Rama II

Rendezvous With Rama isn't without its faults. But its strengths penetrate Clarke's somewhat pedestrian prose and interchangeable characters and deposit it on the top shelf of 20th century sci-fi. Visions of the enigmatic, fascinating Rama remain with you forever. Thus we approach Rama II with great anticipation, eager to learn answers to the tantalising mysteries of the first book.

Well, I suppose we learn a teensy bit more about Rama. But we learn a whole lot more - a WHOLE lot more - about a bunch of one-dimensional, hackneyed, stereotyped walking cliches. Excruciating detail. Useless detail. Unless they're the Russian scientist or the Japanese crew members. They lurk around like useless shadows. And everybody communicates in stilted, clumsy dialogue. And they have perfunctory, pointless sex. The prose is awful. Like, how many times is Francesca referred to as the “Italian journalist”? Aarrgh. There are strange gaps in the narrative, something I thought was down to my own deteriorating memory until I confirmed them with my son, who'd read the book just before me. To describe them would be too much detail in a review such as this, but read the book and you will see what I mean. You'll have the odd “what the...?” or “how did...? moment as the story proceeds. Entirely missed by all the friends and colleagues who supposedly gave their feedback on the manuscript...

Inexplicably, the big technological and scientific concepts are glossed over. The mechanics of the Newton craft, the helicopters, the drones and even Rama itself are barely touched upon or entirely neglected. But we know all about Nicole ordering an airline meal from her seat and buying a bus ticket or something, whilst learning nothing about the plane she's on. And apparently she was able to load the text of five (yes, FIVE!) books into the discretionary memory in her personal computer. C'mon! You could already fit five books on a floppy disc in 1989! Surely by 2200 we'd squeeze a few more into a personal computer? And what's with Francesca shooting on FILM? The digital still camera had been around since the mid-70s - was it so hard to imagine a digital video camera by 2200?

I think it's clear from the available evidence that Gentry Lee had a lot more to do with this book than Arthur C. Clarke, despite the billing on the cover. So it's Gentry at whom the raspberries and brickbats should be aimed. There was enormous promise in the prospect of a Rama sequel, none of it realised. In this turgid tome Gentry has greatly amplified Clarke's weaknesses as a writer, and entirely buried his strengths. Clarke never needed to collaborate, and in doing so his legacy was damaged.