Rendezvous with Rama
by Arthur C. Clarke
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Book Summary Information
Author: Arthur C. ClarkeEdition: Hardcover
Published: 1973
ISBN: N/A
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc
Book Reviews of Rendezvous with Rama
Book Review: One of the ten best science fiction novels of all time
Summary: 5 Stars
In this book, Arthur Clarke set the bar for the unknown alien probe story very high. The setting is that humans have settled Mercury, Luna, Mars, some asteroids, and some Jovian and Saturnian moons. Each group sends an Ambassador to the United Planets, which meets on Earth's moon. Suddenly, an enormous cylindrical space ship enters the solar system and appears completely passive; it is named Rama as that is the next name in the nomenclature sequence.
Commander Norton commands the only space ship capable of docking with Rama, so he is ordered to investigate. What he finds is amazing, yet puzzling. He encounters an alien technology that is baffling, yet they find it fairly easy to understand some of what it does. The crewmembers explore Rama, finding their greatest problem to be coping with the sheer size of the vessel.
While the description of the alien probe is fascinating, nobody does the scientific details better than Clarke, the best aspects of the book are the descriptions of the interplanetary political situation and the general human reaction to the appearance of an alien artifact. While Clarke's descriptions of the political tensions between the various human political groups are disquieting, they are also clearly realistic. Humans find significant differences developing when groups live in different areas of Earth, it is clear that those differences will be even greater when groups live on different planets. Furthermore, conclusive proof that extraterrestrial intelligence exists will have a dramatic effect on how humans view the universe.
Like many of Clarke's other stories, the ending is ambiguous, which is why I consider him the thinking person's science fiction writer. This is clearly one of the ten best science fiction novels of all time.
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