Rendezvous With Rama

Arthur C. Clarke

Mar 2012 · S.F. MASTERWORKS Book 65 · Hachette UK

About this ebook

The multi-award-winning SF masterpiece from one of the greatest SF writers of all time

Rama is a vast alien spacecraft that enters the Solar System. A perfect cylinder some fifty kilometres long, spinning rapidly, racing through space, Rama is a technological marvel, a mysterious and deeply enigmatic alien artefact.

It is Mankind's first visitor from the stars and must be investigated ...

Winner of the HUGO AWARD for best novel, 1974
Winner of the NEBULA AWARD for best novel, 1973
Winner of the JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD for best novel, 1974
Winner of the BSFA AWARD for best novel, 1973

Ratings and reviews

The book is a good read, with some thoughtful climaxes and believable human reactions. The story benefits from some imaginative proper 'science fiction' and is paced well. It does however lack any real development of characters and of course is set up as a deliberate lead onto further novels (which I am not so inclined to dive into). I would recommend reading this however, as it grasps some original scientific themes and delivers on imagery.

This book doles out its mysteries at a precisely maintained rate, so as to keep you satisfied during its short read, but always wanting more. The science checks out. If you are looking for deep, well constructed characters, you will not find them here - the only star of this story is Rama itself.

Some predictions of tech in 2077 are obviously wrong, the book being written in the seventies, but it remains an excellent book, definitely worth reading! A classic!

About the author

Arthur C. Clarke was born in Minehead in 1917. During the Second World War he served as a radar instructor for the RAF, rising to the rank of flight-lieutenant. After the war, he entered King's college, London taking, in 1948, his Bsc in physics and mathematics with first class honours.One of the most respected of all science-fiction writers, he has won Kalinga Prize, the Aviation Space-Writers Prize and the Westinghouse Science Writing Prize. He also shared an Oscar nomination with Stanley Kubrick for the screenplay of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was based on his story, The Sentinel. He has lived in Sri Lanka since 1956.