31–40 of 124 posts
Other books with a similar plot structure and deeply alien vibe:
- Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky (recommended elsewhere in this thread)
- Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
I know there's one I'm forgetting.
If he'd stopped after one, it would have been fine. He decided to do a series. It got weird. I still read them but the original is a decent standalone and you won't die unhappy if you never read the following. The same could be said of 2001.
Officially, all the Rama sequels were co-authored by Clarke and Gentry Lee. Clarke claimed that Lee did virtually all the writing and he was only a consultant, although AFAICT the only source for this claim was in an interview many years after they were published, presumably after Clarke was aware of their negative reception, so who knows how much of that is true vs. reputation management. But yeah, they're awful. I…
I really enjoyed Rendezvous with Rama when I read it as a sixteen year old. The sense of awe, the scale, the mystery: it was great. But nothing much happened and the story didn't really go anywhere interesting. I eagerly read the sequel, hoping it would unveil the mysteries, but it felt like it was not written by Clarke at all (I suspect Lee wrote it all). Instead of wonder, sci-fi and reveal, it was more about the h…
I too got bored, as you said the book did not seem to go anywhere.
I tried to rationalise those humans were from a world very different from my own, but not even that worked. It was like watching a reality show with uninteresting people.
One of the few cases where they actively ruin the first book, to the extent you take them as true sequels. Clarke basically licensed his name and plot to Gentry Lee, who proceeded to ruin the sense of wonder by explaining everything, often in deeply unsatisfactory ways. They would have been reasonable scifi books (for their time) if they hadn't attempted to follow up the classics.
Star Wars prequel/sequel situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought 3001 was fine and a good conclusion. Although it seemed implausible in the setting that humanity wasn't immortal given some of the technology.
I remember 3001 mainly for the bit about deism vs theism, which is one of my favourite throwaway passages in all of sf. 8 "You said that all the old religions have been discredited. So what do people believe nowadays?" "As little as possible. We’re all either Deists or Theists." "You’ve lost me. Definitions, please." "They were slightly different in your time, but here are the latest versions. Theists believe there’s…
I always thought that, out of the Clarke novels, “Songs of Distant Earth” would make a good movie adaptation. Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it, as happened to Foundation. (I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing.) For sci-fi takes on truly alien first contacts, Lem’s “Solaris” still holds its own, and the Tarkovsky movie is i…
If he'd stopped after one, it would have been fine. He decided to do a series. It got weird. I still read them but the original is a decent standalone and you won't die unhappy if you never read the following. The same could be said of 2001.
I thought 3001 was fine and a good conclusion. Although it seemed implausible in the setting that humanity wasn't immortal given some of the technology.
2010 is a good follow on to the 2001 book, and answers some of the questions the first book left while expanding the mysteries and the sense of wonder.
My wife and I still quote it when answering questions such as what's for dinner.
"Something wonderful".
DO NOT READ THE SEQUELS One of the few cases where they actively ruin the first book, to the extent you take them as true sequels. Clarke basically licensed his name and plot to Gentry Lee, who proceeded to ruin the sense of wonder by explaining everything, often in deeply unsatisfactory ways. They would have been reasonable scifi books (for their time) if they hadn't attempted to follow up the classics. Star Wars pr…
I always thought that, out of the Clarke novels, “Songs of Distant Earth” would make a good movie adaptation. Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it, as happened to Foundation. (I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing.) For sci-fi takes on truly alien first contacts, Lem’s “Solaris” still holds its own, and the Tarkovsky movie is i…