Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

A Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel

Just as there are classics in world literature there are classics in science fiction as well. Where the writers of literary classics are lauded because they beautifully explore the human condition, pressing or even extending the limits of language to do so, great science fiction writers apply the known laws of the universe to unique situations that are as yet beyond the human experience. I think sometimes quality science fiction doesn’t get as much recognition because not enough people understand the science, which is a shame.

Rendezvous with Rama is a terrific example of this application of science to something we have never seen in the real universe. Rama is an object visiting our solar system from some unknown place and the lucky crew of the spacecraft Endeavour gets to explore it. It is the distant future and much of the solar system has been colonized and space travel is relatively commonplace. The setting itself is exciting enough, but Clarke doesn’t skimp on the real science, or the realistic people.

The descriptions of the interior of Rama, which is a spinning cylinder, have been created in such detail that I have to be careful to remember that this thing isn’t real. Embedded in this story of adventure and exploration is a miniature physics lesson in which Clarke has spelled out in concise language how things would work or wouldn’t work in Rama, and how reasonable and reasonably well-equipped people might adjust to it.

There are, however, more than just adventures in artificial gravity and cylindrical seas in Rendezvous with Rama. There’s also the excitement of exploration and discovery, of observing something no one on earth has seen before. Even though William Norton, the commander of Endeavour, is a veteran space traveler, he recognizes the significance of this unique situation. “There was also a sense of danger that was wholly novel to his experience. In every earlier landing, he had known what to expect; there was always the possibility of accident, but never of surprise. With Rama, surprise was the only certainty.” (Having recently read Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram, I was particularly tickled that Norton recognized his similarity to Howard Carter, the discoverer of Tutankhamen’s tomb.)

Rendezvous with Rama is speculative fiction at its finest, although there’s no death and/or destruction if that’s what you’re looking for. Even if you’re afraid of the details of the science, you can just take in the novel as you might an amusement park in a place that is just being explored as you ride along. I, however, particularly enjoyed the scientific details, which allow me fully suspend my disbelief and be entertained.

Of course I was left wanting more, but the reader is allowed hope of a sequel or two in the final line of the book: “The Ramans do everything in threes.” (Spoiler: there are sequels.)

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