January 2018 Book Club: Rendevous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi
Content: Clean

At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at an inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams... and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits — just behind a Raman airlock door.

I admit I'm not the biggest fan of hard sci-fi, thus the 3 star rating, which is stretching it a bit. Rendezvous with Rama is a slow, plodding book that is neither character driven nor plot driven. It relies mostly on the discovery and environment of Rama to make it an interesting read. At times that worked for me, but at other times it didn't. I was over half way into the book before I became really engaged in the story. I liked how the book kept me wondering what they would discover. However, I would have liked some pay-off in the end.

This was our fantasy book club read this month and I enjoyed discussing it probably more than I enjoyed reading it. I was one of the people who liked it the least, but I would still recommend giving it a try. It's always interesting to read classic sci-fi and compare it to how sci-fi is written now. Clarke had some interesting ideas of what the future could possibly be like. Some of them felt pretty dated, while others were not too far off. I found it silly that with all the hard sci-fi involved that the author has Mercury colonized, something that, to me is pure fantasy. The best thing about the book is definitely Rama itself and it was interesting, up to a point, how it worked as a ship and a world. Honestly though, that just wasn't enough for me. I personally need interesting and engaging characters to fully enjoy a book.