Customer Reviews
Good premise, unsatisfying ending - By: John M, 30 Sep 2008 
The idea behind the story is good, but ultimately fails to deliver. There is lots of suspense & 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 - By: Melmoth, 21 Aug 2008 
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 goin through this opening, crank the cylinder round a hundred & eighty degrees - & the slot then matches up with another door so that you can step out of it"?
Clarke's descriptions also tend towards the cold & analytical. Metaphor & simile have little or no placein 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 & his gift for fast-paced plot. The worlds & technologies he describes may be strange & 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 & 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 & - possibly - to destroy it before it becomes a threat. Though predictablein form and, frankly, dullin 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. - By: sinjinn, 11 Apr 2008 i just finishd rading this book to gt to the nd. the story has a sns of wondr & supense about it which carries towards the end.
however ,thd charachtersin the book are a great let down . they seem to be two dimensional & never act out of type.
as such it seems like only half a story which boils down to "look how amazing & wonderful this strange land is" & that is about all there is to it.
fab - By: Curlet Lousararian, 06 Mar 2008 
arthur c. clarke is a fantastic auther. his ideas & storeys are amazing. this is no exception. A giant object is spotted & a team are sentin to investigate. the firstin the series worth a read for sci-fi & none sci-fi fans.
It still evokes that Sensawonder - By: Rod Williams, 13 Feb 2008 A giant cylinder is spotted entering the Solar System & a team of astronauts is sent out to investigate.
The cylinder is unfeasibly vast & (it is discovered) hollow with gravity on the inside of the cylinder produced by centrifugal force. The interior surface is lit by enormous lamps, covered with a variegated landscape & dividedin two by a band of sea which existsin a circle around the inside.
Perhaps Clarke's best work, this succeeds (as did Niven's `Ringworld') by its sheer lack of explanation. In fact, the entire novel is,in some ways, an exercisein minimalist adventure, since despite the excitement of the exploration itself & having to rescue a crewmember who becomes stranded on the other side of the central sea, nothing really happens.
One cannot help, however, still being awed by Clarke's depiction of this magnificently vast alien mystery which appearsin our Solar System & allows us inside her enormous shell before shortly afterward disappearing.
Again, like Niven's Ringworld, the novel was later lessened by inferior sequels (writtenin this casein collaboration) & which gradually eroded the awe & mystery which was an integral part of the original books. If you haven't read the Rama sequels you'd be best advised not to bother. The writing is far inferior to Clarke at his best & one suspects that his literary input was minimal.
However, getting back to the original, this is a novel which well deserves the title `classic' & still manages to evoke a sense of wonder set against a background of a universe vast & ultimately unknowable.
