Customer Reviews

Rama II

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(23)
1 star:		(59)

 

 

Look, I can understand why you'd want to read this book. "Rendezvous With Rama" was a gem of a science fiction book. Maybe it was a little short on character development, but with such a wonderful world to explore, who cares? Around every corner of the exploration were wonders... flights over a cylindrical sea, biots, mile-long stairways... Wasn't it great? Didn't you feel like you were reading the journals of explorers who themselves felt like ants in a cathedral? Didn't the whole book just blow your mind?

Well you WON'T find any of those virtues in this book or any of the sequale that follow.

Gentry Lee seems to have been given the seemingly impossible task of making RAMA--a space-bourn Grand Canyob-sized artifact of an alien culture--a boring place. What's his secret? He filled Rama with insipid caricatures straight from a 20th century soap opera.

Remember that heroic group from the first book that pulled together in the face of catastrophe? Gone! Rama II and it's sequals leave us with short-sighted bureaucrats, beautiful-but-power-mad Italian women, impossibly altruistic scientists, amoral lawyers, American corporate types who want to use Raman technology to create new weapons (boy, that's not cliche!), cowboy presidents, the pope, African-American gangsters, chess-playing Russians, oversexed teens, murderously jealous lovers, and a computer geek who overcomes his social ineptness to save the day and win the girl (Gentry Lee, not surprisingly, is a computer guy).

Maybe Clarke and Lee were worried that Commander Norton and his crew were all cut from the same "noble scientist" cloth that many of Clarke's characters use. If so, they overcompensated drastically. A spear-toting Eskimo or a peg-legged pirate wouldn't seem out of place in this group, but an intelligently written character would.

Most of the gaggle of Knots Landing rejects don't care at all about Rama II and since the book focuses on their bickering, their pregnancies, and their murders, neither will you.

After this one the books actually get worse. And by the time the Ramans reveal themself you (and conincidentally enough, many of the characters) are completly indifferent.

If you've read "Rendezvous with Rama" and haven't read this book yet, then please please PLEASE don't read it!

You'll be sorry you did.

Why, oh why, did he have to take such a jewel of the storyteller's art and drown it in such dreck? This sequel is brutally bad. It is worse than bad. It is a betrayal.

If Rendezvous With Rama is the high point in Clarke's career, then this sequel is most certainly his nadir. It sacrifices everything that makes its progenitor such a classic. The mystery and inspiration of the Ramans are turned into a cheap stage prop for an episode of Survivor. We are treated to the Roman spectacle of a bunch of worthless misfits, each conniving to remain the last one standing. We neither know nor care about their fate. Halfway through, I found myself praying that the Ramans would just show up and ray the lot of them.

To understand how bad this novel really is, one must understand why the original is so good.

The best science fiction gives us something no other genre can: a cosmic perspective that is vastly greater than the merely human. In offering this, it teaches us valuable lessons like humility, tolerance and understanding. And it teaches us these things not at the personal level, but at the universal one. For example, suppose we meet an alien species that is nobler than we. Nobler in every way and in every detail. In art, science, philosophy, morality. What if, due to some cosmic calamity, only one race could survive? Should it be the alien's or ours? Is there a higher cosmic ethic than survival of our species?

This is just a poor approximation to the kinds of reflections that good science fiction can provoke; yet it gives you a sense of the thoughts that the original novel stirred. Such a book cleaves to your heart and to your mind and just won't let go.

Now, take this theme and trivialise it. Consider instead a supermodel who is prettier than we. Prettier in every way and in every detail. In hair, shape, flounce and pout. What if, due to some catering disaster, only one of us could enter the pageant? Should it be the supermodel or we? Is there a higher standard of display appeal than that of the runway?

My analogy may sound like a caricature, but it is not. The trivialisation that occurs in Rama 2 is exactly of the kind that I have expounded. We go from contemplating the majesty of the cosmos to wallowing in the pettiness of twits.

It is no good pretending that this travesty is not the work of Clarke; that it is Gentry Lee's fault. Mr. Clarke has a duty to defend the integrity of his visions. By putting his name to trash, he implicitly if not explicitly participates in the destruction of what is magnificent. Avoid this sequel like a case of herpes. It will do nothing but destroy whatever mystery and intelligent reflection as made the first book so sublime.

...

The original book in this series was very good-close to a classic. One of the few criticisms one could make of it was it was so transparently commercially manipulative was clear more books were on the way and this was as much--if not more--a money making exercise as an artistic one. But the book was good and this trilogy thing has apparently become a (bad) habit in the sci-fi world, so you give people a little leeway.

Or I did till this monstrosity came out.

If you read the first book then read this one, one thing is brutally clear-the books were written by different people. Clearly this book should have read "By Gentry Lee, based on the ideas of Arthur C. Clark.

The book is awful-the worst sort of 4th rate pulp sci-fi fiction. Sex and sensationalism replace sci-fi as the driving force of the book. It advances the readers understanding of the Raman'-their form, ideas, intentions, etc.--not one whit. It's even a lousy read if you never had exposure to the first novel and were clueless about the whole Rama concept.

It's sad to see a giant of the genre sell out but I can think of no other explanation for this abomination.

Save your money...

"Rendezvous With Rama," the first novel in this series, is one of the all-time classics of science fiction, brilliantly capturing the exhilaration of discovery. "Rama II" rivals "Exorcist II: The Heretic" as perhaps the worst sequel ever. It is a bloated windbag of a book that manages to be both pretentious and trivial.

Clarke, who was about as religious as Madalyn O'Hair, somehow let himself be talked into attaching his name to this preachy soap opera, whose climactic sequence features an outer-space baptism. Think of an especially long and tedious episode of "Melrose Place" with Jerry Falwell as a guest star and you'll have a pretty good idea of this travesty.

At some point in the last 10-15 years it became fashionable for well-known and somewhat less well-known authors to co-write novels.

I can only speak for sci-fi novels because that's what I primarily read but, BAD IDEA!

I routinely leave novels untouched on the bookstore shelves when I see they have been co-authored. Nothing done by a committee, even a committee of two, is EVER as good as the original thought and personality of a single great author.

In this case the great author is Clarke. Why oh why, did he ever agree to this (please tell me he was not blinded by the almighty Dollar - or in this case the almighty Rupee). It would have been better if it had never been written!

I tried reading and skimming, and reading a few lines from each paragraph, and turning pages hoping it would kick in, but it just continued to wallow in it's own mire.

I stopped dead reading the book at Chapter 5, first paragraph, when I came across this line: "The catalyst for the relatively rapid collapse of the existing institutional infrastructure was the market crash and subsequent breakdown of the global financial system; however, these events would not have been sufficient, by themselves, to......" On and on, Blah, Blah, Blah. Gentry Lee would be hired instantly for a job writing federal government publications.

Does this even remotely come close to the tight, succinct writing in Rendezvous with Rama? (albeit short on characterization - but, WHO CARES when it's Clarke)

It's sad, very very sad. I wanted so badly to read more Rama. Instead I get Rama-dama-ding-dong.

Clarke states in this book's introduction: "I filled floppy disks (for Gentry Lee) with concepts, characters, backgrounds, plots - anything which seemed even remotely useful to the story.... " They collaborated by making frequent phone calls, says Clarke. I'd say they had a really... bad.... connection.... and/or the floppies got corrupted in transit.

Please, please do not read this book - you'll hate yourself afterward for the wasted time. I know you want to experience more Rama, but this is not the way. Wait a few years and re-read Rendezvous.

Sequels often do not live up to the standards of a first tale. Rama II is a disappointing follow-on the the brilliant and insightful Rendezvous with Rama. Don't be fooled by the co-authorship, the book is pure Gentry Lee with ideas from ACC. The writing style is the first tip-off, not ACC's terse Spartan-like prose but long-winded rhetoric and convoluted narrative. The entire plot line goes like a very bad soaper: everyone of the characters (a) has secrets; (b) is emotionally unstable; or (c) has major psychological neuroses. In reality, none of the voyagers sent to meet the second Rama ship would ever be allowed off the ground -- so deep are their problems. The leading villainess, Francesca Sabatini, is like every lousy tabloid journalist combined. No explanation of how this bizarre crew was selected. None follows safety protocols, reporting procedures, or chain of command -- amazing anyone gets past the first 150 pages. The author(s) pull out every hackneyed cliche and the culminating plot-line will look familiar to any fan of B-movies. Earth seems to have only one way of dealing with alien species, show how powerful the defence arsenal can be. But the authors will drag this sorry tale out for two more volumes. Individuals who see much in the Lee-ACC trilogy have very low standards, indeed.

Look, I can understand why you'd want to read this book. Rendezvous With Rama was a gem. Maybe a little short on character development, but with such a wonderful world to explore, who cares? Around every corner of the exploration were wonders... flights over a cylindrical sea, biots, mile-long stairways... Wasn't it great? Didn't you feel like you were reading the journals of explorers who themselves felt like ants in a cathedral? Didn't the whole book just blow your mind?

Well you won't find any of those virtues in this book or any of the sequale that follow.

Want to make Rama a boring place? All you have to do is fill it with insipid caricatures; each one of them straight from a 20th century soap opera. Remember that heroic group from the first book that pulled together in the face of catastrophe? They're gone. Rama II and it's sequals leave us with short-sighted bureaucrats, beautiful-but-power-mad women (Italian of course), impossibly altruistic scientists, amoral lawyers, corporate types (American of course) who want to use Raman technology to create new weapons, cowboy presidents, the pope, gangsters (African-American of course), chess-playing Russians, oversexed teens, murderously jealous lovers, and a computer geek who overcomes his social ineptness to save the day and win the girl (guess what! Gentry Lee is a computer guy).

Maybe Clarke and Lee were worried that Commander Norton and his crew were all cut from the same "noble scientist" cloth that many of Clarke's characters use. If so, they overcompensated drastically. A spear-toting Eskimo or a peg-legged pirate wouldn't seem out of place in this group, but an intelligently written character would.

Most of the gaggle of Knots Landing rejects don't care at all about Rama II (the second spaceship that shows up 70 years after the first one) and since the book focuses on their bickering, their pregnancies, and their murders, neither will you.

After this one the books actually get worse. And by the time the Ramans reveal themself you (and conincidentally enough, many of the characters) are completly indifferent.

If you've read "Rendezvous with Rama" and haven't read this book yet, then don't. You'll be sorry you did.

This book is a mess. If you read RAMA you should avoid this book. Gentry Lee has the skill of a third rate romance writer. He plops in all the drama of a TV soap opera with abandon. How much did Arthur Clarke had to do with this? Who can say but not much since all that made RAMA such a good and interesting book is gone. Silly one dimensional people populate the book and keep doing cringe worthy things thorough. They would seem to be more at home on a NBC movie of the week then in a book like this. I was disappointed that someone could take a simple and classic book like RAMA and mess it up so badly. A shame really.

The longer I think about this book, the dumber I get. The first book (RWR) is a gem; fascinating, innovative, succinct, and it brings to life one of the better sci-fi characters I've come across: a gargantuan spaceship, revealed in fascinating, intricate detail.

RWR opened so many doors and left so many interesting questions unanswered that I was utterly astonished to discover that there exists someone so enfeebled (Gentry Lee) as to be able to write a RWR sequel that isn't even remotely interesting. Who made Rama? Where did it come from? What is its course? What are the cities? Are the biots the Ramans? No progress is made on these questions in all gazillion pages.

Undertake this book only with a moistened thumb at the ready, because you'll be applying it while skipping through page after page of "character development" that would make Judy Blume readers recoil in disappointment if their hearts hadn't already stopped beating from sheer disintrest. Be prepared to wade through several chapters of religionist thought[provoking bull] between the "action sequences", not something many A.C.C. readers look forward to.

Estimated total number of pages related to the exposition of Rama itself: 30/500+
Number of those presenting new information: 6
Number of pointless subplots: 27
Number of those resolved in the book: uhhh... 1? thankfully.
Transparent villains: 3

Just in case you see light at the end of the tunnel, the ending is even dumber. The only reason I finished it was because I just couldn't believe it. And from what I hear, this is the high water mark of the Gentry Lee sequels.

Shampoo ingredients make for a more interesting (and scientific) read than this book.

Someone once said that sci-fi novels cannot be judged by the same standards as other fiction because in sci-fi, the setting itself often supplies the motivating force behind the text. Perhaps this is what made Rendezvous with Rama so interesting. Sure the character development was non-existent, but you didn't care - Rendezvous was ABOUT Rama. Is it presumptuous to anticipate a sequel to be the same?

It appears so.

All the eerie weirdness of the first book, along with its concise, if not bland style, is gone. Forgettable characters have become the focus. Those reviewers who have described this book as a soap opera are not being overly harsh in their criticism. Although I do not know the full extent of Lee's influence in writing this book, he appears to have written the whole thing, simply using Clarke's ideas as a backdrop for his uninteresting and painfully contemporary characters.

I want my money back.