Anderson Rearick III’s Reviews > Rendezvous with Rama > Status Update

Politics and human foolishness, not to mention Human paranoia on display.

The aliveness of the organic robots which are disassembled when damaged reminds me of the strange creatures depicted in “A Martian Odyssey" the science fiction short story by American writer Stanley G. Weinbaum originally published in the July 1934 issue of “Wonder Stories.” He depicted life forms completely without any sense of self preservation.

The one crewman using a sky bike suddenly realizing his peril from static electricity is well written and filled with tension!

The alien grandeur of Rama is a real credit to the imagination of author C Clark. If made into a film some of these scenes would give one chills much like what one might feel with “Forbidden Planet” when the expanse of the great machine is revealed, or what was attempted to try and portray with Viger in “Star Trek the motion Picture.”

The idea that Rama might be either the Coming of Christ or the Judgment is bizarre, and I notice that there is no Orthodox representative of faith in the book.

Interesting how the humans who have colonized different worlds are portrayed. Mercury is tough but slightly paranoid. But they are right when they point out how dangerous such a super intelligence might be to the human race.

Reading about the storms caused by the thawing of the sea within Rama along with the stunning moment when the lights came on seemed to me to be something which a movie maker could just blow my socks off with.

Nice tie-in with Capt. Cooke the original explorer of “the endurance”. Also awesome to have a structure so vast it has its own internal weather.

The idea of artificially bred intelligent monkeys is interesting. The intense bond that is formed between them and unman crews is plausible.

Clarke is at his best when he captures the awesome scale of the artificial world he is describing. Like Niven’s Ringworld it’s the landscape that takes one’s breath away.