Nonsensical soap opera in spaceRama II is the sequel to Arthur C. Clarke’s science fiction novel Rendezvous with Rama. While Rendezvous was written solely by Clarke, Rama II was written collaboratively with Gentry Lee, an engineer who headed several unmanned space missions for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, including robotic probes and rovers sent to Mars, Jupiter, and visiting comets. Rama II was published in 1989, 16 years after Rendezvous with Rama. The story of Rama II, however, begins in the year 2200, about 70 years after the events of the previous novel. This second installment, therefore, features all new characters, but frequent mention is made of the Rama mission from the first novel.
Rama and Rama II are the names given to two nearly identical spacecraft that have entered our solar system from parts unknown. Clearly created by an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization (referred to by default as the Ramans), the two craft are enormous cylinders 50 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide, filled with mysterious machinery, an atmosphere, and even a large body of water. The first Rama was discovered to be uninhabited by intelligent life, though occupied by maintenance robots with biological components, referred to as biots. Earth is better prepared for the second visit in 2200. An international crew of 12 cosmonauts, comprised of scientific and military personnel is sent to intercept Rama II as it passes through our solar system. Whether the Ramans will actually be found present on this second craft is anybody’s guess, but at the very least this team of explorers hopes to capture one of the biots and bring it back to Earth for study.
I read the first Rama book because I was intrigued by the premise. I was unfamiliar with Clarke’s writing and new him by reputation only. I found Rendezvous with Rama, however, to be quite disappointing. When Rama II was offered at a discount price, I decided to give Clarke the benefit of the doubt in hopes that the second installment would prove better than the first, but alas, Rama II is drastically worse than its predecessor. The problem with Rendezvous is that it was far too techy. Clarke spent most of the book exploring the physics of a cylindrical spacecraft, with very room left for consideration of the alien intelligence behind it. You would think that the addition of Gentry Lee, a spacecraft engineer, would result in a “hard” sci-fi book that’s bogged down even further in technobabble, but no, with Rama II, the exact opposite is true. This book reads like a fantasy novel written for children.
All sorts of bizarre happenings occur on this new Rama, with no rhyme or reason to any of it. The cosmonauts end up in all sorts of tunnels with weird creatures popping out of them. Nothing is really learned from any of the random happenings that occur. Meanwhile, the crew members conduct themselves with all the maturity and intelligence of a bunch of teenagers. There are all sorts of melodramatic subplots going on that would better belong in a soap opera or an Agatha Christie novel: love affairs, petty jealousies, a murder mystery, pointless dream sequences with African mysticism, a bunch of useless Shakespeare references. And every character gets his or her own terrible back story. The female lead reminisces about a love affair she once had with . . . the king of England. Totally unnecessary.
Although Clarke may be one of science fiction’s most acclaimed futurists, the technology employed by these astronauts of 2200 isn’t much more advanced than devices we all now use at home every day. I can only assume that Clarke’s Odyssey series (2001, 2010, etc.) is far superior to his Rama books, otherwise why would he be so famous and critically acclaimed? Clarke and Lee’s Rama II, on the other hand, leaves the reader wondering, what the hell were they thinking?
Everything you’d want to know about living in a cylinderArthur C. Clarke’s novel Rendezvous with Rama was first published in 1973, and it won just about every major science fiction award for that year. It was Clarke’s first published novel after the book and film combo of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rendezvous with Rama is unrelated to the 2001 series, but it likewise tells a story of mankind’s first encounter with an alien intelligence.
The novel begins in the year 2131. By that time, mankind has established colonies on several planets and moons in the solar system. The government of Earth has also developed a system to track the trajectories of asteroids that may potentially impact with Earth or its colonies. (We now have the beginnings of such a warning system, but none existed when Clarke wrote the book in the ‘70s.) The Spaceguard system detects an unusual object heading toward the inner solar system. This celestial body is named Rama, after a Hindu deity. A calculation of Rama’s trajectory indicates that it has come from outside our solar system—a true interstellar visitor. Scientists deem Rama worthy of investigation and divert an existing unmanned space probe to perform a flyby. The first photos taken by the probe reveal that Rama is more than just an unusual asteroid. It is a rotating cylinder, fifty kilometers long and twenty kilometers in diameter, so geometrically perfect it could only have been created by an advanced intelligent civilization.
The nearest manned spacecraft, the Endeavour, is sent to investigate. The crew only has a short period of time to examine Rama before its course takes it out of our solar system. Landing on one of the flat ends of the cylinder, the crew finds an entrance to the spacecraft and proceeds to explore its interior. Though technologically advanced, Rama appears to be uninhabited, but the expedition nevertheless searches for archaeological evidence of the spacecraft’s creators.
The problem with Rendezvous with Rama is that it never really lives up to its philosophical potential. This isn’t really so much a novel about what it would be like to find evidence of an intelligent alien civilization. The bulk of the book is just Clarke describing what it would be like to live inside a giant rotating cylinder—the gravity, the climate, the atmosphere, the logistics of getting around, and so on. For example, there are three or four chapters devoted entirely to descriptions of staircases and the astronauts’ challenges in traversing them. Is that really necessary? And is that really what anyone is hoping for when they pick up a book like this? Clarke is so obsessed with the physics of this cylindrical spaceship that the idea of alien intelligence or extraterrestrial archaeology doesn’t seem to hold much interest for him.
Mankind underwent a Rendezvous with Rama moment in 2017, when an interstellar object with unusual characteristics, dubbed ‘Oumuamua, was discovered in our solar system. Rather than a cylinder, it was shaped more like a pancake. This is not the year 2131, however, and we don’t have a surplus of spacecraft out studying the solar system, so we’ll never know for sure if ‘Oumuamua could have been our Rama. The opening chapters of Rendezvous with Rama provide a commendably realistic look at how the process of investigating an interstellar craft might actually proceed. As the novel goes on, however, it starts to dilute its realism by accumulating sci-fi novel cliches, like the captain’s space romance with a buxom female scientist and an act of war between feuding planets. Such tropes prevent the novel from being entirely satisfying, but there is still enough interesting, serious science in Rendezvous with Rama to make it well worth reading.
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