The verdict
First contact as an engineering problem, handled with total assurance, and with the courage to leave the big question open.
Quick facts
- First published
- 1973
- Publisher
- Gollancz
- Series
- Rama, book one
- Awards
- Hugo, Nebula, Locus and John W. Campbell Memorial awards
- Best for
- Discovery-driven science fiction with no antagonist in it
- Skip it if
- You need a plot with a villain, or an ending that answers its own questions
Author Arthur C. Clarke
Rendezvous with Rama is Arthur C. Clarke’s 1973 novel about a perfect cylinder fifty kilometres long that arrives from interstellar space, and the small crew sent to look inside it before it leaves again. Nobody shoots at anybody. There are no aliens to negotiate with. The book is an inspection, and it is one of the most gripping inspections in science fiction.
The idea behind it
Clarke’s premise is that a first contact would most likely be an engineering event rather than a conversation. Rama does not answer hails, does not slow down for anyone and does not appear to care that it has been found. It is a machine on a schedule, and the humans get a few weeks to look at it.
That removes almost everything the genre normally relies on. No villain, no war, no exposition from a helpful alien. What is left is curiosity, and Clarke writes it better than anyone: the novel is essentially a series of doors opening.
The story, spoiler-light
Commander Norton and the crew of the Endeavour are the nearest ship when Rama is detected, and they get there first. Inside they find a world with its own weather, its own daylight and, eventually, its own machinery. Every discovery raises a question the crew cannot answer, and the book keeps its nerve about that: some questions stay unanswered.
Two things are worth knowing. The novel is structured as an expedition log, which suits it, and the ending is a departure rather than a resolution. Clarke was not interested in explaining Rama, and the restraint is the reason the book is remembered.
What makes it science fiction
This is hard science fiction written by someone who knew the mathematics, and it shows in the details that matter: the orbital mechanics of catching a moving object, the lighting inside a spinning cylinder, the fact that the crew have to leave on time because the geometry will not wait for them. The physics creates the tension.
It is also a cold book, deliberately. Rama is indifferent to the people inside it, and Clarke lets that indifference stand without softening it into a message. Very few novels trust their readers with a mystery this large and this unresolved.
Who should read it, and who should give it a miss
Read it if you like the part of science fiction that is about discovery, and if you are happy with characters who are competent professionals rather than complicated people. It is short, clean and almost impossible to put down once the airlock opens.
Give it a miss if you need a plot with a villain or an ending that pays off everything it sets up. The sequels, written much later and with a co-author, go somewhere the first book deliberately does not.
Where to start, and what to read next
Start here, and if you enjoy it, read Childhood’s End for Clarke’s other essential novel. They are different books, and together they show both of his moods: the engineer and the mystic. Do not feel obliged to continue into the Rama sequels unless you want the answers, because they are a different kind of book.
For a colder version of the same idea, Solaris puts an unreadable alien at the centre of a story about the people trying to study it, and it makes the indifference personal.
The verdict
First contact as an engineering problem, handled with total assurance. Short, calm and genuinely gripping, with the courage to leave the big question open.
Frequently asked questions
Did Rendezvous with Rama win any awards?
Yes, a clean sweep of the major awards of its year: the Hugo, the Nebula, the Locus and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. It is one of the most decorated science fiction novels of the 1970s.
Should I read the sequels?
They are optional and they are different. The later books were written with Gentry Lee, answer questions the first novel leaves open, and are more conventional adventures. Plenty of readers stop after this one and lose nothing.
Is there any action in it?
Almost none, and that is the point. The tension comes from time pressure and from things the crew do not understand, not from a fight.
Do we ever meet the aliens?
You meet their work, which is the whole of what the novel offers. Whether anything alive is aboard is left open, and the book is stronger for refusing to settle it.
Where can I buy it?
It is available in paperback and as a Kindle edition, and the buy links for Amazon.com and Amazon.in are on this page.