getting a relatively brief glimpse of the Raman artifact is the whole point. The point of the last line of the book is....

Spoiler: The point of the last line of the book

There will be two more chances to learn more. And, being forewarned, missions can be prepared and ready to take full advantage of the brief opportunities.

Spoiler: But....

Maybe. What if the one they explored was the third?

Well, yeah, there's that, which is actually possible. But I don't think that's what we're supposed to think....

Spoiler: oh, that RJ

.... given the context, of someone who's had a revelation. Plus, this is set in the 22nd Century, so you'd have to believe that there is a sizable time gap between the world ships for them to have already gone by unseen.

The larger the time gap, the less able the ships would be able to act as tactical reinforcements for each other, and so the less apt it would be to describe them as being together in a set of three.

 

[sonak]

it's been a while since I read it, but I remember being very bored by it and finding it very slow. The only good scenes were the council ones back on Earth. The scenes on the ship were just variations of long descriptions of things-"there was a gold sink on the wall" sort of stuff.

as others have said, the lack of characterization makes it a very cold and distant feeling book.

Completely the opposite. The council stuff was dull and distracted from the exploration of Rama. I felt the ship should've had a couple of scientists on board so the council scenes could've been dropped completely and the entire book set on Rama.

The politics was dull, and should've been dropped completely, save for the Mercury bit.

that's funny. That's what I like about discussing books, movies, etc.-two people, looking at the same thing, opposite conclusions

 

[Candlelight]

it's been a while since I read it, but I remember being very bored by it and finding it very slow. The only good scenes were the council ones back on Earth. The scenes on the ship were just variations of long descriptions of things-"there was a gold sink on the wall" sort of stuff.

as others have said, the lack of characterization makes it a very cold and distant feeling book.

Completely the opposite. The council stuff was dull and distracted from the exploration of Rama. I felt the ship should've had a couple of scientists on board so the council scenes could've been dropped completely and the entire book set on Rama.

The politics was dull, and should've been dropped completely, save for the Mercury bit.

that's funny. That's what I like about discussing books, movies, etc.-two people, looking at the same thing, opposite conclusions

Agreed, we should write a book together.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Yeah, I concur with Christopher. Just getting a relatively brief glimpse of the Raman artifact is the whole point. The point of the last line of the book is....

Spoiler: The point of the last line of the book

There will be two more chances to learn more. And, being forewarned, missions can be prepared and ready to take full advantage of the brief opportunities.

Spoiler: But....

Maybe. What if the one they explored was the third?

Well, yeah, there's that, which is actually possible. But I don't think that's what we're supposed to think....

Spoiler: oh, that RJ

.... given the context, of someone who's had a revelation. Plus, this is set in the 22nd Century, so you'd have to believe that there is a sizable time gap between the world ships for them to have already gone by unseen.

The larger the time gap, the less able the ships would be able to act as tactical reinforcements for each other, and so the less apt it would be to describe them as being together in a set of three.

Spoiler: Heh

Well, the Ramans clearly think big, so it wouldn't be unlikely for them to think in the long term. A century may not be a big gap for them. I once wrote a story-- a bit of a pastiche-- where an astronomer is able to find evidence of the previous two Ramas in historical Hubble photos using advanced data analysis software. Of course, this is just a bit of cleverness. In the context of the book, we were clearly meant to think that more were coming.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Spoiler: Press the button

Well, the Ramans clearly think big, so it wouldn't be unlikely for them to think in the long term. A century may not be a big gap for them.

I agree; and in Rama II, the gap between the first two cylinders is 70 years, according to Wikipedia.

My point is simply that the longer the gap, the more the unexpected can intervene and upset the connection between members of the set.

I may start to sing a different tune. All this discussion is making me curious to crack Rama II. How can I remain a stick in the mud, with all this interesting discussion raising my interest?

 

[Christopher]

^Well, the problem (one of the problems, IMHO) with planning to read Rama II is that it doesn't tell a complete story. The Gentry Lee sequels are the kind of "trilogy" that's actually just one really, really long book arbitrarily hacked into thirds. Neither of the first two volumes has anything I'd consider an ending. That was one of the things that frustrated me about them and made me give up after two volumes, because I read them when they first came out and it was annoying to have a book just suddenly stop with no sense of resolution and know I'd have to wait a year or two for it to pick up again. I guess it wouldn't be so bad now that you can get all three at once and read them back to back, but if you want a complete story, you'll need to commit to reading all three books. You can't just sample the first one and expect any kind of resolution or fulfillment.

I had the same problem with Timothy Zahn's Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy, and on that one as well I lost interest after the second volume. Thanks to those two reading experiences, I resolved that if I ever wrote a trilogy, each installment would tell a complete story in itself, or at the very least, I'd make sure the story logically divided into three distinct phases so that each volume had some degree of resolution. In fact, by strict definition, that's what a trilogy is: three distinct stories that are unified by a larger arc or theme. If it's just one story sliced into three pieces based only on length rather than content, that's not really a trilogy, just a three-volume novel.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I slogged it through to the end of the Gentry Lee trilogy - it wasn't worth it.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Spoiler: Press the button

Well, the Ramans clearly think big, so it wouldn't be unlikely for them to think in the long term. A century may not be a big gap for them.

I agree; and in Rama II, the gap between the first two cylinders is 70 years, according to Wikipedia.

My point is simply that the longer the gap, the more the unexpected can intervene and upset the connection between members of the set.

I may start to sing a different tune. All this discussion is making me curious to crack Rama II. How can I remain a stick in the mud, with all this interesting discussion raising my interest?

Spoiler: Threes...

Well, if the purpose of doing everything in threes was redundancy, then there wouldn't be a direct connection and 50-100 years would be a comfortable margin.

As for the sequels, I look at them the same way that I look at the Second Foundation Trilogy: Very disappointing as a sequel to a classic, but full of good ideas that should have been done as an original concept. If nothing else, it's got some really cool aliens. And Nicole des Jardins is a great character.

 

[Candlelight]

I managed about half way through Rama II but the characters got in the way of the real star of the book (and I think Lee missed the point about that) that I stopped reading.

From what I hear I didn't miss much.

 

[Harvey]

Like I said before, I think the videogame adaption of RAMA II is more interesting than the actual book, and features far less of the character stuff that doesn't work. It's been a while since I've played it, though. I do remember that it features one of the hardest puzzles I've ever encountered in a game, forcing me to do base-8 math, which was pretty hard as a pre-teen.