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To be honest I had always a lot of thoughts about this how Rama would be filled with air.... I mean it spins, but how Ramas filled it with air? Central Sea was one of sources, but water wasn't possible there before whole Rama being filled with air. So my thinking was always, air enters in the center, goes in all directions, hits surface which is 750 km/h... so ~40% of speed of molecules... how much it "slows down" Rama? Would there be needed some additional force to spin it? How long it would take to "calm down", and build gradient of oxygen/air in Rama...

Always was thinking about writting some simulation for it, but it was always "someday" ;-)

I'm not fundamentally opposed to the use of AI to generate accompanying imagery, but in this case I think it detracts significantly from the article. The interior of Rama is misrepresented: the scale is completely off and the geometry is nonsensical. The clustered "cities" London, Paris, and Rome are not represented correctly. Too many more issues to name. Disappointing.

One should cherish one's own internal visualizations formed from reading the text; one should be cautious in viewing other artists' conceptions of the same material, lest your own model of the book's setting be tainted by unfaithful representations. When the imagery is this bad, it's a disservice to the book's legacy.

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 prequel/sequel situation.

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 its own standalone classic (again something very different from the book).

"Wonder" might be the wrong way to describe it, but Blindsight by Peter Watts gave me the same feeling of "this is incredibly alien and I have no idea what will happen next".

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.

For those who already read Rendezvous with Rama but need their alien aliens fix I can highly recommend "Shroud" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It is a similar theme with modern writing and convincing aliens as is pretty much expected by now from Tchaikovsky.

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 human relationships of the astronauts and less about the sci-fi.

Re: 2001

> Clarke wrote the movie screenplay with Kubrick

I don’t think this is true? I thought the two of them sat together and worked out the plot, and then Kubrick went off and wrote the screenplay and Clarke went off and wrote the novel. So neither is really “based on” the other.

Anyway though, Rama is great, yes. I’m skeptical of the idea of a movie adaptation but Denis Villeneuve is probably the right one to try to pull it off.

Been following this movie's development for over 20 years. I give props to Morgan Freeman for trying so hard all this time to get it made. Denis Villeneuve would be a great director for this, and he could make it work.

Let's hope it happens soon... finally.

I'm looking forward to The Hail Mary Project movie, the book has all of the elements to let it be good. But I think there's a reason Rama never got filmed or animated. It's more of a travelogue than an action adventure, and at best ends with a cliffhanger that Clarke never resolved. Ringworld may be in the same category.

I decided to get back into reading two years ago and I picked this as one of the first ones to get started with, given it was a small book. I absolutely love Arthur C. Clarke's style of helping you visualize the grand scenes.

His books are more plot driven and the characters are pretty flat, but it's so damn fun to read through!

Morgan Freeman has been trying to get the movie adaptation made since early 2000s and wants to play Commander Norton. I had read that Denis Villenueve (the same director from the new Dune movies) was attached to direct the adaptation, but it seems like his schedule is really busy. He recently finished filming Dune Messiah and then he's got the next James Bond movie to deliver.

Making it a movie would ruin it. Unless it was more of a “Literary” film like 2001 and even then a fancy director would have to stray from the original to make it work visually and add conflict. Just read it. I believe in Rama’s premise. Aliens just wouldn’t be interested in us in the same way we’re not interested in local squirrel population. Rama answers the “great filter” question. Where is all the intelligent life going in universe? Right under our noses doing its thing while we do ours. Maybe on our AI will be interesting to aliens.

Some thoughts on the novel: its strengths and weaknesses, why it's so different from other first contact novels. I'd love to hear people's views of the novel.

Rendezvous with Rama was one of my favorites as a teenager, hopefully the film adaptation does it justice.

I remember hearing that Morgan Freeman was going to star in the Rendezvous with Rama movie. I also remember hearing once that they were making a 2061 and 3001 movie. Not quite sure which series I enjoyed more.

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.

Really cool writeup, really appreciated it -

Only thing that my hangry self took issue with -

"When I first read this as a teenager, I came away with a huge sense of wonder... When I re-read it many years later as an adult, I didn’t quite get that same sense of wonder, but maybe that’s because I’m more jaded now.

Wonder seems to have fallen out of favor with sci-fi writers."

Has it? Approaching it de novo, it sounds much more likely that you are immune to wonder - i.e. apply Occam's Razor to: A) I don't get wonder from this book that used to give me wonder B) I don't get wonder from recent SciFi books.

Then there's the second thing, ignoring Occam's Razor: "Recent SciFi books don't have wonder" doesn't follow from A and/or B, it's another premise that could justify B.

FWIW I feel the same way re: wonder getting older. My excuse is we've just seen too much training data, i.e. some things don't have an explanation and that's fine and there's nowhere to go with it.

Anyone play the Apple II video game by Telerium? Slow, but it did evoke that sense of wonder https://youtu.be/ITxhoiXiXRY?si=n21imKGMjqyjmQld

I read it as a young teen, and I remember trying to imagine what it might look like to enter a cylinder that large.

I remember having fun doing it, which might not be something I could amuse myself with 20 years later since it's hard to hold on to that kind of childlike wonder unless you're on a hallucinogen.

This reminded me that they made a point-and-click game of Rama. I remember enjoying it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rama_(video_game)

Another recommendation, not a first contact story, but a very weird world and you wonder why things are how they are:

Inverted World by Christopher Priest

"Clarke himself was gay"

Maybe it no longer needs to be said in this day and age, but Clarke was accused, credibly, of being a pedophile (or, to diminish it with a technicality, hebephile).

It is not quite as abhorrent/chilling as the also credible accusations against Marion Zimmer Bradley--but only because she was teamed up with a Jeffrey Epstein like character.

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