Rendezvous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama
Author	Arthur C. Clarke
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Rama series
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Publication date	1972
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	0-553-28789-9
Followed by	Rama II

Rendezvous with Rama is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke first published in 1972. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a fifty-kilometer-long cylindrical alien starship that enters Earth's solar system. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries.

This novel won both the Hugo^[1] and Nebula^[2] awards upon its release, and is widely regarded as one of the cornerstones in Clarke's bibliography. It is considered a science fiction classic, and is particularly seen as a key hard science fiction text.

Plot summary

The "Rama" of the title is an alien star ship, initially mistaken for an asteroid and named after the king Rama who is considered to be the seventh avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu (Clarke mentions that by the 22nd century, scientists have used the names of all the Greek and Roman mythological figures to name astronomical bodies, and have thus moved on to Hindu mythology). Asteroid 31/439 is detected by astronomers in the year 2130 while still outside the orbit of Jupiter. The object's speed (100 000 km/h) and the angle of its trajectory clearly indicate that this is not an object on a long orbit around our sun; it comes from interstellar space. Astronomers' interest is piqued when they realize that this asteroid not only has an extremely rapid 4 minute rotation period but it is quite large in size for an asteroid. An unmanned space probe dubbed Sita is launched from the Mars moon Phobos, and photographs taken during its rapid flyby reveal that Rama is a mathematically perfect cylinder, 20 kilometers in diameter and 54 kilometers long, made of a completely featureless material. In other words, this is humankind's first encounter with an alien space ship.

The manned solar survey vessel Endeavour is sent to study Rama, as it is the only ship close enough to do so in the brief period of time Rama will spend in our solar system. Endeavour manages to rendezvous with Rama one month after the space ship first comes to Earth's attention, when the giant alien spacecraft already is within Venus' orbit. The 20+ crew, led by Commander Norton, enters Rama and explores the vast 16-km wide by 50-long cylindrical world of its interior, but the nature and purpose of the starship and its creators remains enigmatic throughout the book.

The only lifeforms are the cybernetic "biots" who completely ignore the humans, and who are busy all about the spacecraft, appearing to be prepping Rama for a major upcoming maneuver. After several adventures and misadventures, including a 1 gigaton nuclear missile fired from Mercury with the intent of destroying Rama, Endeavour is finally forced to leave a few weeks later as Rama moves too close to the Sun for Endeavour's cooling systems to compensate. Rama is then flung out of the solar system toward an unknown location in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud, harnessing the Sun's gravitational field with its mysterious "space drive" for use in a slingshot maneuver.

The book was meant to stand alone, although some believe the final sentence of the book suggests otherwise:

And on far-off Earth, Dr. Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had wakened from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain: The Ramans do everything in threes.

Clarke, however, denied that this sentence was meant to hint at the continuity of the story - according to his foreword in the book's sequel, it was just a good way to end the book, and was added during a final revision.

Design and geography of Rama

A 3D artist's impression of the interior of Rama.

Interior view of an O'Neill cylinder showing alternating land and window stripes.

The interior of Rama is essentially a large cylindrical landscape, dubbed 'The Central Plain' by the crew, 16 kilometers wide and 50 long, with artificial gravity provided by its 0.25 rpm spin. It is split into the 'northern' and 'southern' hemispheres, divided in the middle by an 10-km wide expanse of water the astronauts dub the 'Cylindrical Sea'. In the center of the Cylindrical Sea is an island of unknown purpose covered in tall, skyscraper-like structures, which the astronauts name 'New York' due to an imagined similarity to Manhattan. At each end of the ship are North and South "Poles". The North Pole is effectively the bow and the South Pole the stern, as Rama is traveling in the direction of the North Pole and its drive system is at the South Pole.

The North Pole contains Rama's airlocks, and is where the Endeavour lands. The airlocks open into the hub of the massive bowl shaped cap at the North Pole, with three massive 8-kilometer long stair systems dubbed Alpha, Beta, and Gamma by the crew leading to the plain. The Northern hemisphere contains several small 'towns' interconnected by roads, dubbed London, Paris, Peking, Tokyo, Rome, and Moscow. The South Pole has a giant cone-shaped protrusion, surrounded by six smaller ones, which are probably the main reactors of Rama's reactionless "space drive". The southern hemisphere consists of hundreds of small square-kilometer regions filled with various things, such as hollow tubes, collections of diamond, and empty plowed fields.

Both ends of Rama are lit by six giant trenches (three in the northern hemisphere and three in the south), equidistantly placed around the cylinder, effectively functioning as giant strip lighting.

Project Spaceguard

Clarke invented the fictional space study program which detects Rama, Project Spaceguard, as a method of identifying near-Earth objects on Earth-impact trajectories; it was initiated after an equally fictional asteroid "struck" Italy on September 11, 2077, destroying Padua and Verona and sinking Venice. However, a real Spaceguard project was initiated some years later, named after Clarke's fictional device. After interest in the dangers of asteroid strikes was heightened by a series of Hollywood disaster films, the United States Congress gave NASA authorization and funding to support Spaceguard.

Books in the series

Clarke paired up with Gentry Lee for the remainder of the series. Lee did the actual writing, while Clarke read and made editing suggestions.^[3] The focus and style of the last three novels are quite different from those of the original with an increased emphasis on characterization and more clearly portrayed heroes and villains, rather than Clarke's dedicated professionals. These later books did not receive the same critical acclaim and awards as the original.

• Rendezvous with Rama (1972) ISBN 978-0-553-28789-9
• Rama II (1989) ISBN 978-0-553-28658-8
• The Garden of Rama (1991) ISBN 978-0-553-29817-8
• Rama Revealed (1993) ISBN 978-0-553-56947-6

Gentry Lee also wrote two further novels set in the same Rama Universe.

• Bright Messengers (1995)
• Double Full Moon Night (1999)

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

In the early 2000s, actor Morgan Freeman expressed his desire to produce a film based on Rendezvous with Rama. After a drawn-out development process — which Freeman attributed to difficulties in procuring funding — it appeared in 2003 this would indeed be happening.^[4] IMDb at one point upgraded the status of the project to "announced" with an estimated release date in 2009. The film was to be produced by Freeman's production company, Revelations Entertainment. David Fincher, touted on Revelations' Rama web page as far back as 2001,^[5] stated in a late 2007 interview (where he also credited the novel as an influence on the films Alien and Star Trek: The Motion Picture) that he is still attached to helm.^[6] Revelations and IMDb indicated that Stel Pavlou had written the adaptation.

In late 2008, David Fincher stated the movie is unlikely to be made. "It looks like it's not going to happen. There's no script and as you know, Morgan Freeman's not in the best of health right now. We've been trying to do it but it's probably not going to happen."^[7] The IMDb page for the project has been removed.

In 2001, Aaron Ross, a student at the Tisch School Of Arts at NYU, created a short film based on Rendezvous With Rama."^[8]

In 2009, Phil Mahoney, a Vancouver Film School Sound Design student and composer, took Aaron Ross' Rendezvous With Rama short and recorded, edited and mixed his own soundscape for it, complete with original music score. The project is now featured on the official VFS Youtube and Vimeo channels."^[9]

Other media

A graphic adventure computer game with a text parser based on the book was made in 1984 by Telarium (formerly known as Trillium) and ported to other systems such as the Apple II and Commodore 64. Despite its primitive graphics, it had highly detailed descriptions, and it followed the book very closely along with having puzzles to solve during the game. It was adapted from the Clarke novel in 1983 by Ron Martinez, who went on to design the massively multiplayer online game 10Six, also known as Project Visitor.

Sierra Entertainment created Rama in 1996 as a point and click adventure game in the style of Myst. Along with highly detailed graphics, Arthur C. Clarke also appeared in the game as the guide for the player. This game featured characters from the sequel book Rama II.

As part of their 2009 science-fiction season, a two-part radio adaptation of the book was devised by Mike Walker for BBC Radio 4 in their Classic Serial series and first broadcast on 1 March 2009 (Part 1) and 8 March 2009 (Part 2). [1]

Awards and nominations

The novel was awarded the following soon after publication

• Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1973^[2]
• British Science Fiction Association Award in 1973^[2]
• Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1974^[1]
• Jupiter Award for Best Novel in 1974^[1]
• John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1974^[1]
• Locus Award for Best Novel in 1974^[1]

References

External links

• Rendezvous with Rama at Worlds Without End