Anderson Rearick III’s Reviews > Rama II > Status Update

Nicole Des Jardins’ question about what lays in the center of a real woman in response to recorded comments made by her flamboyant crew mate, Francesca Sabatini, who has seduced other married men is interesting.

Of course Clark added a new saint St. Michael of Siena who was martyred by a thermal nuclear blast by a terrorist who wanted to stop his message of universal brotherhood. Clark will allow faith as long as you don’t believe your own too much.

General O’Toole, the head of the Rama II expedition, is a devout Catholic. A straightforward Catholic unlike the Neo-Catholics that Clark included in the crew featured in his first Rama novel. As I have noted in other writings Clark, I confirmed atheist, continues to present religious ideas within his text. I will confirm that his treatment is thoughtful and engaging. Unlike other SF writers who just dismiss.

Interesting that neither Clarke nor Lee foresaw the fall of the USSR. THE PREEMINENCE OF THE Soviets looks a bit foolish like their role in 2010.

The complications of Dr. Takanishi’s heart issue and his desperate attempt to hide his condition (drawing his coworker into the deception) is more likely Gentry Lee’s addition. Clarke did not suggest much perxonal complexities in the novels I’ve read.

The unscrupulous reporter Natasha who uses people and her own sexuality would not be in the first Rama. It’s like Star Trek returns with a dysfunctional crew!

The world of this novel is off center from the one depicted in “Rendezvous with Rama” The solar system economy has gone through several crashes and huge ecological disasters leading to the fall and rise of new political powers. This is constantly reminded to us by the fact that the astronauts in this novel are called cosmonauts. The US is now but a back burner and the Kennedy Space Center is now being rebuilt

Clarke’s description of a world-wide economic disaster in 2134 seems profoundly plausible. The crash also took down the planetary culture we saw in the first novel.

With the appearance of another spacecraft in our solar system, the reader meets a new crop of space explorers. These characters seem less well oiled than the first crew, more inclined to take personal risks..

This novel begins with a forward by Clarke himself. His narrative has an almost casual quality (he swears he never intended to write a sequel) in which he seems seems to accidentally find his way. He goes on to describe his novelization of 2001 and 2010. Clarke also describes his meeting and earlier working with Gentry Lee who I am guessing added the more R rated elements to Clarke’s narratives warned of.