Too bad it's contaminated by all the stupid human drama nonsense introduced in the next books except Rama 1 . Gangsters taking control of the humans on Rama and making a town run by gambling , prostitution and etc ??? And I will never forget the subplot of the woman character having an illegitimate child with the king of England . Literally wtf was the writer smoking when thinking this nonsense up ?
Rendezvous with Rama is my third-favorite sci-fi book (after Dune and The Martian Chronicles). I fell in love with it and Arthur C. Clarke when I read it! Thank you for another wonderful video!
The subsequent books were co-written with ACC. Lee worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and had a far better grasp of space technology. He was also much better at writing characters: not that Arthur’s writing suffered too much from his deficiency in that area. In the end, it’s a matter of taste. RWR was enigmatic, both in terms of the aliens spacecraft, the aliens who had built it, and the book itself. Personally, I liked all the books (for different reasons), and hope they all get made into movies by the likes of Villeneuve.
Yay! - One of my favorite books of all time. Very nice presentation of the book, its themes and place in science fiction history. Also, great video production!
Nice video on one of my all time favourite books, read many times. But a couple of observations. First, the nuclear weapon launched by the Hermians is disabled by Cmdr Nortons crew. So Rama didn't have to neutralize it. Second, I don't think I agree with your characterization of Rama as incomprehensible. Clarke sets up a scenario where Humanity has very little time to explore it thus preventing a full characterization and understanding. But Clarke, in my opinion, was an optimist by nature and by the end of the story, it seems a pretty good hypothesis can be/ is crafted based on the tidbits that Clarke reveals as the explorations are conducted: Rama is an automated ship, a pretty conventional space habitat in configuration (reminiscent of O'Neil habitats proposed back in the late 1970's) , rotating for gravity, just passing through the Sol system, where the crew, including Biots and possibly Ramans themselves, are stored as patterns which are activated as and when required. Yes the space drive and the biotechnology are advanced but not incomprehensible. Yes, it's characterized as a hypothesis, but anything provided by the author in this way has to be taken as truth, at least that's the way I see it. Cheers!
My favorite youtuber just posted a video about my favorite sci fi novel. I'm so happy, I tried searching for the extra grinning emoji, but instead of writing "smile" I wrote "darrel" by freudian mistake... turns out there's no emoji with that prompt, which of course is a terrible oversight if you ask me. Darrel, you unwitting and perhaps reluctant object of my lusty desires, will you believe it has taken me more than ten minutes to write this silly little message? and I still haven't gotten around to watch the video itself! My mind is in short circuit. Help. The prompt for the emoji was "beaming" btw 😁
When I read it the Jimmy's sky-bike, Dragonfly, was human-propelled. I can't say whether it had a jet engine strapped on when you read it. And that "central spine running along the axis" was only a spiky lightning maker thing stretching out just a bit from the "southern" hub with bitty buddies around it rather than the sort of thing along the axis of The Way in Eon.
Bravo, job well done! to be completely honest, I have no Deas ire nor plan to read the sequels, because I want the mystery and incomprehensibility of the alien craft to remain as such.
Hi Darrel, great vid! So glad the algorithm gods brought me here! GOD bless those Hawaiians for letting us build observatories on top of every mountain they've got! But Oumuamua..."a messanger from afar arriving first"...come on guys! Might have just as well named it 'Pheidippides'! Everybody knows it's real name is RAMA! Keep up the good work, we're all counting on you!
Good timing for me. I'm now drafting my tenth book with similar ideas. I read the Rama books years ago so perhaps they influence my subconscious. I didn't realize that connection until I saw your video. Where do stories come from? For me they come for the thousands of books I've read boiling under my surface.
I often think that if humanity ever gets out into the galaxy - something that is presently looking less-and-less likely - they will encounter things where they can't actually decide if they're alive or not, because they're just so different from us. The idea that there'll be such a thing as 'Alien DNA' will look pretty silly in hindsight!
Science fiction books I would like to see explained in better detail than I could understand: Biogenesis, by Tatsuaki Ishiguro. 10 Billion Days & 100 Billion Nights, by Ryu Mitsuse.
No, thank Thor, and let's keep it that way! I'd rather be a member of the top predator species in this godforsaken pale blue dot than shipped to a research facility in Chiron Beta Prime
