Well you WON'T find any of those virtues in this book or any of the sequale that follow.

Gentry Lee seems to have been given the seemingly impossible task of making RAMA--a space-bourn Grand Canyob-sized artifact of an alien culture--a boring place. What's his secret? He filled Rama with insipid caricatures straight from a 20th century soap opera.

Remember that heroic group from the first book that pulled together in the face of catastrophe? Gone! Rama II and it's sequals leave us with short-sighted bureaucrats, beautiful-but-power-mad Italian women, impossibly altruistic scientists, amoral lawyers, American corporate types who want to use Raman technology to create new weapons (boy, that's not cliche!), cowboy presidents, the pope, African-American gangsters, chess-playing Russians, oversexed teens, murderously jealous lovers, and a computer geek who overcomes his social ineptness to save the day and win the girl (Gentry Lee, not surprisingly, is a computer guy).

Maybe Clarke and Lee were worried that Commander Norton and his crew were all cut from the same "noble scientist" cloth that many of Clarke's characters use. If so, they overcompensated drastically. A spear-toting Eskimo or a peg-legged pirate wouldn't seem out of place in this group, but an intelligently written character would.

Most of the gaggle of Knots Landing rejects don't care at all about Rama II and since the book focuses on their bickering, their pregnancies, and their murders, neither will you.

After this one the books actually get worse. And by the time the Ramans reveal themself you (and conincidentally enough, many of the characters) are completly indifferent.

If you've read "Rendezvous with Rama" and haven't read this book yet, then please please PLEASE don't read it!

You'll be sorry you did.


From Classic to Crap   September 5, 2000
 41 out of 47 found this review helpful

"Rendezvous With Rama," the first novel in this series, is one of the all-time classics of science fiction, brilliantly capturing the exhilaration of discovery. "Rama II" rivals "Exorcist II: The Heretic" as perhaps the worst sequel ever. It is a bloated windbag of a book that manages to be both pretentious and trivial.

Clarke, who was about as religious as Madalyn O'Hair, somehow let himself be talked into attaching his name to this preachy soap opera, whose climactic sequence features an outer-space baptism. Think of an especially long and tedious episode of "Melrose Place" with Jerry Falwell as a guest star and you'll have a pretty good idea of this travesty.


Apparently Clarke has sold his soul to the devil.   March 26, 2002
 28 out of 31 found this review helpful

...

The original book in this series was very good-close to a classic. One of the few criticisms one could make of it was it was so transparently commercially manipulative was clear more books were on the way and this was as much--if not more--a money making exercise as an artistic one. But the book was good and this trilogy thing has apparently become a (bad) habit in the sci-fi world, so you give people a little leeway.

Or I did till this monstrosity came out.

If you read the first book then read this one, one thing is brutally clear-the books were written by different people. Clearly this book should have read "By Gentry Lee, based on the ideas of Arthur C. Clark.

The book is awful-the worst sort of 4th rate pulp sci-fi fiction. Sex and sensationalism replace sci-fi as the driving force of the book. It advances the readers understanding of the Raman'-their form, ideas, intentions, etc.--not one whit. It's even a lousy read if you never had exposure to the first novel and were clueless about the whole Rama concept.

It's sad to see a giant of the genre sell out but I can think of no other explanation for this abomination.

Save your money...


Betrayed by Dreck   October 23, 2001
 19 out of 19 found this review helpful

Why, oh why, did he have to take such a jewel of the storyteller's art and drown it in such dreck? This sequel is brutally bad. It is worse than bad. It is a betrayal.

If Rendezvous With Rama is the high point in Clarke's career, then this sequel is most certainly his nadir. It sacrifices everything that makes its progenitor such a classic. The mystery and inspiration of the Ramans are turned into a cheap stage prop for an episode of Survivor. We are treated to the Roman spectacle of a bunch of worthless misfits, each conniving to remain the last one standing. We neither know nor care about their fate. Halfway through, I found myself praying that the Ramans would just show up and ray the lot of them.

To understand how bad this novel really is, one must understand why the original is so good.

The best science fiction gives us something no other genre can: a cosmic perspective that is vastly greater than the merely human. In offering this, it teaches us valuable lessons like humility, tolerance and understanding. And it teaches us these things not at the personal level, but at the universal one. For example, suppose we meet an alien species that is nobler than we. Nobler in every way and in every detail. In art, science, philosophy, morality. What if, due to some cosmic calamity, only one race could survive? Should it be the alien's or ours? Is there a higher cosmic ethic than survival of our species?

This is just a poor approximation to the kinds of reflections that good science fiction can provoke; yet it gives you a sense of the thoughts that the original novel stirred. Such a book cleaves to your heart and to your mind and just won't let go.

Now, take this theme and trivialise it. Consider instead a supermodel who is prettier than we. Prettier in every way and in every detail. In hair, shape, flounce and pout. What if, due to some catering disaster, only one of us could enter the pageant? Should it be the supermodel or we? Is there a higher standard of display appeal than that of the runway?

My analogy may sound like a caricature, but it is not. The trivialisation that occurs in Rama 2 is exactly of the kind that I have expounded. We go from contemplating the majesty of the cosmos to wallowing in the pettiness of twits.

It is no good pretending that this travesty is not the work of Clarke; that it is Gentry Lee's fault. Mr. Clarke has a duty to defend the integrity of his visions. By putting his name to trash, he implicitly if not explicitly participates in the destruction of what is magnificent. Avoid this sequel like a case of herpes. It will do nothing but destroy whatever mystery and intelligent reflection as made the first book so sublime.


I want the time back   December 31, 2002
 12 out of 14 found this review helpful

The longer I think about this book, the dumber I get. The first book (RWR) is a gem; fascinating, innovative, succinct, and it brings to life one of the better sci-fi characters I've come across: a gargantuan spaceship, revealed in fascinating, intricate detail.

RWR opened so many doors and left so many interesting questions unanswered that I was utterly astonished to discover that there exists someone so enfeebled (Gentry Lee) as to be able to write a RWR sequel that isn't even remotely interesting. Who made Rama? Where did it come from? What is its course? What are the cities? Are the biots the Ramans? No progress is made on these questions in all gazillion pages.

Undertake this book only with a moistened thumb at the ready, because you'll be applying it while skipping through page after page of "character development" that would make Judy Blume readers recoil in disappointment if their hearts hadn't already stopped beating from sheer disintrest. Be prepared to wade through several chapters of religionist thought[provoking bull] between the "action sequences", not something many A.C.C. readers look forward to.

Estimated total number of pages related to the exposition of Rama itself: 30/500+
Number of those presenting new information: 6
Number of pointless subplots: 27
Number of those resolved in the book: uhhh... 1? thankfully.
Transparent villains: 3

Just in case you see light at the end of the tunnel, the ending is even dumber. The only reason I finished it was because I just couldn't believe it. And from what I hear, this is the high water mark of the Gentry Lee sequels.