RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA

'''Rendezvous with Rama''' is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke first published in 1972. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a thirty-mile-long cylindrical alien starship that passes through Earth's solar system. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries.
Rescue Party (1946), the first published story of Clarke, also has a cylindrical alien spaceship with kilometer scale dimensions. Rendezvous could be an elaboration of that ship. Another of Clarke's short stories, Jupiter Five (1953), is very similar to this novel in style, as well as content.
This novel won both the Hugo and Nebula awards upon its release, and is widely regarded as one of the cornerstones in Clarke's bibliography. It is considered a science fiction classic, and is particularly seen as a key hard science fiction text.

Contents

Plot summary

Design and geography of Rama

Effects on science and history

Books in the series

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Other media

Awards and nominations

External links

Plot summary

The "Rama" of the title is the starship, which is initially mistaken for an asteroid and named after the Hindu deity Rama. (By the 22nd century, we are told, scientists have run out of Greek and Roman mythological figures to name astronomical bodies after.) The nature and purpose of the starship and its creators remains enigmatic throughout the book.
The book was meant to be a stand-alone, although the final sentence of the book hinted that there would be at least two sequels:
:''And on far-off Earth, Dr. Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had woken from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain: The Ramans do everything in threes.''
Clarke, however, denied that this sentence was meant to hint at the continuity of the story - according to his foreword in the book's sequel, it was just a good way to end the book.

Design and geography of Rama

:''See main article: Rama (spacecraft)''

Rama contains a body of water, the ''Cylindrical Sea'', which wraps around the cylindrical interior "surface" of Rama about halfway between the ends. In the center of the Cylindrical Sea is an island of mysterious purpose, named 'New York' by the astronauts due to its tall towers and visual similarity to Manhattan. The Sea divides Rama into Northern and Southern Hemicylinders; beyond these are the North and South Poles, which are circular walls capping the interior space. The North Pole contains Rama's airlocks; the South Pole contains its drive systems.

Rama is, in design, similar to an O'Neill habitat, with a large cylindrical interior that rotates to provide approximately one g of artificial gravity. Unlike most O'Neill habitat designs, however, Rama is equipped with several space drives, giving it maneuvering capability.
Other collections of "buildings" are found on the "surface", arbitrarily named Rome, Peking, Paris, Moscow, London, and Tokyo.

Effects on science and history

The initial search program that detects Rama in the first two chapters of the book, Project Spaceguard, is a program to detect near-Earth objects on Earth-impact trajectories. It was initiated after a fictional disastrous asteroid strikes Italy on September 11, 2077, destroying Padua and Verona and sinking Venice. A real Spaceguard project, named after the project in ''Rendezvous'', was initiated some years later. After interest in the dangers of asteroid strikes was heightened by a series of Hollywood disaster films, the United States Congress gave NASA authorization and funding to support Spaceguard.

Books in the series

Facing pressure, Clarke paired up with Gentry Lee for the remainder of the series. Lee did the actual writing, while Clarke read and made editing suggestions, which might explain why the focus and style of the last three novels are quite different from those of the original. There is an increased concern with detailed characterization, though the characters are actually more stereotypical than those in ''Rendezvous with Rama''. The later books have more clearly portrayed heroes and villains, rather than Clarke's dedicated professionals who nonetheless have unusual personal lives by the standards of twentieth-century societies (for example some are involved in polyamorous relationships). The later books also take a highly sympathetic attitude to religious faith that is atypical of Clarke's work as a whole.
These later books have not received the same critical acclaim and awards that the original did.

★ ''Rendezvous with Rama'' (1972) ''ISBN 978-0-553-28789-9''

★ ''Rama II'' (1989) ''ISBN 978-0-553-28658-8''

★ ''The Garden of Rama'' (1991) ''ISBN 978-0-553-29817-8''

★ ''Rama Revealed '' (1993) ''ISBN 978-0-553-56947-6''
Gentry Lee also wrote two further novels set in the same Rama Universe.

★ ''Bright Messengers'' (1996)

★ ''Double Full Moon Night'' (2000)

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Early in the millennium, actor Morgan Freeman expressed his desire to produce a film based on Arthur C. Clarke's novel ''Rendezvous with Rama''. After a drawn-out development process - which Freeman states has been due to difficulties in procuring funding [1] - it now appears this will indeed be happening. IMDb, as of February 2007, upgraded the status of the project to announced in 2009. The film is to be produced by Freeman's production company, Revelations Entertainment. The website of this company [2] is still touting David Fincher, who had been named as far back as 2001, as director. [3]

Other media

A text adventure style computer game based on the book was made in 1984 by Telarium (also known as Trillium) and exported to systems such as the Apple II and Commodore 64. Despite its primitive graphics, it had highly detailed descriptions, and it followed the book very closely along with having puzzles to solve during the game. It was adapted from the Clarke novel in 1983 by Ron Martinez, who went on to design the massively multiplayer online game 10Six, also known as Project Visitor.
Sierra Entertainment created RAMA in 1996 as a point and click adventure game in the style of ''Myst''. Along with highly detailed graphics, Arthur C. Clarke also appeared in the game as the guide for the player. This game also featured characters from the sequel book ''Rama II''.

Awards and nominations

The novel was awarded the following soon after publication

★ 'Hugo Award' for Best Novel in 1974

★ 'Nebula Award' for Best Novel in 1973

★ 'Jupiter Award' for Best Novel in 1974

External links

★ ArthurCClarke.net

★ Arthur C. Clarke links & image archive

★ Review at Arthur Clarke Fansite