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Rama #3
El jardín de Rama
En el año 2130 una misteriosa nave espacial llega al sistema solar. Se trata de Rama, un aparato colosal de cincuenta kilómetros de diámetro, capaz de acoger en su interior una ciudad y un mar. Desierta y aparentemente abandonada, Rama parte hacia su siguiente y desconocido destino. Los humanos han descubierto muchas de sus maravillas, pero no han resuelto los muchos misterios que alberga esa nave. Sólo tienen una cosa clara: los constructores de ese mastodonte lo hacían todo por triplicado. Hoy, ochenta años después de esa aparición, ha llegado una segunda nave alienígena y Rama se está saliendo del sistema solar. Los tres seres humanos que permanecen a bordo viven el momento con profunda incertidumbre. Pero quizás sea en esas circunstancias cuando descubran la verdad sobre Rama.
704 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1991
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8243 people want to read
About the author
Arthur C. Clarke
1,653 books11.6k followersStories, works of noted British writer, scientist, and underwater explorer Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, include
2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968).
This most important and influential figure in 20th century fiction spent the first half of his life in England and served in World War II as a radar operator before migrating to Ceylon in 1956. He co-created his best known novel and movie with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.
Clarke, a graduate of King's College, London, obtained first class honours in physics and mathematics. He served as past chairman of the interplanetary society and as a member of the academy of astronautics, the royal astronomical society, and many other organizations.
He authored more than fifty books and won his numerous awards: the Kalinga prize of 1961, the American association for the advancement Westinghouse prize, the Bradford Washburn award, and the John W. Campbell award for his novel Rendezvous with Rama. Clarke also won the nebula award of the fiction of America in 1972, 1974 and 1979, the Hugo award of the world fiction convention in 1974 and 1980. In 1986, he stood as grand master of the fiction of America. The queen knighted him as the commander of the British Empire in 1989.
This most important and influential figure in 20th century fiction spent the first half of his life in England and served in World War II as a radar operator before migrating to Ceylon in 1956. He co-created his best known novel and movie with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.
Clarke, a graduate of King's College, London, obtained first class honours in physics and mathematics. He served as past chairman of the interplanetary society and as a member of the academy of astronautics, the royal astronomical society, and many other organizations.
He authored more than fifty books and won his numerous awards: the Kalinga prize of 1961, the American association for the advancement Westinghouse prize, the Bradford Washburn award, and the John W. Campbell award for his novel Rendezvous with Rama. Clarke also won the nebula award of the fiction of America in 1972, 1974 and 1979, the Hugo award of the world fiction convention in 1974 and 1980. In 1986, he stood as grand master of the fiction of America. The queen knighted him as the commander of the British Empire in 1989.
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March 2, 2011
There's a scene towards the end of the sixth Harry Potter book where Harry and Dumbledore find a small basin of water with a much-needed magical item at the bottom of it. The water is cursed, though, and they can't simply reach in and grab the item, nor scoop out the water; the water has to be drunk in its totality before the item can be attained. And you just know that water's going to taste bad. Think the purified essence of a thousand Domino's pizzas and then multiply that by three. Yes, that bad. Anyway, Dumbledore realises what has to be done and makes Harry promise to keep feeding him the water, glass by painful glass, and not to stop no matter what happens. Well sure enough it gets unpleasant, immediately they start Dumbledore starts begging Harry to stop, weeping and ranting; Harry meanwhile pleads, cajoles, and lies to his headmaster in order to get him to drink one more glass, one more glass, one more glass. Reading The Garden of Rama is pretty much like that: I'd promised myself I was going to finish the Rama series and so had to get through this book, and so I persevered through it all, shovelling page after page of toxic drivel down my throat no matter how bad it got.
I'm afraid this review isn't going to have much structure or narrative flow. There were too many things wrong with the book to make this anything more than a long list of free flowing criticisms. Besides, the book didn't bother having any structure or narrative flow so feel free to pretend that my review itself is some kind of meta-criticism if you like.
Where to start? Well, the title makes no sense for one. In Rendezvous with Rama the main characters rendezvoused with a spacecraft dubbed Rama. In Rama II an identical looking spacecraft, dubbed Rama II, came to the solar system to be investigated. And in Rama Revealed I assume the secrets of the whole Rama thing will be, well, revealed (although see below). So then, this book must be about some great big vegetable patch in the spacecraft, right? Alas not. A settlement built within the ship is christened New Eden, and they have plants and stuff there, but that's pretty much the only relation to any garden in the book. Maybe this first criticism is overly pedantic, but it seems the choice of title here was either overly mundane or meaningless.
Next on my gripe list is the acknowledgements section (yes, we haven't made it to page one yet). Gentry Lee thanks his wife for "conversations about the nature of the female" since the book is primarily told from Nicole Wakefield's perspective. Indeed the first part of the book is told as excerpts from her journal. So does Gentry Lee manage to transcend sex differences in this journal section? Do his wife's suggestions seamlessly meld into a convincing catalogue of thoughts from a woman trapped in an alien environment and getting pregnant left, right, and centre? No. No, no, and no. Instead we get utterly bog-standard first person prose, except every ten pages or so there will be a cringe inducing paragraph along the lines of "So my husband didn't put the toilet seat down today. What is it with men and not doing that? Huh? As a woman it really gets my goat. You know what I'm talking about ladies, oh yes." I've no doubt Mrs Lee gave her husband numerous insights into "the nature of the female" but he hasn't used them to make a believable character, he's just shoehorned a few of these bad stand-up routines into the main text.
And while we're talking about the believability of our esteemed protagonist Nicole, let me ask you a question, dear reader. If you had to start the human civilisation again from scratch, how many people do you think you'd need to ensure enough genetic diversity to make the new civilisation tenable? I seem to recall a figure mentioned in The Matrix Reloaded for the number of humans needed to rebuild Zion is twenty three. Stephen Baxter makes this a big plot point at the end of Ark and agonises that forty six people with maximal genetic variation might just be okay. A quick straw poll amongst my friends with backgrounds in the biological sciences reckoned that quite a bit more than that would be needed. There's evidence that the human population fell to less than 15 000 once, and that maybe 500-1000 humans could breed their way away from extinction. So, with all that in mind, how many people does Dr Nicole des Jardins Wakefield, hero of Garden of Rama, think are necessary to breed their way out of trouble? Fifteen thousand, like the actual human population after the Toba eruption? Maybe one thousand, which some research suggests is a safe minimum? Perhaps only one hundred and sixty as determined by American anthropologist John Moore? Or only one hundred, as suggested by my biology friends after three glasses of wine and two minutes to think about the problem? Maybe Baxter was right with forty six, or the Wachowski brothers with twenty three? Well, Dr Nicole, what's your answer?
I'm sorry, what? There are three adults on Rama at the start of the book — two men and one woman. Nicole and her husband Richard have two daughters at which point Nicole starts wondering about how her daughters are going to continue the species. Clearly they need a man, preferably one each. So, she decides, she needs to pop out a couple of sons. Luckily, though, "one of [her] major areas of specialty during [her] medical training was genetics, especially hereditary defects." Phew! Looks like she'll realise the futility of all this and stop dooming all these kids to a lonely future in space. But no! There's more. At this point of the book Nicole is 41 years old and worries how many more babies she can have. She decides she has to have a son and preferably with Michael, the other guy on Rama with her. So then the next generation will consist of two girls and a guy, all of them either half- or full-siblings. And obviously that's a genetically viable group if ever I saw one. To be fair, Nicole doesn't just want kids with Michael to get some more genetic diversity, that'd be silly, she also picks him because both of her husband's kids are girls, while two out of the three kids that Michael has had back on Earth were boys, so having a son would be pretty much guaranteed with Mike but nigh on impossible with Dick. And here was me thinking it was fifty/fifty with both of them.
So Nicole tells her (emotionally insecure and already quite jealous) husband she wants to get it on with Michael for scientific purposes, i.e. so their daughters will have a half-brother to shag later in life. And then she's surprised when he gets upset. Aggh! Stop, Harry, I can't take anymore! Later, after having had two sons with Michael, Richard shows up and she has a third daughter with him. Her main concern? That she's already paired up in her mind her two daughters and two sons, so daughter number three doesn't have a brother to make babies with. Aggh! No more, Harry! Please! The folly of the whole thing is only pointed out to her later by her thirteen year old daughter, who decides to marry seventy-two year old Uncle Michael, because marrying her half-brothers would be incest. Aggh! Enough, enough! And on a tangentially related note, Michael's two sons with Nicole sometimes refer to him as dad and sometimes as Uncle Michael, and similarly they sometimes call Richard dad and sometimes Uncle Richard. Why?
Part two of the book reveals the purpose of Rama, how it was made, and so on. Most of the big questions are answered, which leaves one major question: what exactly is left to be revealed in Rama Revealed? We don't yet know who the over-arching authority is behind the whole thing, but it's some alien or another and frankly I don't think "It turns out Rama was built by Zylorgs from planet Herpes" is particularly fulfilling. On the subject of Rama's mission, it seems fundamentally flawed. It's supposed to catalogue the spacefaring species of the galaxy by flying through star systems, luring these species aboard, and then taking them back to The Node. From there Rama is refitted with biomes to support larger numbers of these species and messages are sent to each of these species' planets to the effect of "We're coming back, prepare a few thousand of your species to come and live on Rama for an unspecified length of time. Then the whole thing flies back around the galaxy, picking up these species for observation. Frankly this sounds like a rubbish way for an ultra advanced society to study other species, as proved by the fact that Rama only "captured" its three humans by a huge fluke.
Rama's mission is only slightly less believable than Earth's reaction to it. The human race of the original Rendezvous with Rama has spread across the solar system and, excitable Mercurians aside, the biggest problem it seems to face is an overabundance of petty bureaucracy. Gentry Lee ruthlessly deconstructs this world in Rama II, with a huge economic slump occurring just after the first novel's events that sets Earth back a century or so and obliterates its space programme. By the time Rama II begins, seventy years after its predecessor, the slump has lifted enough for a mediocre space programme to exist, but the military still decide to destroy Rama when it comes near Earth. Their missiles are ruthlessly efficient at tracking the spacecraft as they try (and fail) to obliterate it, but in this book it's claimed that Earth had believed the craft was destroyed. Apparently they fired their nuclear missiles at it and then everyone started staring at the ground saying "Yup, I'm so sure we destroyed that thing I'm not even going to look up and check."
So when Earth is informed in the 2240s, forty years after Rama II, that they need to send two thousand individuals to Rama, do they rejoice at the chance to redeem themselves, to fix past mistakes, to send their best and brightest to discover the secrets of the Universe? No, the shady council that rules the world decides it's all a hoax perpetrated by those pesky Chinese, so they send their best and brightest and a whole ship full of rapists and murderers to Mars. If there happens to be a honking great spacecraft in the vicinity of Mars then they'll board that, if not they'll start a new Martian colony. Of course they don't tell all these people going to Mars that they might end up in an alien spaceship until they're actually in the alien spaceship.
Of these two thousand people it seems that about twelve are half-decent human beings, that's including Nicole, Richard, and some of their kids. Since the kids were in stasis for their entire teenage lives they all have to deal with being, essentially, a child in an adult's body. Gentry Lee obviously deals with this in a delicate and thought-provoking manner: Patrick is shy with girls, Eleanor is perfectly fine, and Katie becomes a nymphomaniac. Wow! Of these twelve normal people, half are unceremoniously killed in a scene near the end of the book, and the humans in the colony happily let a Japanese mob boss take over. No one seems bothered that there's little food, the weather system is broken, and a hundred other problems, because the mob boss starts a war with another biome in Rama. Such flagrant clichés can work if they're told well, alas that's not the case here.
Despite the three hundred or so five star reviews here on Goodreads, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who struggled to find the resolve to finish this book. The editors apparently had the same problem. As the book goes on more and more typoes start appearing: spelling errors, punctuation where it doesn't belong, and so on. One of the few solaces I could take was that this book is trashy pop science fiction, not hard science fiction, so powering through its six hundred pages was not difficult, just unpleasant.
With all that in mind, I'm now off to read Rama Revealed, hopeful in the knowledge that things surely can't get worse. Can they?
I'm afraid this review isn't going to have much structure or narrative flow. There were too many things wrong with the book to make this anything more than a long list of free flowing criticisms. Besides, the book didn't bother having any structure or narrative flow so feel free to pretend that my review itself is some kind of meta-criticism if you like.
Where to start? Well, the title makes no sense for one. In Rendezvous with Rama the main characters rendezvoused with a spacecraft dubbed Rama. In Rama II an identical looking spacecraft, dubbed Rama II, came to the solar system to be investigated. And in Rama Revealed I assume the secrets of the whole Rama thing will be, well, revealed (although see below). So then, this book must be about some great big vegetable patch in the spacecraft, right? Alas not. A settlement built within the ship is christened New Eden, and they have plants and stuff there, but that's pretty much the only relation to any garden in the book. Maybe this first criticism is overly pedantic, but it seems the choice of title here was either overly mundane or meaningless.
Next on my gripe list is the acknowledgements section (yes, we haven't made it to page one yet). Gentry Lee thanks his wife for "conversations about the nature of the female" since the book is primarily told from Nicole Wakefield's perspective. Indeed the first part of the book is told as excerpts from her journal. So does Gentry Lee manage to transcend sex differences in this journal section? Do his wife's suggestions seamlessly meld into a convincing catalogue of thoughts from a woman trapped in an alien environment and getting pregnant left, right, and centre? No. No, no, and no. Instead we get utterly bog-standard first person prose, except every ten pages or so there will be a cringe inducing paragraph along the lines of "So my husband didn't put the toilet seat down today. What is it with men and not doing that? Huh? As a woman it really gets my goat. You know what I'm talking about ladies, oh yes." I've no doubt Mrs Lee gave her husband numerous insights into "the nature of the female" but he hasn't used them to make a believable character, he's just shoehorned a few of these bad stand-up routines into the main text.
And while we're talking about the believability of our esteemed protagonist Nicole, let me ask you a question, dear reader. If you had to start the human civilisation again from scratch, how many people do you think you'd need to ensure enough genetic diversity to make the new civilisation tenable? I seem to recall a figure mentioned in The Matrix Reloaded for the number of humans needed to rebuild Zion is twenty three. Stephen Baxter makes this a big plot point at the end of Ark and agonises that forty six people with maximal genetic variation might just be okay. A quick straw poll amongst my friends with backgrounds in the biological sciences reckoned that quite a bit more than that would be needed. There's evidence that the human population fell to less than 15 000 once, and that maybe 500-1000 humans could breed their way away from extinction. So, with all that in mind, how many people does Dr Nicole des Jardins Wakefield, hero of Garden of Rama, think are necessary to breed their way out of trouble? Fifteen thousand, like the actual human population after the Toba eruption? Maybe one thousand, which some research suggests is a safe minimum? Perhaps only one hundred and sixty as determined by American anthropologist John Moore? Or only one hundred, as suggested by my biology friends after three glasses of wine and two minutes to think about the problem? Maybe Baxter was right with forty six, or the Wachowski brothers with twenty three? Well, Dr Nicole, what's your answer?
I'm sorry, what? There are three adults on Rama at the start of the book — two men and one woman. Nicole and her husband Richard have two daughters at which point Nicole starts wondering about how her daughters are going to continue the species. Clearly they need a man, preferably one each. So, she decides, she needs to pop out a couple of sons. Luckily, though, "one of [her] major areas of specialty during [her] medical training was genetics, especially hereditary defects." Phew! Looks like she'll realise the futility of all this and stop dooming all these kids to a lonely future in space. But no! There's more. At this point of the book Nicole is 41 years old and worries how many more babies she can have. She decides she has to have a son and preferably with Michael, the other guy on Rama with her. So then the next generation will consist of two girls and a guy, all of them either half- or full-siblings. And obviously that's a genetically viable group if ever I saw one. To be fair, Nicole doesn't just want kids with Michael to get some more genetic diversity, that'd be silly, she also picks him because both of her husband's kids are girls, while two out of the three kids that Michael has had back on Earth were boys, so having a son would be pretty much guaranteed with Mike but nigh on impossible with Dick. And here was me thinking it was fifty/fifty with both of them.
So Nicole tells her (emotionally insecure and already quite jealous) husband she wants to get it on with Michael for scientific purposes, i.e. so their daughters will have a half-brother to shag later in life. And then she's surprised when he gets upset. Aggh! Stop, Harry, I can't take anymore! Later, after having had two sons with Michael, Richard shows up and she has a third daughter with him. Her main concern? That she's already paired up in her mind her two daughters and two sons, so daughter number three doesn't have a brother to make babies with. Aggh! No more, Harry! Please! The folly of the whole thing is only pointed out to her later by her thirteen year old daughter, who decides to marry seventy-two year old Uncle Michael, because marrying her half-brothers would be incest. Aggh! Enough, enough! And on a tangentially related note, Michael's two sons with Nicole sometimes refer to him as dad and sometimes as Uncle Michael, and similarly they sometimes call Richard dad and sometimes Uncle Richard. Why?
Part two of the book reveals the purpose of Rama, how it was made, and so on. Most of the big questions are answered, which leaves one major question: what exactly is left to be revealed in Rama Revealed? We don't yet know who the over-arching authority is behind the whole thing, but it's some alien or another and frankly I don't think "It turns out Rama was built by Zylorgs from planet Herpes" is particularly fulfilling. On the subject of Rama's mission, it seems fundamentally flawed. It's supposed to catalogue the spacefaring species of the galaxy by flying through star systems, luring these species aboard, and then taking them back to The Node. From there Rama is refitted with biomes to support larger numbers of these species and messages are sent to each of these species' planets to the effect of "We're coming back, prepare a few thousand of your species to come and live on Rama for an unspecified length of time. Then the whole thing flies back around the galaxy, picking up these species for observation. Frankly this sounds like a rubbish way for an ultra advanced society to study other species, as proved by the fact that Rama only "captured" its three humans by a huge fluke.
Rama's mission is only slightly less believable than Earth's reaction to it. The human race of the original Rendezvous with Rama has spread across the solar system and, excitable Mercurians aside, the biggest problem it seems to face is an overabundance of petty bureaucracy. Gentry Lee ruthlessly deconstructs this world in Rama II, with a huge economic slump occurring just after the first novel's events that sets Earth back a century or so and obliterates its space programme. By the time Rama II begins, seventy years after its predecessor, the slump has lifted enough for a mediocre space programme to exist, but the military still decide to destroy Rama when it comes near Earth. Their missiles are ruthlessly efficient at tracking the spacecraft as they try (and fail) to obliterate it, but in this book it's claimed that Earth had believed the craft was destroyed. Apparently they fired their nuclear missiles at it and then everyone started staring at the ground saying "Yup, I'm so sure we destroyed that thing I'm not even going to look up and check."
So when Earth is informed in the 2240s, forty years after Rama II, that they need to send two thousand individuals to Rama, do they rejoice at the chance to redeem themselves, to fix past mistakes, to send their best and brightest to discover the secrets of the Universe? No, the shady council that rules the world decides it's all a hoax perpetrated by those pesky Chinese, so they send their best and brightest and a whole ship full of rapists and murderers to Mars. If there happens to be a honking great spacecraft in the vicinity of Mars then they'll board that, if not they'll start a new Martian colony. Of course they don't tell all these people going to Mars that they might end up in an alien spaceship until they're actually in the alien spaceship.
Of these two thousand people it seems that about twelve are half-decent human beings, that's including Nicole, Richard, and some of their kids. Since the kids were in stasis for their entire teenage lives they all have to deal with being, essentially, a child in an adult's body. Gentry Lee obviously deals with this in a delicate and thought-provoking manner: Patrick is shy with girls, Eleanor is perfectly fine, and Katie becomes a nymphomaniac. Wow! Of these twelve normal people, half are unceremoniously killed in a scene near the end of the book, and the humans in the colony happily let a Japanese mob boss take over. No one seems bothered that there's little food, the weather system is broken, and a hundred other problems, because the mob boss starts a war with another biome in Rama. Such flagrant clichés can work if they're told well, alas that's not the case here.
Despite the three hundred or so five star reviews here on Goodreads, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who struggled to find the resolve to finish this book. The editors apparently had the same problem. As the book goes on more and more typoes start appearing: spelling errors, punctuation where it doesn't belong, and so on. One of the few solaces I could take was that this book is trashy pop science fiction, not hard science fiction, so powering through its six hundred pages was not difficult, just unpleasant.
With all that in mind, I'm now off to read Rama Revealed, hopeful in the knowledge that things surely can't get worse. Can they?
August 27, 2008
This is where the Rama series ends for me. A lot of the Rama mystery is gone. Clarke appears to be completely absent in this one and Lee is just not cut out to fly solo.
The first quarter was interesting. There was still some focus on the Rama mystery. The rest of the book, however, is tedious and pointless as it focuses on the human society aboard Rama. Basically society breaks down and ridiculousness ensues.
This is not what I wanted in a Rama sequel. I wanted to learn more (but not too much) about Rama. I did not want to spend most of the novel exploring the interaction between unlikable and clichéd characters.
The first quarter was interesting. There was still some focus on the Rama mystery. The rest of the book, however, is tedious and pointless as it focuses on the human society aboard Rama. Basically society breaks down and ridiculousness ensues.
This is not what I wanted in a Rama sequel. I wanted to learn more (but not too much) about Rama. I did not want to spend most of the novel exploring the interaction between unlikable and clichéd characters.
November 23, 2012
Loved the first Rama novel; number 2 something of a disappointment- this one is a major let down. What I liked in the first 2 is the mystery and the sense of weird erieness; the inexplicable killings and the strange surreal architecture; also the loneliness and emptiness.
These elements do appear in the first half of this book- I loved the description of Nichole venturing ito the Avian lair and walking down miles of empty corridor before coming to a solitary door. Yup these bits make me tingled with anticipation...
However i was cruely let down because the 2nd half is a sort of commune experience in which 2000 people are crammed on board Rama and it becomes one of those 'all-the-characters-rub-along'. There's no sci-fi at all, it's all character unraveling done so badly as to be incredibly dull. I didn't care for any of these boring non-entities and found myself skipping huge chunks of back-story (which lost nothing as far as narrative was concerned)
And don't even get me started on the rissible HIV/AIDS analogue- talk about clumbsy preaching.
So- all in all a dud. Over long, boring. My editorial advice would have been cut out all the character work and stick with the sci-fi.
Could do better boys
Over and Out
These elements do appear in the first half of this book- I loved the description of Nichole venturing ito the Avian lair and walking down miles of empty corridor before coming to a solitary door. Yup these bits make me tingled with anticipation...
However i was cruely let down because the 2nd half is a sort of commune experience in which 2000 people are crammed on board Rama and it becomes one of those 'all-the-characters-rub-along'. There's no sci-fi at all, it's all character unraveling done so badly as to be incredibly dull. I didn't care for any of these boring non-entities and found myself skipping huge chunks of back-story (which lost nothing as far as narrative was concerned)
And don't even get me started on the rissible HIV/AIDS analogue- talk about clumbsy preaching.
So- all in all a dud. Over long, boring. My editorial advice would have been cut out all the character work and stick with the sci-fi.
Could do better boys
Over and Out
March 22, 2022
The first 10% and the last 10% of this story are solid sci-fi in typical Arthur C. Clarke style (five stars). The middle 80% is adult romance, presumably written by Gentry Lee (two stars).
This is book three in the Rama series. The first was great, the second was disappointing, and the third was a boring struggle to reach the end. I don't know if I'll ever read the fourth (final) book in the series.
Average score: 2.6 rounded up to 3.
This is book three in the Rama series. The first was great, the second was disappointing, and the third was a boring struggle to reach the end. I don't know if I'll ever read the fourth (final) book in the series.
Average score: 2.6 rounded up to 3.
May 1, 2024
La historia es preciosa. La familia de los personajes centrales es conmovedora, de marcado humanismo, empatía y sensibilidad hacia toda otra forma de vida. El libro podría haberse ahorrado todo el tercio central y su expresión de lo destructivo de la humanidad, o eso creí cuando casi abandoné a mitad del libro. Sin embargo el último 10% de la historia le da repentinamente sentido a todo lo anterior. Y claro, otra vez me quedo enganchada, buscando por dónde sigue la historia.
April 22, 2017
Vile. Clumsily written by a dullard and carelessly edited by a sluggard. Read Lee's review near the top of the list if you really are still curious.
August 24, 2016
In space, nobody can get an erection.
That's the takeaway from the first third of The Garden Of Rama where the three surviving astronauts (Nicole, Richard, Michael) from Rama II try, and try, and try, and try, to conceive and repopulate the human race as it exists in a giant space tube.
The notion of a unorthodox family unit forming on the Rama spacecraft seemed promising as eventually children are had by Nicole and Richard. But the train goes off the rails when Nicole decides she REALLY needs to bang Michael to attempt to keep the species going (even though Earth still, like, exists and stuff). So we get a LOT of description of their attempts and his failures. Great.
Unsurprisingly, Richard gets upset. Surprisingly, he leaves his sort of-wife and his actual for YEARS and treks off elsewhere in the spacecraft. Eventually Nicole and Michael conceive and Richard returns. So that was a useful first 200 pages.
Eventually we learn that Rama was built to catalog and study the various spacefaring species in the galaxy and it is heading back to earth to pick up roughly 2000 subjects for inspection/study. Nicole is given the task of sending a message back to earth to inform humanity of this fact and to tell them to make sure people are ready because, in no uncertain terms, that 2000 humans WILL be getting on the ship. This leaves one with the distinct impression of a mass kidnapping.
Earth suspects the message is a hoax and decides to send 2000 convicts to either (a) board the ship if it's real or (b) start a colony on Mars if it's a hoax. Well, it's option (a) now we have a ship with 2000 assholes + a family of 7.
Then there are Japanese mob bosses, rape accusations, AIDS-like infectious diseases, prostitutes, attempted genocide against other beings on Rama, a mass-shooting at a wedding, hallucinations while tiny robots spout Shakespeare...oh hell, I give up.
I'll suffer through the final volume just to say I've completed it, but uggh. I'm done.
That's the takeaway from the first third of The Garden Of Rama where the three surviving astronauts (Nicole, Richard, Michael) from Rama II try, and try, and try, and try, to conceive and repopulate the human race as it exists in a giant space tube.
The notion of a unorthodox family unit forming on the Rama spacecraft seemed promising as eventually children are had by Nicole and Richard. But the train goes off the rails when Nicole decides she REALLY needs to bang Michael to attempt to keep the species going (even though Earth still, like, exists and stuff). So we get a LOT of description of their attempts and his failures. Great.
Unsurprisingly, Richard gets upset. Surprisingly, he leaves his sort of-wife and his actual for YEARS and treks off elsewhere in the spacecraft. Eventually Nicole and Michael conceive and Richard returns. So that was a useful first 200 pages.
Eventually we learn that Rama was built to catalog and study the various spacefaring species in the galaxy and it is heading back to earth to pick up roughly 2000 subjects for inspection/study. Nicole is given the task of sending a message back to earth to inform humanity of this fact and to tell them to make sure people are ready because, in no uncertain terms, that 2000 humans WILL be getting on the ship. This leaves one with the distinct impression of a mass kidnapping.
Earth suspects the message is a hoax and decides to send 2000 convicts to either (a) board the ship if it's real or (b) start a colony on Mars if it's a hoax. Well, it's option (a) now we have a ship with 2000 assholes + a family of 7.
Then there are Japanese mob bosses, rape accusations, AIDS-like infectious diseases, prostitutes, attempted genocide against other beings on Rama, a mass-shooting at a wedding, hallucinations while tiny robots spout Shakespeare...oh hell, I give up.
I'll suffer through the final volume just to say I've completed it, but uggh. I'm done.
March 18, 2017
Unlike the first sequel, aptly titled, "Rama II", this third instalment refers less to Clarke's original novel, "Rendez-vous with Rama". This is set nine months after Rama II which is set 70 years after the first appearance of the mysterious artifact that cruised through our solar system. While Nicole des Jardins, husband Richard Wakefield and Michael O'Toole were stranded on Rama II headed somewhere near Sirius, they have between then five children. These become our new cast characters for the rest of the series.
There is very little left of Clarke's original idea here; the mysterious sense of wonder. The story is now completely in the hands of Gentry Lee, it seems. This has been replaced by some odd and sometimes ridiculous segments. Rama III is basically an experiment set up by some advance alien entity. The members of this experiment are colonist bound to colonize Mars, but no, they are told that they will not go to Mars and will be observed while being transported to another galaxy! When there should have been panic and rioting, no one seems to mind...
The novel is broken down into segments, almost as if this was a collection of novellas set in Lee's version of the Rama world. The first segment is written in the form of a journal written by Nichole. At first, I thought this was a fine idea; changing up the narrative style and such, but in its first person form, it became more of a tell rather than show situation. Some later segments, the "Mircat" segment in particular, with its crazy descriptions of alien beings was almost unreadable for me. And when Gentry Lee goes on about sexual situations, well...
However, whether I like it or not, accepting where Lee is taking this mammoth of a thing, it is, overall, actually not too bad. There is enough there to keep me interested. I will keep on going.
"Rama IV Revealed", here I come.
There is very little left of Clarke's original idea here; the mysterious sense of wonder. The story is now completely in the hands of Gentry Lee, it seems. This has been replaced by some odd and sometimes ridiculous segments. Rama III is basically an experiment set up by some advance alien entity. The members of this experiment are colonist bound to colonize Mars, but no, they are told that they will not go to Mars and will be observed while being transported to another galaxy! When there should have been panic and rioting, no one seems to mind...
The novel is broken down into segments, almost as if this was a collection of novellas set in Lee's version of the Rama world. The first segment is written in the form of a journal written by Nichole. At first, I thought this was a fine idea; changing up the narrative style and such, but in its first person form, it became more of a tell rather than show situation. Some later segments, the "Mircat" segment in particular, with its crazy descriptions of alien beings was almost unreadable for me. And when Gentry Lee goes on about sexual situations, well...
However, whether I like it or not, accepting where Lee is taking this mammoth of a thing, it is, overall, actually not too bad. There is enough there to keep me interested. I will keep on going.
"Rama IV Revealed", here I come.
October 19, 2022
Book 67 / 121 for 2022: "Garden of Rama"
My copy of Garden of Rama self-proclaims itself to be the sequel to Rama II, and I find that to be very appropriate, as this series has long divested itself of the original Rendezvous with Rama, leaving it’s shattered corpse by the wayside, whilst dressing itself in its skin like some sort of Edgar suit.
Content Warming: More pederasty, bordering on pedophilia. More racial slurs and insults (we’re branching out from Rama II). And the use of the r-word repeatedly to describe a differently abled child.
Again, like Rama II, I must reflect that there is no reason why this novel should take place in 2245 (aside from the fact that Rama II took place in 2200, because Rendezvous with Rama took place in 2131). The people, their ideals, the way they talk and act, the socio-political situation, the seeming level of technology scream mid 1990’s to me. Case in point, we have a Japanese mother who disparages her daughter (who’s on her way to a Peace Demonstration in Hiroshima for the 300th anniversary of the bomb drop) for going into a big city unchaperoned…because when mother was that age, a woman would never dream of that. Really, mom? There were no unchaperoned young ladies walking around Japan in the good old days of 2215?
The novel is also weird in that it has severe tonal shifts. The first quarter or so is told in the form of first-person journal entries from Nicole des Jardin (now Wakefield), who has since become something of a main character, as she relates the 12 years or so that she, Richard Wakefield, Michael O’Toole, and their children (yes, they bone and have kids), spend on Rama II as it travels from our solar system to Sirius. She ends up having two daughters with Richard, and then determines that she needs to start having kids with Michael, because if they end up staying on Rama II much longer, they need to keep the Human race going, and she wants to prevent inbreeding problems…although, mechanically, she’s really only kicking the can down the road like one degree, cause those kids are all going to be half-siblings, but whatevs. So, she then has two sons with Michael, and then another daughter with Richard.
Oh, also we learn that the whole interior of Rama being frozen until it gets close enough to a star which warms up the hull, which melts the sea, which makes it habitable inside, is all for show, as after Rama leaves a star system, refreezing on the way out, it accelerates to relativistic speeds (like ½ light speed) and then everything remelts and becomes temperate inside again. Why?
Then, they arrive in Sirius, and we begin section two of the book, which goes back to third person. It turns out that Rama II is part of an extensive gathering operation for some still unrevealed super “advanced” race to learn about others, so it goes out on collecting expeditions. We also see a space station capable of fitting Rama inside of it, as well as a triangular space station, consisting of three sphere connected by three tubes…keeping the three theme…however, we throw that out the window because we see two other collecting ships, one of which is shaped like a 5-pointed star and the other like a wheel with spokes, so fuck the “everything in threes / triple redundancy” thing…although there are three ships (at least here), how you subdivide a star into three equal sections is beyond me. Here, the whole family is observed, provided for, grows up a bit, and then Nicole and Richard are brought in to help design a colony for Humans on Rama, because it’s going back. They are told that they need to collect 2,000 Human colonists, voluntarily, and if they don’t, they’ll be taken by force; because the Rama aliens are super benevolent guys, for realsies.
So, then some stuff happens and then we go back to Earth. The government, which is no longer global, since China and Korea got together to declare independence, and all of South America has pretty much united under a new Brazilian military dictatorship and declared independence…but the rest of the Earth is under the Council of Governments, who get the message about 2,000 colonists. They lie, of course, and say that they are going to recolonize Mars and need volunteers. Apparently, these 2,000 need to be a cross-section of Humanity, so people are gathered from all over the planet, and all walks of life, including criminals, and sent to Mars. However, instead they board Rama, which then leaves towards Tau Ceti.
Of course, after a few years, things have gone to crap, as a crime boss was among the 2,000 and he was able to build a casino and a hotel in the colony and used all that money to buy the government and pass laws he wants and kill his opposition. Okay, so this whole sequence leads to so many questions. Somehow, within the space of a year, this colony of Humans from all over the planet were able to decide on a constitution and put it into place. Also, for some reason, even though they are living in a colony where everything is provided for them, they decided to create a free market economy in the colony. Which means that they had to deliberately manufacture (complete with artificial scarcity) a form of currency that they then decided needed to have a fluctuating value and be distributed unevenly so that they could buy things from each other…in a completely closed environment that lacked nothing. Also, why they hell would they let anyone build a hotel and who the hell is it for? There aren’t any tourists. Everyone has a place to live. The colony isn’t very big and there’s free public transit all over the place, so even if you were drunk, you don’t need a place to crash? And even if you did, it can’t be that many people?
The whole colony eventually turns into the worst parts of Earth, and the Humans even go to war when they find out that there are other aliens in other habitats inside Rama II. Oh, also there’s something like a Rama after action report which is broadcast back to the Rama aliens letting them know that the usual subliminal transmissions which make other races more docile doesn’t seem to work on Humans. So, the aliens who want to observe how other races develop, with minimal interference, not only threaten to kidnap thousands of individuals if they aren’t cooperated with, they also broadcast mind-control rays?
Oh, and Rama didn’t refreeze after getting back to Earth (well, Mars). So, again, it freezes up for show? See, this is why reboots are awful. They are universally internally inconsistent.
Also, everyone keeps saying that there are three Rama spacecraft, but near as I can tell, there’s one and only one. Rama II is literally Rama III, and there is no indication whatsoever to counter-indicate that Rama II is not Rama I.
Near the end, our protagonists lament that, a la “The Matrix”, Humans just must naturally reject utopian conditions and thrive on conflict. Okay, but no. You created the conditions to completely undo utopia. You allowed the colonists to create a completely artificial “free market” economy and then deliberately deprived people of the benefits of said utopia. It wasn’t like there was a “rejection of the programming.” You all got to Rama. Said “this place is nice” and then within a year said, “we need money.” And, even worse, their decided upon government then started collecting taxes to pay for projects like public works and funding programs…in a colony that literally had everything already built, ready to inhabit, with near unlimited resources. Why?
So, the pederasty comes in a couple of places. Right before they leave to go back to Earth to kidnap people, the Rama aliens tell them that a breeding pair of Humans needs to remain behind, so, Michael (who is in his 70s by now) and Simone (who is Nicole and Richard’s oldest daughter, and 13), stay behind, get married, and have sex. But it’s totally okay, because both Nicole and Richard recognize that Simone is “super mature” for her age. Later, as they go back to Earth, everyone is put in suspended animation, but not really, by which I mean, their brains are asleep, but their bodies still age. So, their other daughters, who are like 10 and 6, turn into adults on the way back to Earth, but are still functionally 10 and 6. However, the 10 year old (who appears in her mid-twenties) goes hard into drinking and drugs and boning everyone, and that’s completely inappropriate say her parents because she’s too young, however, their other daughter, the 6 year old (who appears like 18), falls in love with a doctor (who was one of the criminal colonists – convicted of double homicide – but it’s okay because he killed a young black teenager and his attorney in court right after the kid was found not guilty for killing and raping the doctor’s wife). But that relationship is totally okay because, again, the 6-year-old is just so sweet and mature guys…she’s like an old soul, and really gets me.
How did these novels win awards?!?!?!?
My copy of Garden of Rama self-proclaims itself to be the sequel to Rama II, and I find that to be very appropriate, as this series has long divested itself of the original Rendezvous with Rama, leaving it’s shattered corpse by the wayside, whilst dressing itself in its skin like some sort of Edgar suit.
Content Warming: More pederasty, bordering on pedophilia. More racial slurs and insults (we’re branching out from Rama II). And the use of the r-word repeatedly to describe a differently abled child.
Again, like Rama II, I must reflect that there is no reason why this novel should take place in 2245 (aside from the fact that Rama II took place in 2200, because Rendezvous with Rama took place in 2131). The people, their ideals, the way they talk and act, the socio-political situation, the seeming level of technology scream mid 1990’s to me. Case in point, we have a Japanese mother who disparages her daughter (who’s on her way to a Peace Demonstration in Hiroshima for the 300th anniversary of the bomb drop) for going into a big city unchaperoned…because when mother was that age, a woman would never dream of that. Really, mom? There were no unchaperoned young ladies walking around Japan in the good old days of 2215?
The novel is also weird in that it has severe tonal shifts. The first quarter or so is told in the form of first-person journal entries from Nicole des Jardin (now Wakefield), who has since become something of a main character, as she relates the 12 years or so that she, Richard Wakefield, Michael O’Toole, and their children (yes, they bone and have kids), spend on Rama II as it travels from our solar system to Sirius. She ends up having two daughters with Richard, and then determines that she needs to start having kids with Michael, because if they end up staying on Rama II much longer, they need to keep the Human race going, and she wants to prevent inbreeding problems…although, mechanically, she’s really only kicking the can down the road like one degree, cause those kids are all going to be half-siblings, but whatevs. So, she then has two sons with Michael, and then another daughter with Richard.
Oh, also we learn that the whole interior of Rama being frozen until it gets close enough to a star which warms up the hull, which melts the sea, which makes it habitable inside, is all for show, as after Rama leaves a star system, refreezing on the way out, it accelerates to relativistic speeds (like ½ light speed) and then everything remelts and becomes temperate inside again. Why?
Then, they arrive in Sirius, and we begin section two of the book, which goes back to third person. It turns out that Rama II is part of an extensive gathering operation for some still unrevealed super “advanced” race to learn about others, so it goes out on collecting expeditions. We also see a space station capable of fitting Rama inside of it, as well as a triangular space station, consisting of three sphere connected by three tubes…keeping the three theme…however, we throw that out the window because we see two other collecting ships, one of which is shaped like a 5-pointed star and the other like a wheel with spokes, so fuck the “everything in threes / triple redundancy” thing…although there are three ships (at least here), how you subdivide a star into three equal sections is beyond me. Here, the whole family is observed, provided for, grows up a bit, and then Nicole and Richard are brought in to help design a colony for Humans on Rama, because it’s going back. They are told that they need to collect 2,000 Human colonists, voluntarily, and if they don’t, they’ll be taken by force; because the Rama aliens are super benevolent guys, for realsies.
So, then some stuff happens and then we go back to Earth. The government, which is no longer global, since China and Korea got together to declare independence, and all of South America has pretty much united under a new Brazilian military dictatorship and declared independence…but the rest of the Earth is under the Council of Governments, who get the message about 2,000 colonists. They lie, of course, and say that they are going to recolonize Mars and need volunteers. Apparently, these 2,000 need to be a cross-section of Humanity, so people are gathered from all over the planet, and all walks of life, including criminals, and sent to Mars. However, instead they board Rama, which then leaves towards Tau Ceti.
Of course, after a few years, things have gone to crap, as a crime boss was among the 2,000 and he was able to build a casino and a hotel in the colony and used all that money to buy the government and pass laws he wants and kill his opposition. Okay, so this whole sequence leads to so many questions. Somehow, within the space of a year, this colony of Humans from all over the planet were able to decide on a constitution and put it into place. Also, for some reason, even though they are living in a colony where everything is provided for them, they decided to create a free market economy in the colony. Which means that they had to deliberately manufacture (complete with artificial scarcity) a form of currency that they then decided needed to have a fluctuating value and be distributed unevenly so that they could buy things from each other…in a completely closed environment that lacked nothing. Also, why they hell would they let anyone build a hotel and who the hell is it for? There aren’t any tourists. Everyone has a place to live. The colony isn’t very big and there’s free public transit all over the place, so even if you were drunk, you don’t need a place to crash? And even if you did, it can’t be that many people?
The whole colony eventually turns into the worst parts of Earth, and the Humans even go to war when they find out that there are other aliens in other habitats inside Rama II. Oh, also there’s something like a Rama after action report which is broadcast back to the Rama aliens letting them know that the usual subliminal transmissions which make other races more docile doesn’t seem to work on Humans. So, the aliens who want to observe how other races develop, with minimal interference, not only threaten to kidnap thousands of individuals if they aren’t cooperated with, they also broadcast mind-control rays?
Oh, and Rama didn’t refreeze after getting back to Earth (well, Mars). So, again, it freezes up for show? See, this is why reboots are awful. They are universally internally inconsistent.
Also, everyone keeps saying that there are three Rama spacecraft, but near as I can tell, there’s one and only one. Rama II is literally Rama III, and there is no indication whatsoever to counter-indicate that Rama II is not Rama I.
Near the end, our protagonists lament that, a la “The Matrix”, Humans just must naturally reject utopian conditions and thrive on conflict. Okay, but no. You created the conditions to completely undo utopia. You allowed the colonists to create a completely artificial “free market” economy and then deliberately deprived people of the benefits of said utopia. It wasn’t like there was a “rejection of the programming.” You all got to Rama. Said “this place is nice” and then within a year said, “we need money.” And, even worse, their decided upon government then started collecting taxes to pay for projects like public works and funding programs…in a colony that literally had everything already built, ready to inhabit, with near unlimited resources. Why?
So, the pederasty comes in a couple of places. Right before they leave to go back to Earth to kidnap people, the Rama aliens tell them that a breeding pair of Humans needs to remain behind, so, Michael (who is in his 70s by now) and Simone (who is Nicole and Richard’s oldest daughter, and 13), stay behind, get married, and have sex. But it’s totally okay, because both Nicole and Richard recognize that Simone is “super mature” for her age. Later, as they go back to Earth, everyone is put in suspended animation, but not really, by which I mean, their brains are asleep, but their bodies still age. So, their other daughters, who are like 10 and 6, turn into adults on the way back to Earth, but are still functionally 10 and 6. However, the 10 year old (who appears in her mid-twenties) goes hard into drinking and drugs and boning everyone, and that’s completely inappropriate say her parents because she’s too young, however, their other daughter, the 6 year old (who appears like 18), falls in love with a doctor (who was one of the criminal colonists – convicted of double homicide – but it’s okay because he killed a young black teenager and his attorney in court right after the kid was found not guilty for killing and raping the doctor’s wife). But that relationship is totally okay because, again, the 6-year-old is just so sweet and mature guys…she’s like an old soul, and really gets me.
How did these novels win awards?!?!?!?
January 28, 2025
Entries in the middle of a book series are always hard to judge. "The Garden of Rama," the third book in the Rama cycle, is no exception. But here I go.
Imagine "Rendezvous with Rama" as being like "The Hobbit." It introduces you to the world you are about to explore, but stands on its own merit. Then "Rama II" kicks off a new trilogy like "The Fellowship of the Ring." Or, if you consider "The Lord of the Rings" one giant novel, then "The Garden of Rama" serves as the second act of a greater story much like "The Two Towers." In other words, it doesn't work very well as a standalone story. But to continue my analogy, "The Two Towers" is my favorite of the Middle Earth cycle. Interesting enough, "The Empire Strikes Back" is my favorite of the original Star Wars trilogy. You can think of these middle entries as the filling of a sandwich, the meat of the meal. Or you can consider them the peak of a journey up and down the mountain. So though a middle entry often drops you in the middle of a greater story and doesn't have a proper end, it can represent the peak of creativity and drama of the larger body of work. So does "The Garden of Rama" fulfill that purpose in the Rama series?
Unfortunately, no.
It certainly meets all the criteria as far as structure. The novel opens 9 months from where "Rama II" left off. For those reading the series in sequence, it is nice to find out what is happening to the characters in which we had invested our time. But for those jumping on the series, it can be too jarring and disorienting. You don't need to read "Rendezvous" to understand "Rama II," but "Garden" does not provide enough context to read it without its predecessor.
The end also does not provide a satisfactory conclusion. It kind of forces you to read the sequel to get any reward for reading its 500 plus pages. That can be a bit of a drag, but also perfectly exciting if the meat of the novel was downright delicious.
In this case, I was left with a bad taste.
Personally, I initially liked the direction that Gentry Lee was taking with Arthur C. Clarke's classic, because it actually fell in line with what I imagined was the greater purpose of Rama even in the very first book. So it was fun to see how it played out. There are some deep philosophical and religious ideas explored with much more substance, whereas the original was like being asked to solve a series of equations with too many variables.
But though I approved of the direction, I didn't enjoy the journey.
Fans of the first two books may be put off by the narrative composition of this one. At least the first third is written as a diary entry before abruptly switching to more traditional third-person storytelling. I don't have a problem with this per se, but I really don't see that there was any reason for it.
Another thing that seems to have put off readers was the sexual content, and I can see why. It's not because it is gratuitous or sleazy or exploitative. In fact, it has a purpose in the narrative. Our main character, Nicole, is trapped on Rama with her husband Richard and another fellow cosmonaut, Michael. She has two kids during their journey on Rama with Richard, but she worries that the children might never be able to leave Rama and would need to form some sort of colony to survive. In order to form a colony, there would need to be enough genetic variation so that full brothers wouldn't be sleeping with full sisters. So she convinces the two men that both need to impregnate her for the good of the human race.
As written, there are two problems. First of all, it's handled oddly. Lee has our narrator talk like an overly sappy sex therapist. We didn't need to read all the details about how she tried to coax Michael, who felt the idea was guilty and sinful, to do his duty for humanity. It goes on and on with this clinical, cringe-worthy tone. If she were really writing a diary, wouldn't she just keep it brief? All she had to say was that Michael felt too guilty and wasn't up to it. No pun intended. But no. She keeps trying, pissing off her husband and the reader who never cared in the first place.
The second and biggest problem is that it ends up not being important. She does have three kids with Richard and two with Michael, but then Rama shows up back at Earth and a bunch of colonists get on board. This literally negates about one hundred pages of nonsense. It seems Lee originally intended to populate Rama with only Nicole's offspring and so he sets Nicole up as this mother goddess figure as early as "Rama II". But Clarke must have eventually vetoed the idea, so Lee changed direction without editing a single thing he'd written previously.
Speaking of editing, each subsequent Rama book keeps getting longer. This one is over twice as long as the original, and didn't need to be. It just goes to show that when you have a solid idea, you don't need a lot of space to make it work. When you have a turd, there's no amount of bullshit you can write that will polish it.
Where most readers have a problem is in the human conflict that preoccupies the rest of the novel. Here again I am in agreement. The reader's investment is all in the characters from "Rama II" and the first half of this book, not with this new set of bozos, none of whom are likeable. It turns out the colonists are mostly dumped convicts. Why? This is the same problem we had with "Rama II," where almost half the crew consisted of sociopaths. There's no believable justification for this narrative choice other than to have some lazy excuse for action and drama in a series that doesn't lend itself to a lot of action and drama.
The final novel in the main series is "Rama Revealed". I may not get that far. Reviews of this book are largely in line with my own experience, and don't get any more optimistic with the finale, making it unlikely I'll risk reading another 600 plus pages for little chance of reward.
SCORE: 2 wife-swaps out of 5
Imagine "Rendezvous with Rama" as being like "The Hobbit." It introduces you to the world you are about to explore, but stands on its own merit. Then "Rama II" kicks off a new trilogy like "The Fellowship of the Ring." Or, if you consider "The Lord of the Rings" one giant novel, then "The Garden of Rama" serves as the second act of a greater story much like "The Two Towers." In other words, it doesn't work very well as a standalone story. But to continue my analogy, "The Two Towers" is my favorite of the Middle Earth cycle. Interesting enough, "The Empire Strikes Back" is my favorite of the original Star Wars trilogy. You can think of these middle entries as the filling of a sandwich, the meat of the meal. Or you can consider them the peak of a journey up and down the mountain. So though a middle entry often drops you in the middle of a greater story and doesn't have a proper end, it can represent the peak of creativity and drama of the larger body of work. So does "The Garden of Rama" fulfill that purpose in the Rama series?
Unfortunately, no.
It certainly meets all the criteria as far as structure. The novel opens 9 months from where "Rama II" left off. For those reading the series in sequence, it is nice to find out what is happening to the characters in which we had invested our time. But for those jumping on the series, it can be too jarring and disorienting. You don't need to read "Rendezvous" to understand "Rama II," but "Garden" does not provide enough context to read it without its predecessor.
The end also does not provide a satisfactory conclusion. It kind of forces you to read the sequel to get any reward for reading its 500 plus pages. That can be a bit of a drag, but also perfectly exciting if the meat of the novel was downright delicious.
In this case, I was left with a bad taste.
Personally, I initially liked the direction that Gentry Lee was taking with Arthur C. Clarke's classic, because it actually fell in line with what I imagined was the greater purpose of Rama even in the very first book. So it was fun to see how it played out. There are some deep philosophical and religious ideas explored with much more substance, whereas the original was like being asked to solve a series of equations with too many variables.
But though I approved of the direction, I didn't enjoy the journey.
Fans of the first two books may be put off by the narrative composition of this one. At least the first third is written as a diary entry before abruptly switching to more traditional third-person storytelling. I don't have a problem with this per se, but I really don't see that there was any reason for it.
Another thing that seems to have put off readers was the sexual content, and I can see why. It's not because it is gratuitous or sleazy or exploitative. In fact, it has a purpose in the narrative. Our main character, Nicole, is trapped on Rama with her husband Richard and another fellow cosmonaut, Michael. She has two kids during their journey on Rama with Richard, but she worries that the children might never be able to leave Rama and would need to form some sort of colony to survive. In order to form a colony, there would need to be enough genetic variation so that full brothers wouldn't be sleeping with full sisters. So she convinces the two men that both need to impregnate her for the good of the human race.
As written, there are two problems. First of all, it's handled oddly. Lee has our narrator talk like an overly sappy sex therapist. We didn't need to read all the details about how she tried to coax Michael, who felt the idea was guilty and sinful, to do his duty for humanity. It goes on and on with this clinical, cringe-worthy tone. If she were really writing a diary, wouldn't she just keep it brief? All she had to say was that Michael felt too guilty and wasn't up to it. No pun intended. But no. She keeps trying, pissing off her husband and the reader who never cared in the first place.
The second and biggest problem is that it ends up not being important. She does have three kids with Richard and two with Michael, but then Rama shows up back at Earth and a bunch of colonists get on board. This literally negates about one hundred pages of nonsense. It seems Lee originally intended to populate Rama with only Nicole's offspring and so he sets Nicole up as this mother goddess figure as early as "Rama II". But Clarke must have eventually vetoed the idea, so Lee changed direction without editing a single thing he'd written previously.
Speaking of editing, each subsequent Rama book keeps getting longer. This one is over twice as long as the original, and didn't need to be. It just goes to show that when you have a solid idea, you don't need a lot of space to make it work. When you have a turd, there's no amount of bullshit you can write that will polish it.
Where most readers have a problem is in the human conflict that preoccupies the rest of the novel. Here again I am in agreement. The reader's investment is all in the characters from "Rama II" and the first half of this book, not with this new set of bozos, none of whom are likeable. It turns out the colonists are mostly dumped convicts. Why? This is the same problem we had with "Rama II," where almost half the crew consisted of sociopaths. There's no believable justification for this narrative choice other than to have some lazy excuse for action and drama in a series that doesn't lend itself to a lot of action and drama.
The final novel in the main series is "Rama Revealed". I may not get that far. Reviews of this book are largely in line with my own experience, and don't get any more optimistic with the finale, making it unlikely I'll risk reading another 600 plus pages for little chance of reward.
SCORE: 2 wife-swaps out of 5
October 2, 2020
Più opera di gentry Lee che di A.C. Clarke, questo romanzo segue a Rama II e prelude al finale Rama Revealed. Molte parti sono alquanto noiose, seppure necessarie per comprendere la psicologia dei protagonisti. Altre invece sono pura sci-fi, tipo la parte dei mirmecogatti. Nel complesso è sufficiente, ma siamo lontani dalla preminenza delle idee del primo, insuperabile, Incontro con Rama.
In parte romanzo familiare, in parte romanzo criminale e specchio della mancanza di lungimiranza umana più che della stupidità umana, affronta diversi temi (religione, etica, morale, egoismo) ma senza andare troppo a fondo a nessuno di questi. Detto ciò, tre stelle scarse le merita.
In parte romanzo familiare, in parte romanzo criminale e specchio della mancanza di lungimiranza umana più che della stupidità umana, affronta diversi temi (religione, etica, morale, egoismo) ma senza andare troppo a fondo a nessuno di questi. Detto ciò, tre stelle scarse le merita.
October 22, 2016
The book is good. I still like the story. I'm still giving it 4 stars. The rest from now on will probably be spoilers.
May 8, 2013
Torn on this one...the story might have gotten three stars for being a relatively mindless read with fairly good flow, it was still mightily flawed. First, two men should not presume to write first person from a female perspective - even if one of those men claims to have bounced the story off of his wife; the first quarter of the book was in the form of diary entries of a carryover female character from Rama II...and reminded me of early sci-fi sexism. The second quarter was decent enough science fiction, but the entire last half of the book was a tiresome play on the failings of the human race, replete with a ton of caricatures and cardboard characters. And if the authors's bludgeoning polemic wasn't enough, what made them write dialogue using 20th century slurs and prejudices when the story takes pace 200 years in the future? I am guessing that much of this came from Gentry Lee, but then Clarke typically was weak on human interactions. I think I'll need to put some time between this one and Rama Revealed (I'm stubborn - I still intend to read as much Clark this year as I can.)
January 23, 2025
A ver señores, que Clarke es un maestro, es indiscutible.
Ya no solo la capacidad de contar una historia de ciencia ficción sino también de dotarla de un componente filosófico sobre la naturaleza del ser humano que es difícil de encontrar en novelas actuales.
Y si a eso le unimos que es completamente atemporal, utiliza una narrativa sencilla, fácil de seguir y adictiva, que queréis que diga, que tiene merecido el titulo de gran maestro del genero a mi juicio.
Si has llegado hasta este titulo, esta claro que vas a continuar con el siguiente, porque la historia se queda claramente sin acabar.
Como única nota discordante que me pasa con esta serie, es que hay determinadas partes que te parecen mas aburridas y lentas, también me paso con Rama Dos, pero este señor no escribe nada al azar y es solo para introducirte en la trama que se desarrolla mas adelante y poder comprender las implicaciones de todos los protagonistas.
Seguiré con Rama Revelada porque no puedo esperar a entender el final de este viaje.
Si te gusta la CF y no conoces a Clarke es pasar por alto una de mayores escritores de la historia de este genero y no podre nunca dejar de recomendarlo
Ya no solo la capacidad de contar una historia de ciencia ficción sino también de dotarla de un componente filosófico sobre la naturaleza del ser humano que es difícil de encontrar en novelas actuales.
Y si a eso le unimos que es completamente atemporal, utiliza una narrativa sencilla, fácil de seguir y adictiva, que queréis que diga, que tiene merecido el titulo de gran maestro del genero a mi juicio.
Si has llegado hasta este titulo, esta claro que vas a continuar con el siguiente, porque la historia se queda claramente sin acabar.
Como única nota discordante que me pasa con esta serie, es que hay determinadas partes que te parecen mas aburridas y lentas, también me paso con Rama Dos, pero este señor no escribe nada al azar y es solo para introducirte en la trama que se desarrolla mas adelante y poder comprender las implicaciones de todos los protagonistas.
Seguiré con Rama Revelada porque no puedo esperar a entender el final de este viaje.
Si te gusta la CF y no conoces a Clarke es pasar por alto una de mayores escritores de la historia de este genero y no podre nunca dejar de recomendarlo
May 16, 2019
8/10. Media de los 20 libros leídos dela autor : 7/10
Hablar sobre Clarke da casi vergüenza. Porque, ¿Quién soy yo para hablar de uno de los mas grandes de la CF?. Pero bueno, aparte de todas las alabanzas decir qe de su muy extensa producción, incuidas sus sagas de Rama o 2001, siempre me quedaré como favorita con su colección de reñatos "Cuentos de la taberna del Ciervo Blanco", geniales. Y tal vez con sus "Cuentos de la lejana Tierra" (a la que incluso Mike Oldfield le ha dedicado un album entero).
Tercera parte del clásico "Cita con Rama", donde se mantiene el interés y seguimos enterándonos de misterios de estas naves.
Hablar sobre Clarke da casi vergüenza. Porque, ¿Quién soy yo para hablar de uno de los mas grandes de la CF?. Pero bueno, aparte de todas las alabanzas decir qe de su muy extensa producción, incuidas sus sagas de Rama o 2001, siempre me quedaré como favorita con su colección de reñatos "Cuentos de la taberna del Ciervo Blanco", geniales. Y tal vez con sus "Cuentos de la lejana Tierra" (a la que incluso Mike Oldfield le ha dedicado un album entero).
Tercera parte del clásico "Cita con Rama", donde se mantiene el interés y seguimos enterándonos de misterios de estas naves.
May 15, 2013
Mainly, this book was very boring and not a hard sci-fi book at all. We do learn about a new alien species, but the social/political drama overshadows it all. The main character is a woman, which usually I appreciate, but not in this book. Nicole is a over the top mary sue type character, we are expected to believe that she is a gold medal Olympian astronaut, who also had an affair with the King of England?! Several times in the book it mentions that her daughter from the affair could technically be a princess. * insert eye-roll here*
All Nicole cared about are her children, and she was not knowledgeable in hard science, so every time her husband or uncle Michael explain something, she interrupted with something like, “ I don't get that, but you guys are so brilliant! “ So annoying. The characters and society were all very cliche, with the good characters being over the top perfect, and the bad characters being so evil with no background on their motivations.
It also disturbed me that the good girl characters in the book were all shown as pure and naive, and ended up getting married. While Katie, the bad sheep of the family, is shown being promiscuous and smoking a cigarette. The book doesn't explore the fact that she feels alienated by her mom, who self-admittedly favors Ella more than her! Katie is always shown acting snotty while everyone freaks out over her bad manners. You would think no-one had ever been rude to a member of the family before, or argued, except with Katie.
* Major spoilers* Basically the martyr Nicole was executed by the big bad corrupt government for opposing them, and the society has gone to shit. We are given hope that Nicole's husband Richard will arrive and some how save everyone but they kind of leave that open ended. Basically, this book is not worth reading, especially if you are science-fiction fan.
All Nicole cared about are her children, and she was not knowledgeable in hard science, so every time her husband or uncle Michael explain something, she interrupted with something like, “ I don't get that, but you guys are so brilliant! “ So annoying. The characters and society were all very cliche, with the good characters being over the top perfect, and the bad characters being so evil with no background on their motivations.
It also disturbed me that the good girl characters in the book were all shown as pure and naive, and ended up getting married. While Katie, the bad sheep of the family, is shown being promiscuous and smoking a cigarette. The book doesn't explore the fact that she feels alienated by her mom, who self-admittedly favors Ella more than her! Katie is always shown acting snotty while everyone freaks out over her bad manners. You would think no-one had ever been rude to a member of the family before, or argued, except with Katie.
* Major spoilers* Basically the martyr Nicole was executed by the big bad corrupt government for opposing them, and the society has gone to shit. We are given hope that Nicole's husband Richard will arrive and some how save everyone but they kind of leave that open ended. Basically, this book is not worth reading, especially if you are science-fiction fan.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 20, 2015
SUPERB!
Looking much forward to read its following book.
This book gave me thoughts (once again) to ponder about the human situation towards itself and its attitude towards other species. Gave me the shudders!!
At another instance, it also pointed out about the pleasures (and possible rewards) of experiencing things anew.
A Fantastic Book, in a Fantastic Series! :) :)
Looking much forward to read its following book.
This book gave me thoughts (once again) to ponder about the human situation towards itself and its attitude towards other species. Gave me the shudders!!
At another instance, it also pointed out about the pleasures (and possible rewards) of experiencing things anew.
A Fantastic Book, in a Fantastic Series! :) :)
September 6, 2023
Ima jedan genijalan pasus pred kraj knjige koji savršeno opisuje svetsku političku scenu 2023. godine. Artur Klark je, zapravo, vidovit.
September 8, 2018
همون طور که از امتیازش پیداست، از کتاب پیشین (Rama II) بهتر بود، ولی نه این که کل کتاب کمی بهتر باشه.
در واقع این کتاب، خودش شامل پنج کتاب بود که از بین اونها کتاب نخست که خاطرات نیکوله و کتاب پایانی که به سرگذشت ریچارد و نیکول میپردازه، خوب و جذّاب بودن و سه کتاب دیگه به شدّت بد و حوضلهسربر بودن. برای همین ، از پنج ستاره، دو تا رو به ازای اون دو تا کتاب از پنج کتاب دادم. کاش همهٔ کتابها رو مثل اون دو کتاب مینوشت.
آخر کتاب هم در جای حسّاسی تموم میشه که لازمه برم کتاب بعدی مجموعه رو هم بخونم.
در واقع این کتاب، خودش شامل پنج کتاب بود که از بین اونها کتاب نخست که خاطرات نیکوله و کتاب پایانی که به سرگذشت ریچارد و نیکول میپردازه، خوب و جذّاب بودن و سه کتاب دیگه به شدّت بد و حوضلهسربر بودن. برای همین ، از پنج ستاره، دو تا رو به ازای اون دو تا کتاب از پنج کتاب دادم. کاش همهٔ کتابها رو مثل اون دو کتاب مینوشت.
آخر کتاب هم در جای حسّاسی تموم میشه که لازمه برم کتاب بعدی مجموعه رو هم بخونم.
September 26, 2023
This is part three of the series and my second time reading it. Again, I just didn't remember things the way the book presents them. In this book the family has reached the Node, been informed by the aliens that they are to be studies as are all other species the aliens can find anywhere in the universe.
Meanwhile, the family has expanded to 5 kids. They are then informed that they can all leave the Node to go back to their solar system except two must remain at the Node. The oldest person agrees to stay and also the oldest daughter stays to serve as the mating pair for study. The two are married even thought they are 40 years apart in age.
A member of the group makes a video that is broadcast to Earth telling them they will return and inviting them to provide 2000 people to live in Rama when it returns. The spacecraft is reconfigured with robots to handle most chores. Houses and cites are built in Rama and it leaves for Mars with the family in suspended animation.
The 2000 people selected enter Rama and things go great until one of the people decides he wants to be in charge of the civilization and take steps to eliminate all of his competitors. The society crumbles, things are destroyed, and the family finally escapes to another part of the spacecraft to prevent executions and prosecutions.
I can't put the book down. Now into the last part and it's as exciting as the first time I read it 15 years ago.
I still enjoyed this book on my third reading of it about 12 years after the last reading. There are so many deatils that I just did not remember.
Meanwhile, the family has expanded to 5 kids. They are then informed that they can all leave the Node to go back to their solar system except two must remain at the Node. The oldest person agrees to stay and also the oldest daughter stays to serve as the mating pair for study. The two are married even thought they are 40 years apart in age.
A member of the group makes a video that is broadcast to Earth telling them they will return and inviting them to provide 2000 people to live in Rama when it returns. The spacecraft is reconfigured with robots to handle most chores. Houses and cites are built in Rama and it leaves for Mars with the family in suspended animation.
The 2000 people selected enter Rama and things go great until one of the people decides he wants to be in charge of the civilization and take steps to eliminate all of his competitors. The society crumbles, things are destroyed, and the family finally escapes to another part of the spacecraft to prevent executions and prosecutions.
I can't put the book down. Now into the last part and it's as exciting as the first time I read it 15 years ago.
I still enjoyed this book on my third reading of it about 12 years after the last reading. There are so many deatils that I just did not remember.
August 27, 2013
When I read this novel as a teenager, I loved it, as I totally enthralled with the Rama series and the writings of Arthur C. Clarke in general.
As I read this book a second time as an adult, I realized that this book is really just lousy, and it was extremely evident that this was not in any part written by the master author Mr. Clarke, but instead was likely written entirely by Gentry Lee and signed off on by Mr. Clarke's agent for some quick cash.
This "Sci-Fi" novel is better suited for a drinking game, where you drink every time you read the words 'tears', 'cry', 'crying', 'cried', and so on. I assure you, you will be completely drunk for the duration.
I give this book two stars instead of one because the writing itself is fine, it's just the overall story, and the insult to the much better Rama 1 and 2. Things do get a little better in Rama 4 thankfully, but not much better.
As I read this book a second time as an adult, I realized that this book is really just lousy, and it was extremely evident that this was not in any part written by the master author Mr. Clarke, but instead was likely written entirely by Gentry Lee and signed off on by Mr. Clarke's agent for some quick cash.
This "Sci-Fi" novel is better suited for a drinking game, where you drink every time you read the words 'tears', 'cry', 'crying', 'cried', and so on. I assure you, you will be completely drunk for the duration.
I give this book two stars instead of one because the writing itself is fine, it's just the overall story, and the insult to the much better Rama 1 and 2. Things do get a little better in Rama 4 thankfully, but not much better.
May 31, 2014
I blame myself a bit for this one. After reading "Rendezvous" I thought how tragic it was that Arthur Clark, who has such an interest in humanity seems to have so little interest in humans as individuals. All the wonders of Rama, and nothing to bring it home on any kind of real personal level.
Enter Rama II, with something that very much resembles characters with lives and motivations, even if they were inexpertly handled; a trifle soap operatic at times even. It's nothing but the characters for far too long, and anything that made them endearing or interesting in the previous book has been sucked away. As has the wonder. And the grammar.
This is probably only the second time in my life I've just consciously put a book down, never to return. I felt myself going blind as my eyes were slowly sacrificing themselves to save my mind.
Enter Rama II, with something that very much resembles characters with lives and motivations, even if they were inexpertly handled; a trifle soap operatic at times even. It's nothing but the characters for far too long, and anything that made them endearing or interesting in the previous book has been sucked away. As has the wonder. And the grammar.
This is probably only the second time in my life I've just consciously put a book down, never to return. I felt myself going blind as my eyes were slowly sacrificing themselves to save my mind.
July 7, 2015
The Garden of Rama is the third installment of a four part series. It's better than the second book, but nowhere near as good as the first.
On the positive side:
- It accurately portrays humans as the dysfunctional assholes they are.
- A bit of the mystery that can be found in the first book is re-introduced.
On the negative:
- The plot quite literally goes nowhere (the ship travels to Sirius only to turn right back around and return to Earth).
- The characters are uninteresting.
- There's quite a bit of cheesy nonsense (Abe Lincoln, Albert Einstein, the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María to name but a few).
Since there's one more book I suppose I must press on and finish the series.
On the positive side:
- It accurately portrays humans as the dysfunctional assholes they are.
- A bit of the mystery that can be found in the first book is re-introduced.
On the negative:
- The plot quite literally goes nowhere (the ship travels to Sirius only to turn right back around and return to Earth).
- The characters are uninteresting.
- There's quite a bit of cheesy nonsense (Abe Lincoln, Albert Einstein, the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María to name but a few).
Since there's one more book I suppose I must press on and finish the series.
April 5, 2023
This book makes me uncomfortable. There are many cultural nuances that I find unnecessary and oddly pushed by the protagonist in the book. I understand social paradigms go out the window in the created universe but the premise of them doesn't need to be there. It in no way adds to the story or universe created by the series and is infact quite creepy.
Unfortunately you need to read it to get to the finale which is only marginally better.
Unfortunately you need to read it to get to the finale which is only marginally better.
September 22, 2012
Rendezvous with Rama was unquestionably brilliant.
I endured Rama II because I wanted to read all four books.
The writing and the characters in this book just got more and more perfect as it continued on. It got unendurable.
Abandoned.
I endured Rama II because I wanted to read all four books.
The writing and the characters in this book just got more and more perfect as it continued on. It got unendurable.
Abandoned.
January 30, 2008
OK, Arthur, how about cutting to the chase? Actually, this was OK, but not as good as the previous two. I haven't heard much about the last novel, Rama Revealed, but I think I've had enough already.
February 16, 2022
This book could have been a third shorter and it probably would have been a fun read. Remove all the sexual content and stick to the scifi and you’ve got a decent story. I read the first few pages of book four and I’m intrigued to see how the story ends but I’ll leave that one on my shelf for a while. Easily the weakest of the first three Rama books.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 6, 2024
Take 2,000 people from Earth, stick them in an alien craft for a few years and you can imagine the ensuing chaos and trouble. This is another solid novel by Clarke and Lee which grips the reader as we follow the original characters and their relationship with the new population of Rama. Needless to say it doesn’t cast humans in a good light! This makes the book more gripping in many ways but they didn’t tie up all the loose ends which I hope will be in the next book, Rama Revealed.
June 6, 2024
"Forse la vita è tutta qui. Un'interminabile serie di addii"
August 13, 2020
Updated August 2020 - did not reread, left the past memory be :)
Plowed through this series in high school, loved it, quite memorable.
Plowed through this series in high school, loved it, quite memorable.
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