If you had read the book, then when Oumuamua came through the system, you immediately thought of Rama. Clarke's fiction is characterized by a tone that many readers found remote. His science fiction was often heavier on what was the best science at the time rather than the story as such. So characters and character development are under emphasized to many readers.
I seriously hope that they hope all in on the retrofuturism aspect if the tech for the team (except maybe the modified chimps, that's a little weird these days). And I can't wait to see the "spires" energizing for the course corrections
We have another possible extrasolar object: Comet C/2014 which is the size of a Dwarf Planet going through the Outer Solar System and should be at its closest in 2031, near the orbit of Saturn. This is one of the largest comets ever and from the Oort Cloud and may have been picked up from another star while the Sun was orbiting the Galactic Core. This particular object at around 119-137 kilometers in diameter would make a great alien colony ship if it's extrasolar. Imagine if it were a colony ship. Near the orbit of Saturn, it releases many transport ships with the goal of landing on Earth, which humanity would see as an invasion. The alien's technology would be significantly more advanced.
Rama was the first science fiction series I ever read and I was blown away. Inspired me down a path filled with more science fiction and eventually to a career as an aerospace engineer working on spacecraft and rockets.
For me it came a few years into reading SF. As much as I love the grand ideas and the scale of everything, the thing I remember most is that it showed me the importance of effective meetings. I'd been to some useless work staff meetings by then, so the lesson was quite necessary.
It's been a long time since I read the books. I feel like I remember it ended with God was collecting space faring species to make the perfect species and would create a new Big Bang to try again. Is this a false memory?
Denis Villeneuve is currently my favorite film maker, and he has repeatedly knocked it out of the park with movies like Arrival, Sicario, Dune, and my favorite, Blade Runner 2049. I can't wait to see his take on Clarke.
What a novel concept, hiring writers and directors that are fans of Science Fiction and the original source material. Shame that the people making The Witcher couldn't grasp that...
Great book .. one of many by Clarke. I buried myself in Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov and others in the 70s, when these were still pretty fresh ideas. Now I'm in MY 70s and I still treasure these works as an important developmental factor in my life and in my thinking. Thanks for your review.
Agreed, wholeheartedly. Though admittedly I got caught up in Heinlen. Still need to explore Clarke and Assimov more. Truly incredible writing by all of the above. Phillip K Dick belongs in such company as well.
I love Dune and my problem with movie adaptions is that they always do the first book or two and then they stop. With Rama, this would be a good thing, because I always felt the first book should have had no sequels. The best idea in it was that aliens exist, they vastly outtech us and when visiting might not even notice we exist.
While I mostly enjoyed the sequels, they really feel like a new series inspired by the first book rather than a continuation. The first sequel is basically a remake but set in a time with less futuristic tech (despite being further into the future.)
The sequels were written by Gentry Lee with less and less input by Clarke. I agree that they might best be viewed as a separate series. That said I loved Rama Revealed, and what the series says about humanity, and I thought that Revealed was a worthy ending to the series.
@@traal Yeah Rama Revealed was by far the best of the sequels, Garden of Rama by far the worst. I never read the prequel books but I haven't heard anyone say they're good and Clarke only had a part in one of them.
@@GoodmansGhost Personally, I had the reverse impression. Though I'm biased by the fact that Garden of Rama was my entrypoint into the series. My mother knew I liked Sci-Fi, but didn't realize it was the third in a series of 4 books (the last not having been written), so she bought it for me. I did quickly pick up the rest, and I realized that Rendezvous was just a fundamentally different kind of work. Rendezvous is a typical work of "golden age" Sci-Fi: big on ideas and meaning, but short on character. The trilogy is more modern in that it's much more about characters who are theoretically engaging and interesting that just so happen to be in a Sci-Fi setting. As for Revealed, I just found that the characters weren't that interesting anymore. When you stake your story on making your characters interesting and dynamic, and then they get put into boring situations, the story stops being interesting.
Not just my favorite sci-fi book, but my favorite book. I've read it, I own the hardcover, I listen to it. It's cued up now on audible. Been waiting almost 50 years for a movie version.
The biggest takeaway I got from "Rendezvous With Rama" was the truest sense of what it meant to be "alien," as in totally different from the relatable aliens on Star Trek that always seemed to be able to communicate with us. And also alien in having technology that while making some sense to us, was also completely different, and in part, completely outside of our understanding. Rama's purpose and creators were a mystery, and humans had no part of its purpose.
Stanislaw Lem wrote multiple books with this theme. If we ever met alien inteligent life, there is no way we understand each other, all we can hope is that we don't annihilate each other. In the West, his most popular translated work about it is "Solaris", aboutplanet covered with some kind of thinking ocean, that didn't even noticed humans for years doing experiments on the surface. When humans got it attention with j=hard radiation, it was Solaris that started experimenting on humans. Same way like humans would put sticks in front of an ant. Most recent good book about contact is Blindsight, if you like hard sf, packed with ideas, with truly alien alien it's def book for you.
This whole issue is something that boggles my mind. Whenever there is talk about alien intelligence it is about, well relatable aliens. Is our science really that advanced and we can rule out different biochemical basis for life let alone different ways of thinking that might not be comprehensible for us? I have no clue about this topic to form a well based opinion but it seems to me that we are toonprone to humanizing any concept of life .
@@emceha Thanks! I was a teenager in the 1980's when I first read A.C. Clark, starting with "A Childhoods End." Been a while since I read much SF, but I really enjoyed the recent adaptation of "The Expanse" and "Good Omens" on Amazon. Like the short lived "Firefly," I was so disappointed that the recent "The Tick" was cut so short.
I didn't find "Rendezvous with Rama" boring at all. It was fascinating and exactly what a SciFi novel should be. I absolutely loved it. I also read the next books in the series, but they never captured the fascination I felt with the first one. I've been looking for a movie adaptation of this book for years and always wondered how in the hell no one thought about it. (I guess the answer may be the seemingly endless superheroes movies that many classify nowadays as SciFi...) I can't wait for Villeneuve's take on this masterpiece.
@@adamreason4422 I was just about to mention this. Morgan Freeman has spoken about how he just couldn't get it greenlit. His goal to make that movie had been a long endeavor, as he apparently has been trying to make it happen for around twenty years. He wanted to star in it though, and now I think he would be way too old.
I picked this book up in a second hand book store in 1989, I sat on the toilet and started to read. I was still reading on the damned toilet a few hours later and had almost finished the book. I was enthralled, and I just had to know what happened next. I think Rama is completely underrated. Its not about the big and flashy, its about atmosphere, and Rama had it in spades. I went on to read all the other books and loved them, but for some reason, the first book left a very profound affect on me even to this day. I think Dennis is a perfect option to make a movie about Rama, his previous works all have a similar tone.
For me, the book was incredible - you as a reader knew just as little as the characters in the book, and it was a journey of discovery, wanting to know the answers to all the questions the story kept throwing up. That's what kept me enthralled. I hope the film will be as good.
I agree, I read the book when it was first published and thought it was amazing. Clarke wasn't great at characterisation, but his ideas were fantastic. I, too, hope the film will be good, but I don't have a lot of faith in modern films.
I work at an observatory in southern AZ and in 2005 I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with Morgan Freeman as he was visiting to get a feel for a small observatory. He apparently owned the rights for this movie at the time and visited numerous facilities in the area. So glad to hear the project is moving forward. Mr Freeman, we’d love to have you back!
I read Rendezvous with Rama when I was 13 yrs old, waaaay back in 1979 (you do the math) and absolutely loved it and still do today. Yes, the story is slow and doesn't really focus on the characters or their interplay, but what the book does achieve is evoking an absolute sense of wonder and discovery through it's highly detailed description of this alien craft. Humans aren't really supposed to be on show in this book - it's all about the wonder of what else might be out there in the universe. We are inconsequential in the shadow of a civilisation that can construct an enormous interstellar craft such as Rama. Let's not forget that the craft isn't heading for Earth at all - humans don't figure at all in Rama's greater purpose, whatever that purpose might be. An absolute sci-fi classic!
When I first read it as a young teen, the "emptiness" of the novel was, for me, filled with suspense and mystery. I can see how that would be found boring by some. I will read it again to see how it stands up to my memories of it.
@samuel holt. It should hold up alot better than the utter fantasy,teeniedrama, politically correct, nonsensical, totally implausible non science dribble we get nowadays. Can't remember the last really good sci-fi author/book I've read. Not Sci fi, but I did enjoy "wise man's fear" enough to read it twice.
I found it 100% the same way. In my late teens, reading it after reading a lot of more modern sci-fi and fantasy, I took the lack of character development as 'you have no idea what may happen to them, anyone could die, disappear, or radically transform at any moment'. It ended up with a bit of an Alien feel mixed with a 2001 feel for me as a reader. Strange, bizarre, potentially dangerous, totally mysterious, open and undefined. The story could take any direction at any moment and I would have felt it fit.
@@jeffbowers950 Try Iain Banks' Culture novels, if you haven't already. Some of the later ones get a bit too complicated, but the early ones, for example 'The Player of Games', are excellent. I also agree with Matt Falk about 'Project Hail Mary'.
Grew up in a very toxic environment and (sort of) small minded, rural communities (we moved a lot) and I read to escape. In my teens, I discovered Arthur C Clarke and I can honestly say I’ve read most of his library. In fact, the prize book in my mini-book collection is a compilation of correspondence letters between Arthur C Clarke and CS Lewis about God. It’s not the most amazing read, but it use to be a rare book. But as I read Clarke’s work, an because I lived in rural areas without much light pollution, I would sneak out at night and just stare up at the sky. On a new moon, it was MAGNIFICENT! All the stars! If I had money for batteries, I would plug in a cassette (kids, ask your parents) and just listen to music, escape from the hell that was my upbringing and be amazed. Clarke shaped my thinking of the cosmos. I hope the adaptation will be a good one. Villenevue is descent film maker and I’m sure he’ll do a good job. And if not, I just steal a thought from the old MST3K theme song and tell myself, “it’s just a show. I pretty much should just relax”.
One of my favorite aspects of Rendezvous with Rama is the pacing. The book moves incredibly fast and leaves you wanting more after each page. This is one of those books that is difficult to put down once you start.
The one thing I really hated about the book was the Simps. A genetically engineered slave race for humanity. I still find it morally offensive and to enjoy the book I skip every part where it talks about them.
I came across "Arrival" purely by accident and loved it. It's not a fast, flashy, slam bang kind of movie, but, for me, a thoughtful, thought provoking story. I loved it. I have also read "Rendezvous With Rama" a number of times and it's one of my favorites. If it's anywhere near "Arrival" it should be great.
both are real jewels, in book form, Arrival is also a Movie Jewel, watched it more often than many other movies...can't wait for the Rendezvous with Rama Movie...
Arrival would have been better served by being an episode of an anthology series such as Outer Limits. Beautiful stuff, but not enough going on for a movie.
@@MettleHurlant I have to respectfully disagree. I think so many people see "science fiction movie" and they think fast, loud bang bang shoot 'em up. This is more of a philosophical story. There's a lot going on here, but it's more internalized. I like fast, loud movies as much as anyone but sometimes I want to see something that makes me think.
Rendezvous with Rama is my favorite book of all time. The completely alien discription and strait forward "let me show you what I can come up with" made it feel like it was beyond what a normal book needed. The second one couldn't grab me at all unfortunately. It felt like it was missing the Clark parts. He had the most amazing way of describing things so that they were barely in reach for us never to achieve.
I read many of Arthur Clarke's books. I especially enjoyed the realism and depth of detail that his books contained. In 1964 I went to a lecture at NC State University where he was speaking on the future of the Space Program. We were able to ask questions and I got to shake his hand and tell him how much I liked his works, especially "A Fall of Moondust". I was 12.
This book was what started my love for science fiction. I haven't read the other two, so I know first hand that you can definitely enjoy this book as a standalone.
This book didn't start my absolute enjoyment of science fiction but it was one that certainly cemented my love of the genre. The book that hooked me was called 'Tarnsmen of Gor' by John Norman..
It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that Rendezvous With Rama was the very first science fiction book that I ever read when I was a child. One of the very few works where an alien culture actually felt "alien". I don't know if a movie could capture it, especially in current times.
Fun fact, but the big "whale probe" in Star Trek IV was originally a prop made to be the ship in Rama. The movie never materialized, and the prop got reused.
Protheans from Mass Effect had such staunch sort of fascism that even our fascists would find it alien in that they subjugate thrall species to never become spacefaring under death and considering superluminal travel too pure for anyone but them and their predecessors.
I read the whole series and found it absolutely gripping. Clarke paints the characters very well and gives them all strong personality. These people are thrust into an environment that is difficult to understand and yet they mould into a reasonably good team in the end. It is the adventure of a lifetime wandering around that huge ecosystem and discovering strange creatures from other planets and a perfect opportunity to conduct scientific analysis of their surroundings. I read them all when I was about 22/23 so it's not to heavy otherwise I would have got bored.
I’m personally interested in Villeneuve’s interpretation of Clark’s work because IMO Clark’s major weakness was Characterization, whereas Villeneuve’s greatest strength lies in expressing a characters personality to the viewer in ways that Clark was not capable of pursuing. Can’t wait for your future videos covering Rama, and dune part 2 for that matter!
Did you feel the same about the characterization in the following books in the series? I haven't read them since I was a child, but I recall Nicole des Jardins as an impactful character to me who I think upon often still. Maybe it's because she's the first female character in fiction who I really got to spend a lot of time in their internal thoughts, and she was dealing with really novel situations to me, like grappling with issues regarding her reproductive choices aboard Rama. I maybe appreciate her too since she was like a mediating voice between the more ideologically extreme characters of Richard and Michael - that conflict of religion and science they have to navigate together as a family - and that theme just happened to be important to me at that time of my life. I don't know. I just like her as a character, and I'd be curious how others remember her.
@@m.branson4785 to be fair I haven’t read the sequels to “Rendezvous”. And as far as I know Clark’s involvement was minimal insofar as narrative progression was concerned beyond the initial novel in the series. To reiterate; clark’s characters, though he did not ignore them, were not the focus of “Rendezvous”. IMO.
I mean… Consider any seminal Arthur Clark story. Weather it be something personally cared for or something well regarded throughout the Syfy community, I can almost guarantee the last thing on your mind when you think of those stories are the characters. It seems to me that when Clark wrote he wrote to instill an emotion or to implant an image in the readers mind that went far beyond anything that a character could portray or translate. Not because he wasn’t capable of doing that as a writer but because that, in my opinion, was never really his goal to begin with when writing a story.
True, but I don’t think characters were his focus and rendezvous with Rama. I think his focus was on humanity as a character, ended that he definitely characterized us. We are complex, internally arguing with ourselves, with parts of us lashing out at what we don’t understand, while other parts of us hold intense curiosity. We are progressive, as indicated by the homosexual and polyamorous relationships considered normal at this time in history. We are protective, perhaps too protective. We’ve experienced trauma, as indicated by the astroid that kicks off spaceguard. Your comment made me think, and I’m grateful for it. I think rendezvous with Rama is almost a love story, Or perhaps the start to one. Two stranger civilizations meet, experience a very brief connection, only for it to be cut short by light circumstances. Perhaps we will meet again?
Everything doesn't need to be a wordy soap opera where mindless interpersonal drama drowns out the story just so mouth breathers can mantain interest. Leave it niche.
Really excited for this film, love Clarke and love old school sci-fi. I used to live by this really cool used book store hidden away in the back of an industrial park. I loved going there on rainy days and hearing the rain on the metal roof while the owner played jazz records all day. I'd walk out with a stack of old pulps for like a quarter each, lots of Clarke, Heinlein, and Herbert.
This wasn’t in Bethesda, Maryland perchance? Almost exact same memories of row upon row of books in a giant space that were frequently so cheap I could but an armful for the same as my lunch!
Mmm... the days of actually having to go somewhere to get printed, unillustrated content a chapter at a time... Didn't appreciate this while we still had it.
I read the book (and sequels) in 1975 as a senior in high school. I was preparing for the SAT and underlined all the words I didn't know. Then I looked the words up and transcribed the definitions. It really helped my vocabulary. I found the book 45 years later, reread it and remembered all the words.
The key element for me of the first book was that Rama was just using Sol as a waypoint and refuelling stop. The alien culture and Rama itself were completely oblivious of mankind and all our conceit. That was a very powerful message for me as a teenage reader that was spoilt by the sequels. I suspect being a Hollywood production we'll lose that subtle message in the movie.
Interesting that Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, written at the same time, with a similar theme of an alien "domaine mystérieux", carries the same idea.
Frankly, I'm not so sure we'll lose it; Villeneuve has proven himself masterful in the execution of those sortsa deep, sci-fi movies, but ofc we'll just have to see!
@@canislupus9208 Also Denis Villeneuve is well known for implementing ideas you wouldn't ever expect Hollywood to accept. People there put trust in him even if they don't think that the ideas would be successful normally
This is not given as the reason to my recollection. Its one of the reasons they speculate may be true but not definitive. The final book confirms that the real reason is that "God" is mapping the shape of possible universes that exist where life can unify under one banner. Rama is part of the infrastructure to do this by picking up species to come live at a Central location. You can study If this universe is one of the desired ones, but studying the interactions between the different species
It kind of annoys me that Oumuamua wasn't named Rama, being the first known extrasolar object to 'fly' through our solar system. I loved the book and its three sequels. I am very much looking forward to seeing a film version!
You're talking about something that was big news in the United States. I saw a decorative shape flying over the sky late at night that didn't have an arc to earth, it just kept going straight into outer space.
Right? It was extra-solar, cylindrical, spinning... literally every nerd immediately thought "Rama!" And then some idiot decides to name it for some Hawaiian thing.
We have another possible extrasolar object: Comet C/2014 which is the size of a Dwarf Planet going through the Outer Solar System and should be at its closest in 2031, near the orbit of Saturn. This is one of the largest comets ever and from the Oort Cloud and may have been picked up from another star while the Sun was orbiting the Galactic Core. This particular object at around 119-137 kilometers in diameter would make a great alien colony ship if it's extrasolar. Imagine if it were a colony ship. Near the orbit of Saturn, it releases many transport ships with the goal of landing on Earth, which humanity would see as an invasion. The alien's technology would be significantly more advanced.
I didn't know Villeneuve has Rama on his "to-do" list until now! This is great news and I'm very excited for this. Rendezvous With Rama is an excellent book, and Villeneuve absolutely nailed Dune for me :)
Villeneuve is excellent at making boring enjoyable! 😉The older I get the harder it is to enjoy long slow paced artistic stories. With Villeneuve I can appreciate it again. @@sirmalus5153
In my younger years I came across Henlein, Asimov and Clarke. The book Rama was fascinating because it was so realistic and thought provoking. I read the book in one go because I was thrilled. The same with the book 2001. Now, today we grow up with action movies, Transformers, Star Trek and so on and we are spoiled. But when Rama was written, we as humans just had WWII behind us and rocket science was still only for rocket scientists. Today everyone is an expert in everything if we watch TV news shows. So the book might seem boring. Same goes with "Contact" (with Jodie Foster), a classical non-action movie with a lot of thought from the late Carl Sagan.
transformers and the like were cool and all, but it never blew me away like asimov's and clarke's books did. still have all the books i could get my hands on in my library. terrible thing about third world countries is the acquisition of books.
Sci Fi books for me are like another dimension of stories told in the mind ..so I try to avoid them as I become hyper focused if I pick a good one up as I can't stop reading it. The reward is quite gratifying but wow it can be draining. and not always easy to share. .but to the plus I can't as easily predict what's next with them and I feel mentally enlightened by sci fi books that have a thread of reality mixed with a reasonable amount of what if and imagination. But ..good sci fi movies do have lots of eye candy, I would see ringworld put on the screen.
I am a huge fan of early scifi written in the 60-70s I think mostly because they blazed a trail so many writers followed which led to great TV and Movies. I am super excited to see these older classics reach a new medium.
@@egioch So you don't want to see sci-fi written over 50 years ago to become series and movies today? only good sci-fi is new? Sci-fi maybe older than the 60-70s but the genre did start awarding authors for their work until the Hugo awards in 53 and the Nebula Awards in 65... so maybe saying early sci-fi of 60-70s isn't sooo wrong.
@@SoCalStyles To your point, there was so much great S-F back then going to waste while they remake Alien 15 times. It seems that movie name recognition is more important to the marketing guys than some obscure S-F writer and a cool plot. BTW I had an old S-F book from the 1930's. Old and yellow even in the 60's it had the last couple of pages missing! That stuff would not work today. Traveling through the 'ether' in space and so on. But the 60's stuff stands up today.
Quinn. Thank you for doing this work. I am 74 and read the masters of sci fy when I was in my teens and twenties. An other commented that’s one could make movies of most of those masters works. I totally agree , but then ima a sci fy nerd. Thank you for your discussions. Keep them up.
I liked the fact that there aren't a lot of "bells and whistles" in Rendezvous With Rama. As you say, it's about context and time. Really has that "classic" feel.
My favourite story by Arthur Clarke as he was known back then,was "Childhood's End", which I have read several times. The way humanity is going these times,becoming less human each year that passes,makes me suspect that Clarke had a very possible vision of our future,when he wrote this book in 1953,although he does disavow any personal beliefs expressed therein.
Clarke's work is amazing to me. Maybe it's not sparkly or magical but as a child it taught me more about science, more advanced science certainly than what I was seeing in 6th to 8th grade..even as an adult, it's good "quick" science that will work logically in the stories.
There was a movie made of Childhood's End. I have a DVD copy. Not very pleasant. I remember it as being very sad. Something like Cages movie "The Knowing".
Loved this book in the 70's. I'm a massive Arthur C Clarke fan. His short story The Nine Billion Names of God gives me goosebumps. I still have my original copy of Rendezvous of Rama, and will be re-reading it now I know this film is coming out.
Does anyone reading this remember the old Star Trek: Next Generation episode that guest starred James "Scotty" Dohann? It was called "Relic" or something like that and it involved the same concept as this book!!
I read this novel when I was in high school. First Sci-Fi book I had read. Honestly, it creeped me out. The mystery behind the ship was unsettling. But I really enjoyed it, and solidified my love of sci-fi.
John 3:16 New International Version 16 For God so loved(A) the world that he gave(B) his one and only Son,(C) that whoever believes(D) in him shall not perish but have eternal life.(E) 🙏!!
The first sci-fi I read was Larry Niven’s “Neutron Star”. I was absolutely hooked. That was about 85’ and science fiction has been such a love and joy of my entire life. Reading “Dune” a year later I was so engrossed in the story I missed my school bus and hid in my family’s tool shed all day reading it. I of course was caught but given a pass by my principal as he too loved the book lol. I remained friends with him and his family until he passed away a few years ago but he recommended several new authors to me including Arthur C. Clark. It would be amazing to see Rama as a film but I would have to admit that at the time I didn’t really like it. I was waiting for the drama and adventuring and space aliens lol! Reading Rama years later as an adult I understood it more as an exploration of what may be possible rather than a space adventure. Really looking forward to seeing it come to life.
Is 'Neutron Star' the story where the main character (is it Louis Wu?) deduces the Puppeteers don't have a moon, because they didn't know about tides, and ends up blackmailing them for extra money because this knowledge would narrow down their homeworld if it were known?
I've not heard of that first book you mentioned. I love your story about reading Dune. It defeated me the first time I tried reading it. But I want to give it another shot, especially because I want to watch all of Quinn's videos about it but I don't want to be spoiled!
I am 77 years old. I read rendezvous with Rama when I was quite young but I still remember parts of it fondly. I think I’ll skip through it and get the next two books which I didn’t know existed. Thanks for this video.
Same age here, but I had forgotten the plot of this novel except that it was alien contact. I saw 2001 A Space Odyssey in 1968 and ran the two stories together in my mind. After Starship Troopers in about '68 I dropped Heinlein and switched in the 70s and 80s to Silverberg, Poul Anderson,F Pohl,PK Dick, Niven, Bear, etc and more recently the British authors but if this film emerges, I will try to see it!
@@jerrys4841 Haha, I'm a more positive person. Back in 1977 I joined the L-5 Society and my partner and I thought we could do farmwork in the ag-chambers orbiting an O'Neill cylinder. It would work. Hopefully it will still happen. I don't see any downsides.
Does anyone reading this remember the old Star Trek: Next Generation episode that guest starred James "Scotty" Dohann? It was called "Relic" or something like that and it involved the same concept as this book!!
I like the alien purposes in Rama. So strong and passive. Yet not showing off. Rama is in my top 3 fav book. Can't wait to have updates on the production.
I read the book circa 15 years ago (and followed by all the other Rama books), and to this very day I'm completely mesmerized by it. Rarely does a book stay so vividly in my memory. I was especially blown away by the alien tech images, and never noticed a "slow pace" or "character under development". Since then I've dreamed of seeing it on the big screen. I absolutely loved Arrival (and the story it was based on) and I'm thrilled to learn that Villeneuve is taking a shot.
Your statement ‘ rarely does a book stay so vividly in my memory’ brought back a book that did that for me. I was 15 at the time and through having a lot of me time in a new country and home I picked a book from dad’s pile. The book was Regenisis, it took me on an immersive journey I’d never thought possible from a book. I’ve never read Rama but your comments on it have swayed me to look it up, so thank you!
I got so hooked on this series, that I spent four days straight just binging them. read all four books cover to cover in four days, no sleep just stopping to get food and water, plus restroom breaks. It is still the most fascinating read I've had. I even got my Nephew to read the series.
Clarke's books blew my mind at an early age, and probably got me hooked on science fiction in general. This and A Fall of Moondust stand out in my mind.
I bought A Fall of Moondust from Scholastic Book Services back in the 70's. Clarke may have been a bit off on the topography of the Moon, but it was still a great story.
I absolutely loved the RAMA series.. The first book kinda scared me as a teen when I first read it. it had a desolate feeling to it, remote and errie. It goes pretty deep down the rabbit hole later, and still retains that bizzare atmosphere throughout.
I've read the whole series many many years ago and I never really thought I would be possible to make a tv or film series of this but if anyone can do it justice , I'm sure it will be Mr Villeneuve . I definitely got more into it in the later books , if he only adapts the first book, that's gonna be a hard sell in this market I think and that's why I wasn't sure how it would work. I feel like Arrival gave him experience in trying that hard scifi style and Dune gave him the experience of scale, he probably feels very confident he can tackle it . Very excited for this.
I loved the first book, sort of appreciated the second, hated the third and totally felt "meh" about the fourth. It started as an interesting Sci-Fi concept but morphed into a strange space version of Lord of the Flies. I wouldn't mind seeing the first book made into a film by Villeneuve just to see his vision, but the rest of the series won't be too high on my list of "must watch".
If he can dig into other scifi greats to follow Dune and Rama I'd be happy with that, he doesn't need to finish every single series of books for each for sure
I completely agree, the second one felt horribly mean-spirited, it was nowhere near as enjoyable as the first one was. The first has a kind of "grounded star trek" feel, and that's what really sold it for me. I haven't read 3 and 4 in series, and i don't feel like I've missed out terribly.
@@SymbioteMullet Having just re-read Rama II, I completely agree with you. For me it is missing the hallmarks of ACC's style, so I guess it was mostly written by Gentry Lee, as were the other sequels. The original is more of an SF mystery story, which works well but is quite slow-paced. If that's not what people want, they don't have to read it except to provide context for the other books in the series.
I am not sure the later Rama books were actually written by Clarke. I just checked and they were co-authored by Gentry Lee, I tried reading one of the sequels but couldn't get into it.
you could say a modern audience wouldnt like a film about a linguist learning an alien language from giant elephant squids with time travel, but it kind of worked, if anyone can capture Rama faithfully, and Ive listened to decent radio drama adapations of it, its Villeneuve, as he wont feel obliged to chuck in more action sequences, the whole book is about the joy of discovering this ancient alien thing and the secrets it holds, and teases the reader with hidden secrets the characters can never discover.
The BIG difference between Heinlein and Clark was that Heinlein focused much of his stories on characters that were full and rich with life, and you became invested deeply with them and their personalities and drama. Clark was more the cold, hard Sci-Fi writer who was also a Futurist of the Nth degree who was a creator of amazing Worlds and Machines and Environments which are just recently now being appreciated by the Science Community. They are BOTH great writers and two of my favorite Sci-Fi books are STILL Stranger in a Strange Land and A Space Odyssey. I look forward to the movie Rendezvous With Rama.
I just hope that Denis Villeneuve can do the series justice. I didn't find his interpretation of Frank Herbert very entertaining. I found his characterizations to be flat and lifeless in the new DUNE movie. I honestly fell asleep trying to watch it.
I really hope Stranger in a Strange Land will make it to the Silver Screen eventually. Michael Fassbender would be spectacular in the role of Valentine Michael Smith!
This makes me nostalgic, Rama was one of the first Sci-Fi books I read maby 15-20 years ago, was a great experience! Strongly recommend this book. Personally, I like that its slow paced, makes it more satisfying to read in my mind.
At age 12, I read Stranger in a Strange Land. Later banned in my library. I had also consumed Rendezvous With Rama at the ripe old age of 19 and couldn't wait for the next book to come out. The realization of 3 kept me interested..
I found the short story really interesting and engaging. Maybe because I wasn't familiar with the tropes in science fiction but the descriptions of the spacecraft and the mystery around it and the atmosphere it created were wonderful. Could not put it down.
"Childhood's End" is my favorite novel of all time and I was so disappointed at the attempt to bring it to life that I am hesitant to be excited by this. Hesitant, however, is not unable and I am allowing it only because of Villeneuve's attachment to the project. Here's hoping!
I think Childhood’s End was written before Clarke’s childhood ended. I found it almost condescending as opposed to hopeful. I much prefer Against the Fall of Night from that period of Clarke’s career.
Sometimes you become aware of great stories before you learn about the book. 26 years ago I purchased a graphic adventure computer game with the same title. It had cool and imaginative visuals and as an explorer you get to discover all these crazy creatures and oceans and cities, while having to solve various situational puzzles in order to advance to the next scene. A couple of years later I read the book and remembered the visuals in the scenes and in a way it felt like I lived the story before. Exciting to play and read.
6 місяців тому
I think I remember that adventure game and playing it with my children on like a 486 PC.. Wasn't in the same fashion as Myst?? Maybe I will download the audio books and listen to them while I sleep to get dream sparks..
I read this book at the beginning of this year and it blew my mind. I loved it, the sense of awe and discovery. Yes, it reminded me of Arrival too which is my all time favourite movie. I'm yet to read anything better this year.
Also read it this year after hearing that Villineuve would be making a film! It's really so very good, the kind of writing that cannot be replicated by anyone but the author himself. The concept of a gigantic cylinder hurtling through space, with an entire world hidden within it, will forever be food for my imagination for years to come
I read Rendezvous with Rama in the 70’s as a teenager. Science and exploration was a strong interest of mine then. The book spoke to me in those terms. The story is indeed slow; but for a reader who is curious of such things, it is full of wonder. I think of Rama as an attempt to put the reader into the same dilemma any crew of any craft would find themselves in at first contact. The story is as much about human reaction to first contact as it is the contact itself. For a science enthusiast, the text invites the reader to explore the possibilities that are unexplained. Thus, Rama is as much their story as it is the crew’s.
I still remember how the Earth astronauts get into Rama, once they realize that "Righty-Tighty-Lefty-Loosy" isn't a universal maxim. I read RWR when I was in high school (class of '83) and was on a huge Clarke binge then. I'd like to see IMPERIAL EARTH, too. I'm still waiting for that Tom Hanks-produced sequel in the Space Odyssey series -- I think they were gonna skip "2061" and jump to "3001" with the thawed-out Frank Poole story.
This is one of my favorite sci-fi books, full stop! It does a fantastic job of mixing an exploration of other intelligences in the universe, with the deep mystery of (seemingly) lost/abandoned civilizations. I have not ventured onto the purported sequels, because I've read some disparaging things about them. So given the my immense and thorough enjoyment of the book, and it's wonderfully satisfying ending, I am fine with not venturing any further. Ever since I started tracking Villeneuve's work, I've felt he would be well suited to tackle this masterpiece. Consequently, I am eager to see what he comes up with!
I was brought up on A.C Clarke, love his Novels and short stories- read the sentinel sometime before 2001 came out. Already looking forward to Rama, might re-read the books, it's been a few decades
Such a perfect book. Never felt the need to dive into the others. Some feel Clarkes carachters are not developed enough but I do think that comes from some wanting everything spelled out for them. The focus is on science and I dug the more “boring” parts more than the “action” parts of this book. Time for a re-read! Nice to have a competent director developing the film, hope it happens! And NICE jacket! :)
I agree! A lot of older sci fi authors like Clark and Ansimov don't invest a lot of time building their characters' personality and emotions. It's very hard to build both a gigantic world and build realistic characters. A counter example would be The Expanse series that almost seems as if it was written to become a tv show from the start with a large emphasis on people and their everyday lives in a changing world.
Clarke is more a philosopher writer than a deep human vs a given challenge story teller is what I feel because he wrote many opinion articles for science and science fiction magazines and his work best known for writing hard science fiction
Yes, both Arthur and Isaac didn't really need to delve into characters as they were delivering ideas without trying to show how clever they were. If character development is important to readers then Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars are for the reader seeking all that detail.
A lot of the science fiction from that time was about exploring ideas not people. And I still like stories written like that. Character development is more important now, but I have read science fiction stories where the ideas were so lacking I stopped reading because what's the point?
Read “Rendezvous with Rama” when I was in hospital after a car crash about 48 years ago. Loved it, and it’s captured my imagination ever since. Villeneuve is perfect to bring the visuals onto a big screen.
The Rama series is hands down one of my favourite of all time. I know he's only going to make the first book, or maybe a mix of info from the first few. But honestly, I love basically everything he does. So I will adore this movie pretty much no matter what.
@@Tom_Kowalczuk I love the later books. But I think they would translate terribly into a movie and fully agree with you that sticking with the first book would be ideal.
Last week I began this video, paused at around 2:00, ordered the book, LOVED IT, now finished the video. Perfect material for a Villeneuve movie! Thanks Quinn :)
I got 'Rendevouz with Rama' in a 'double feature' book together with 2001 and first read it when I was maybe 12. I liked the way the novels did kinda mix together there, even if they are completely different storylines.
This book is "exploratory", most movie goers expect sci-fi to mean thrill ride anymore. Lasers, explosions, demonic aliens that rip people's bodies apart. I hope this works. Maybe if they play up the Oumuamua parallels it might make it more real to people, but I bet most people don't even remember this happening since it's not on TikTok.
Nice video; good presentation; good ideas. I read Rendezvous as a teenager who consumed a lot of sci-fi novels indiscriminately. Later I discovered that many of the books that I read were written by P.K. Dick, Frank Herbert, Arthur Clarke. I liked the Rama book rather a lot. In my asshole teenager way, I found a lot of challenging new ideas and possibilities. I thought that it was fun, and I was pleased that it didn't throw around a lot of conflict for its own sake. It left a lot of questions unanswered, and I discovered a high tolerance for ambiguity, a condition that served me well a couple of years when I moved more into the international classic film genre. It's sixty years since I've read it, but I'm still comfortable to recommend it to others. Thanks again for a nice, thoughtful video.
Might I recommend Clarke's "The City and the Stars"? It is a rewrite (by Clarke himself) of his first novel, "Against the Fall Of Night". It is, in contrast to his later works, a character driven story as well as a cracking tale. The fifties paperback of the first novel accurately describes it as "A story of an unimaginable future". Of all the Clarke books, as much as I enjoy ones filmed so far it is the one I most wish had been filmed already. CGI has progressed sufficiently to make that possible, and it would need to have waited for that. Also in its favor, it is not lengthy so nothing needs to be left out.
Definitely in my top ten of scifi stories, could you even imagine it as a 3 part mini series... I absolutely love it, and for an author I feel didn't always create 3 dimensional characters (tho' I love all his books) Alvin was instantly relatable to me - might've been the age I first read it tho', putting myself into his shoes. The ultimate heroes journey.
This is one of my favorite Clarke's books. It starts out very personal, and very microscopic, then gradually expands until it takes in the universe. If I had a spare $100 million lying around, I'd make this film. But I'd keep the original title, 'Against the Fall of Night', which is a great title.
s'a good one. the sense of labyrinthian isolation in a "modern" world seeking to see something new. almost as if the joker/jester KNEW and just edged him on
Clarke missed the "Matrix" by _that_ much with "The City and the Stars." The citizens of Diaspar spend most of their time as files in the memory banks in between incarnations as living beings, and while they're alive, amuse themselves in virtual reality "sagas." Think of the twist it would have been for Alvin et al to discover all of Diaspar was, and had been for millions of years, a simulation. Good story anyway. Gregory Benford wrote a sequel to "Fall of Night" which moved out into the Solar System of Diaspar's day. Interesting place, that. Main characters were a "primitive human" only a million or so years evolved beyond what we are today and her friend the intelligent raccoon who controlled his organic spaceship by crapping on the controls. Benford's physical description of Alvin made me think of a comic-book villain drawn by Jack Kirby.
I'm so glad to see that you discovered Folio Society's spectacular version of the book! I can highly recommend their print of Dune as well. Truly the pinnacle of collectors editions.
I read Rendezvous with Rama when I was younger, and I loved it. I think I did read the next one in the series, but I don't recall much of it. Great review Quinn!
i was lucky enough to read this book over 25 years ago, before as you say the onslaught of copying the greats such as Arthur C. Clarke. But this is one of those books that has stuck in my mind ever since and has left a beautiful impression on my heart. I am really looking forward to see what Villeneuve will do with it. I have faith. Also, great video. Liking and subscribing!
I really like Clarkes style when it comes to characters. They really are only the bare minimum to get the points across. And the point is usually not the characters themselves but the strange situations they face. So for me it's more refreshing to not have it be bogged down with superfluous digressions of character motivations.
Big agree. Not everything has to be a Netflix show, with segmented character explorations as the key focus. Plot is more important frankly, and it's why the new Halo sucks. No one gives a shit about Master Chief's feelings. Show me the STORY.
@@MrMrHiggins Today's media industry caters mostly to female audiences. So the focus will always be on characters and feelings over plot and events. Sorry to break it to you.
I immediately thought of Rama when I saw the final ship of 'Interstellar' :)...you are SO right about the characters not being so memorable as the places and spaceships. I love Clarke, Heinlein, Wells, Lewis, Herbert, Asimov and all the old SciFi the Library and bookstores could offer! :)
It's funny, the whole bomb plot in Arrival felt shoehorned in. The implied threat of the Chinese moving their military around could have easily been enough, and would have shown a better sense of subtlety.
I got that feeling too, though it did serve to advance the plot. One thing I didn’t like was the soldiers planting the bomb felt literally anonymous. I had no idea who they were, and didn’t get any sense of why they were doing this stuff.
@@Pete...NoNotThatOne there was a thread of going back to that one soldier again and again to show that he was paranoid and influenced by conspiracy theories... Jan 6th certainly proved that subplot much more believable than at the time.
For me it emphasised the commitment of the visitors. They know that it would happen, but they stayed, accepted and forgave. That was pretty supernatural. This with a sidenote of fear of unknown like Quinn said, but also the harmfullness of fear mongrelling media.
@@patreekotime4578 They probably decided not to go _to deeply into his background_ as showing his political beliefs (besides listening to the anti Alien conspiracy stuff) would have "alienated" a lot of Conservative audience members and gotten the *usual Culture Warriors* into a tizzy. We can all read between the lines and guess that he was a Alt Right Qanon style Alex Jones FOX News nutter that believes that yadda yadda yadda Trump. But did we need a see a Confederate Flag sticker and a NRA cap to get where he was coming from? And to be serious… ask the characters were presented in a cold and standoffish way, even when showing their intimate emotions, it was just the style of the film.
My father introduced me to the Rama series when I was in high school. I read the first one and was hooked. One thing you forgot to mention was that the first "Rama" was tracked but it was the second one that they rendezvous with. The ending where they realize they do everything in threes is what sets up the final 3 books.
I loved this whole series. Got a LITTLE over dramatic in the later books but still fun and imaginative to read. Denis has my full confidence to knock this one out of the park!
I have loved this book since the 70s when I first read it as a middle schooler. I never read the others in the series. I didn't want to. I loved the wonder of exploring Rama and the wondering what it all might mean. I don't want answers. Like Bill Norton, I love being left with more questions than answers.
I think I read "Rendezvous with Rama" in 1979. I felt the same chills as the character when he sat up in his bed thinking "The Ramans do everything in threes" Sadly, the follow on books of the series, while not actually bad, do not live up to expectations. It is probably just as well that you haven't read them; although, I will not go as far as saying that I wish that I had not read them.
I've just re-read Rama II, and frankly I thought it was nowhere near as good as the original. I remember feeling the same about the other sequels when I read them. Rendezvous with Rama is about the suspense and the mystery of Rama rather than a lot of action. I'm excited about the prospect of a movie, but I hope the director doesn't try and turn it into an action-packed space opera along the lines of Star Wars. RwR isn't that kind of story, and IMO should not be interpreted in that way, but it seems that is what cinema audiences want from science fiction these days.
Yeah, since Star Wars added action to a science fiction setting people think SF movies must have action. Perhaps we're past that. Hope so. I don't remember any battle scenes in Arrival or gunfights :)
@threedoubleyou dotcom Hahah, remember the coked out anal beads sex scene with Nicole's (I think?) Chinese mafia drug whore daughter? I certainly remembered that part as a kid, haha. Yeah, those sequel novels were exactly the kind of thing a modern film company would love to do: A lot of interpersonal drama with actual big science-fiction ideas just sort of in the background.
I think the problem with the sequels was that they were cowritten by Gentry Lee and the style didn't feel exactly like Clarke. They were definitely bluer than what Clarke was known for.
@@JoseyWales44s My suspicion is that little of any of the sequels was written by Clarke. The style is completely different and the storyline is far more to do with the characters than with Rama itself. Clarke has been criticised for poorly-developed characters, but that misses the point of most of his stories.
A. Clark is one of the legendary sci-fi writers of all time. He had a spooky way of writing stories that later came to pass in a very similar way. I never read a bad Clark book, including Rama. Such ideas were unheard of at the time of it's writing. All sci-fi tropes of today are just repeating the genius of Clark and others who came before. On a side note, everyone on the planet who knows Clark's work, immediately said to themselves; "Dam, he did it again!".. When Oumuamua passed through our Solar System. Anyone who would think Rama is "underdeveloped" or boring simply may not have the required brain horse power for it.. or is polluted with the nonsense that passes for sci-fi today.
Let's made a distinction here. Rama is full of story. What it lacks is conflict. Clarke was an optimist, rare for a novelist-futurist. Most write dystopian fiction. Clarke wrote about peaceful futures. That's unique. Yet his best novels never suffer from lack of conflict. Childhood's End, 2001, Rama, and Songs From Distant Earth are excellent stories because they're full of epic ideas. In Clarkes stories, the majesty of cosmic scale and all its mysteries are what draw you in. Clarke's excellent prose keep you going.
For some reason i only read Rama a couple of years ago - having read the bulk of Clarkes works since the 70s (and his peers). It was a masterpiece of its kind - cerebral rather than physical, uncluttered and direct. All story no padding. Loved it and hope the film is brave enough to appreciate the source material. Then I started on Rama II. Worse. Book. Ever. Don't let Clarke's name fool you - nothing in the story comes from him. Its all Gentry Lee, and is everything the original isn't. You can skip entire chapters as they have no bearing on ghe story - and i recommend you do if you have to read it. Why did Clarke put his name to this? There are clues in the forword written by the man himself: He, Clarke, had no intention of revisiting Rama. The "threes" line at the end of the original was just a throwaway cliffhanger. But he was interested in Jupiter exploration for his Space Odyssey series - and Lee was instrumental in one of the ongoing missions at the time (forget which - use google). So Clarke got a direct line to a Jupiter mission and Lee got a big name "coauthor" for his work. I didnt try for book 3. Rama is best left as a one-off masterwork.
Simon Watts ! I didn't like Rama two either, except for the last few chapters, when suspens began building! I loved the part, when the protagonist has to find a way how to communicate complex messages about the danger that Rama was facing ( nuclear annihilation) yeah the second book could have been better, but the third one delivered ! I loved the various alien races, the mysterious Octospiders, the Avians, among others ! I also loved the Emerald city, the deep-spacestation(the Node) with the Eagle at the helm ! Over all Gentry Lee has dreamt up some wonderful characters, magical places and technologies! I think that The Garden of Rama, and Rama revieled were great books ! One more thing ; English is my second language, so if Lee's writing is not on par with Shakespeare's, I wouldn't notice
I’ve been a dune fan for a long time. I caught some of your videos a ways back. Always a very refreshing take him, I always enjoy your videos. Keep posting my friend.
I remember reading Rendezvous with Rama back in the 70’s. I think it was the first full length science fiction novel I ever read, and I was absolutely captivated by it. In some ways it set my expectations so high for what science fiction could be that everything else, including the whole Star Wars universe, and even Rama II seemed kind of sappy and overwrought. I imagine if I read it now I’d find it kind of dry and tedious, but that might be an indication of my own decline that issues with the source material.
As a kid in the seventies I read this series called The Expendables (Convicts were used to explore planets to determine their suitability for colonization. A lot of bad things befell them.). I thought the three books I read (4 in the series) were soooo good and so just a couple of years ago I found the entire 4 book series in Australia - bought them - aaaaand after about 3 or 4 paragraphs of the first chapter I knew I had made a big mistake; they were absolute garbage. I guess my 60 year old brain had changed since I was 12. :)
I loved this book when I read it (and re-read it, again and again) decades ago but, as Quinn said, it probably won't hold up on the big screen today unless A LOT of changes are made. The plot is VERY simple. A rough outline (spoilers): A gigantic object enters the solar system. Scientists quickly realize that it is an alien spacecraft of some kind. A manned mission is dispatched to explore the object. The astronauts explore the object and discover that it is a massive interstellar habitat with no inhabitants other than the "biots", which are basically non-intelligent maintenance drones. They see many strange, mysterious, awe-inspiring things, but ultimately find no satisfying answers to any of their questions. Then they go home. That's pretty much it. The characters are vague and uninteresting for the most part. The true star of Rendezvous With Rama is Rama itself. But after decades of CGI-fueled spectacle after spectacle on the big screen, it's going to be hard to create something that is going to inspire awe in modern audiences with visuals alone. There's a good reason why this adaptation has been in "Development Hell" for so many years.
I can see where you're coming from. If they rely on lots of big pan-shots with symphonic horns blowing, then it will fall flat. This needs to be an adult-level sci-fi movie. Like "Master and Commander" was for historical fiction. Pacing will be a big part of it. Villeneuve proved that he can deliver a strong sense of the "alien" with Dune. This could be just what we want it to be.
@@rickjohansson4257 All of the later books were co-written with Gentry Lee and are much more traditional novels, plot-wise. The characters are more fleshed out and relatable. But the power of the original novel was mostly in the mystery of Rama. The later novels explain the mystery which takes away from the original, IMO. They're good books, don't get me wrong. But they make Rendezvous a little less fun to re-read.
@@jasonlundberg1083 I was thoroughly blown away by Villeneuve's Dune adaptation. So I agree, if anyone can do it, it's him. The thing that makes me skeptical in the case of Rendezvous is that it doesn't have strong characters and a juicy plot to work with, something the Dune novel had in spades. As I said, a lot of changes will have to be made. Otherwise, all you have left is a visual effects extravaganza with no satisfying conclusion.
@@Duncan_Idaho_Potato Did "Dune" have a juicy plot? I fell asleep after 40 minutes of NOTHING happening. For years I heard people talk about how great the book was, so I finally gave in and slogged my way through a couple of years ago. Hell, the book itself was both boring and stupid as hell. Paul and his mother ... spare me. And ProgHead777 is right about "Rama" as a movie - I enjoyed the world-building in the "Rama" books but there is even less conflict and action than in "Dune."
It's such an important point to remember and remind people of, that for works of art, writing, etc. that originate tropes, they really are best enjoyed while read and watched on a curve with that in mind. I'm personally not a huge Star Wars fan for example, but it was massively more fun to watch when you think about the DNA of hundreds of other movies constantly on the screen (and the films that lead to it as well) and appreciate that aspect of what it all means to the collective culture and understanding.
I've been waiting for this movie for a long time. I would love to see a few books made into movies, they include: 1) The entire RAMA series Arthur C Clarke 2) The entire Old Mans War series John Scalzi 3) The entire EON series Greg Bear 4) The entire Uplift series David Brin 5) Footfall Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven 6) Fadeout Patrick Tilley
What about David Weber in the Safehold series? The detail that he weaves into his stories is amazing. To me he is the Tom Clancy of Science Fiction with the detail and story telling he uses.
There's a bunch of books that would make brilliant films (if done correctly - *cough* starship troopers *cough*). On this list, Footfall is definitely a doable thing (in my opinion). It could be brilliant.
@MLT LOVE that list (extra points for Fadeout) I would add Hyperion series by Dan Simmons, the Many Colored Land by Julian May and ANY novel at all by Neal Stephenson/Bruce Sterling or The Culture books by Iain M.Banks.
@@SuperGinkgo I haven't read much over the years because of working but now that I'm retired I'll check out some of the suggestions above. I'm always up for a new SciFi story.
@@mlt6322 Over the years I have read thru pallets of scifi! I love recommending books, can't go wrong with the above. Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, try that. 😊🖖👍
I never knew that there were other books in the series. I almost feel like Rendez-Vous with Rama is complete. I love coming this far to being in contact with an alien civilization and ultimately not knowing the whole story. I say, for me, Rendez-vous with Rama stood out on its own :)
I think book two came out something like 20 years after the first one. The sequels are so different, I pretty much consider the original and sequels as two totally different things. Books 2-4 had a continuous cast of characters and they focused on, for lack of a better term, the adventures they went on. The star of the original book was the ship itself and imagining what it would be like to be on such a huge, strange vessel. I remember thinking the humans visiting the ship (which was a totally different cast than the sequels) were secondary.
Rendezvous with Rama _is_ complete. Having attempted to read Rama II (with great expectations) and Garden of Rama (with considerably diminished expectations) with Gentry Lee's clunky characterizations and junior-high book-report level of writing, not to mention the complete vaporization of RwR's interplanetary society, I prefer to pretend the Gentry Lee sequels never happened.
An excellent review of this classic. Thoughtful and informative. I particularly like the way Rendezvous with Rama is placed in context with the development of Sci-fi.
After watching Dune I agree that Denis Villeneuve is the perfect director to do "Rendezvous with Rama". His more cerebral take on Dune would be perfect for Rama. However, the Octospiders from the thumbnail were not in Rendezvous with Rama, they appeared in the third book, and personally I have doubts how much input AC Clarke had in the later books.
Rama is probably my favorite science fiction novel ever just by virtue of letting the setting be the star of the show and being such a wonderland of mystery. I am supremely hyped for this and have been ever since Morgan Freeman purchased the film rights to it. And holy hell he picked the perfect director to head the project.
I have read them all several times, in fact, and after reading the first (Rendezvous) I really, really, really wanted a film to be made about the whole shebang. But then I realized the impossibility of that with the technology of those days (b 1951) . But I. do look forwards to what the MasterOf Dune can do with it, but I fear that to cover the whole four books would take years and years. Time which, probably and unfortunately humanity doesn’t have. Anyway, good luck to the crew making it.
I didn't read Rendezvous with Rama until 6 years ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it on its own merits. It was fun trying to unravel the mystery of Rama along with the characters, and gratifying to figure some things out before they did. It's not a perfect book by any means, and it was a lot shorter than I would have liked, but a great read nonetheless. I recommend it to any sci-fi fan.
I strongly suspect that Villenueve's plan is to condense the plots of the later books into a single movie. Effectively modern science fiction can pretty much cold open upon final approach to Rama, and burn through the plot of the first book - poking around Rama - in the span of the first 15 minutes. As mentioned, Rama is the progenitor of a lot of these tropes we all know now - so the movie doesn't need to explain them - it can leap to the book 2/3 plots and actions and consequences as the movies Act 2 & 3. The same cannot be done for Dune precisely because it is so character driven - but Clarke's focus on the visuals and science of science fiction I think is a perfect fit for Denis. With Rama, Denis gets to do a kind of orgy of visual storytelling, that can almost occur without actors at all. That kind of esoteric, impersonal, loneliness of science fiction is true of both AC and DV. To be clear, I'm not saying Denis is bad with actors - he's IMO the best living director and nobody earns that accolade without being great at directing actors, but what makes him exceptional is his 'show, don't tell' grandmastery, and fundamentally all dialogue is a form of telling.
I must admit I was surprised when I heard that Villeneuve had chosen Rama as his next project. The book concentrates on the mechanics of the exploring an unknown space vessel but rarely touches on the philosophiocal side of that. Also I can barely remember a single character from the story. I suspect that Villeneuve is going to have to - paraphrasing The Martian's Mark Watney - 'adapt the shit out of this.'
Villeneuve should check out "Forbidden Planet," the movie with Walter Pigeon and Lindsey Neilson (sp?). THAT movie I would LOVE to see with up-to-date Special Effects!
@@paulbrinkman5631 too true. Fantastic film and great concept. Ofc aspects of character and dialogue that are very antiquated can be easily updated. But its basic premise is classic and timeless and with modern effects could be thrilling and quite scary too. Great movie though and has a lot of potential for adaptation in different ways. Though you would have to try to play down any parallels with Aliens which in hindsight it has a few of, especially with the whole military expedition into an abandoned planet with alien structures left behind and how it threatens to silently kill of the men etc etc.
@@paulbrinkman5631 TBH... I don't think that one (Forbidden Planet) need's a lot of better SFX.. Was pretty good then, even for late 50's and still stands up now. We can always make it more NOW, but can we make it better??
I think that what made 2001: A Space Odyssey the apex of science fiction was the fact it spent little time toward character development. Haywood Floyd was just an administrator. He is given a sense of realism with his talk with some Russian friends and his chat with his daughter and then having to read a list of instructions about how to use a zero-g toilet. All of this just serves to demonstrate what an average man can relate to. The astronauts on Discovery act like real astronauts. We do not really care about their background stories as it would interfere with the thrust of the plot. Even when the emergency of Frank Poole being in danger, Dave Bowman shows little emotion. He does what he needs to do ... and just does it. Real, professionals subsume their emotions and stick with protocol. When we see that HAL is not going to allow him back into the Discovery, Dave is noticeable disconcerted but doesn't break down. He thinks of an alternate plan. Rendezvous with Rama could follow in this tradition, with only slight character development, with a focus on the actual science of observing the interior of an alien craft. We have gotten so used to things popping out of peoples' chest and emotionalism, it seems like we've lost our ability to discern between real science fiction and horror sci-fi. Can real science fiction make a come-back? I don't know. After seeing 2010, I'm doubtful.
Great points. I thought ‘2001’ character development was fine. I enjoyed the realism of the astronauts. It’s a bit irritating to watch modern Sci Fi depict astronauts/fighter pilots as “frightened” and “emotional” everyday citizens.
You got it rama was not that easy read say like city of lead and gold i read in the ,70s hope hollwood never touches only the french would make it work to ped ie for most people .
If you had read the book, then when Oumuamua came through the system, you immediately thought of Rama. Clarke's fiction is characterized by a tone that many readers found remote. His science fiction was often heavier on what was the best science at the time rather than the story as such. So characters and character development are under emphasized to many readers.
That was exactly my first thought when it was announced. "Oh look at that they found Rama!"
I seriously hope that they hope all in on the retrofuturism aspect if the tech for the team (except maybe the modified chimps, that's a little weird these days).
And I can't wait to see the "spires" energizing for the course corrections
I’m still kinda salty that they didn’t call it Rama.
Yes, that was my first thought!
We have another possible extrasolar object: Comet C/2014 which is the size of a Dwarf Planet going through the Outer Solar System and should be at its closest in 2031, near the orbit of Saturn. This is one of the largest comets ever and from the Oort Cloud and may have been picked up from another star while the Sun was orbiting the Galactic Core. This particular object at around 119-137 kilometers in diameter would make a great alien colony ship if it's extrasolar. Imagine if it were a colony ship. Near the orbit of Saturn, it releases many transport ships with the goal of landing on Earth, which humanity would see as an invasion. The alien's technology would be significantly more advanced.
Rama was the first science fiction series I ever read and I was blown away. Inspired me down a path filled with more science fiction and eventually to a career as an aerospace engineer working on spacecraft and rockets.
For me it came a few years into reading SF. As much as I love the grand ideas and the scale of everything, the thing I remember most is that it showed me the importance of effective meetings. I'd been to some useless work staff meetings by then, so the lesson was quite necessary.
Same, found it my school library in 6th grade, just looking for a thick book that would last me longer than a day
It's been a long time since I read the books. I feel like I remember it ended with God was collecting space faring species to make the perfect species and would create a new Big Bang to try again. Is this a false memory?
Arthur C Clarke was also a well respected scientist. As an aerospace engineer you will most likely have heard of the "Clarke orbit".
Same. I read 2001 in 8th grade and it set me on the Golden path.
Denis Villeneuve is currently my favorite film maker, and he has repeatedly knocked it out of the park with movies like Arrival, Sicario, Dune, and my favorite, Blade Runner 2049. I can't wait to see his take on Clarke.
Doesn't Morgan Freeman, the actor, own the rights to the movie rights??
What a novel concept, hiring writers and directors that are fans of Science Fiction and the original source material. Shame that the people making The Witcher couldn't grasp that...
Arrival was a classic!
Great book .. one of many by Clarke. I buried myself in Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov and others in the 70s, when these were still pretty fresh ideas. Now I'm in MY 70s and I still treasure these works as an important developmental factor in my life and in my thinking. Thanks for your review.
Same here. I read them all again after retiring.
Now they're on free audiobooks so I've listened again.
Heinlein still holds up well.
Agreed, wholeheartedly. Though admittedly I got caught up in Heinlen. Still need to explore Clarke and Assimov more. Truly incredible writing by all of the above. Phillip K Dick belongs in such company as well.
You should check out Clifford D. Simak!
Same here!!!
Here to.
I love Dune and my problem with movie adaptions is that they always do the first book or two and then they stop. With Rama, this would be a good thing, because I always felt the first book should have had no sequels. The best idea in it was that aliens exist, they vastly outtech us and when visiting might not even notice we exist.
The sequels fizzled out to unreadable
While I mostly enjoyed the sequels, they really feel like a new series inspired by the first book rather than a continuation. The first sequel is basically a remake but set in a time with less futuristic tech (despite being further into the future.)
The sequels were written by Gentry Lee with less and less input by Clarke. I agree that they might best be viewed as a separate series.
That said I loved Rama Revealed, and what the series says about humanity, and I thought that Revealed was a worthy ending to the series.
@@traal Yeah Rama Revealed was by far the best of the sequels, Garden of Rama by far the worst.
I never read the prequel books but I haven't heard anyone say they're good and Clarke only had a part in one of them.
@@GoodmansGhost Personally, I had the reverse impression. Though I'm biased by the fact that Garden of Rama was my entrypoint into the series. My mother knew I liked Sci-Fi, but didn't realize it was the third in a series of 4 books (the last not having been written), so she bought it for me.
I did quickly pick up the rest, and I realized that Rendezvous was just a fundamentally different kind of work. Rendezvous is a typical work of "golden age" Sci-Fi: big on ideas and meaning, but short on character. The trilogy is more modern in that it's much more about characters who are theoretically engaging and interesting that just so happen to be in a Sci-Fi setting.
As for Revealed, I just found that the characters weren't that interesting anymore. When you stake your story on making your characters interesting and dynamic, and then they get put into boring situations, the story stops being interesting.
Not just my favorite sci-fi book, but my favorite book. I've read it, I own the hardcover, I listen to it. It's cued up now on audible. Been waiting almost 50 years for a movie version.
The biggest takeaway I got from "Rendezvous With Rama" was the truest sense of what it meant to be "alien," as in totally different from the relatable aliens on Star Trek that always seemed to be able to communicate with us. And also alien in having technology that while making some sense to us, was also completely different, and in part, completely outside of our understanding. Rama's purpose and creators were a mystery, and humans had no part of its purpose.
Stanislaw Lem wrote multiple books with this theme. If we ever met alien inteligent life, there is no way we understand each other, all we can hope is that we don't annihilate each other. In the West, his most popular translated work about it is "Solaris", aboutplanet covered with some kind of thinking ocean, that didn't even noticed humans for years doing experiments on the surface. When humans got it attention with j=hard radiation, it was Solaris that started experimenting on humans. Same way like humans would put sticks in front of an ant.
Most recent good book about contact is Blindsight, if you like hard sf, packed with ideas, with truly alien alien it's def book for you.
This whole issue is something that boggles my mind. Whenever there is talk about alien intelligence it is about, well relatable aliens. Is our science really that advanced and we can rule out different biochemical basis for life let alone different ways of thinking that might not be comprehensible for us? I have no clue about this topic to form a well based opinion but it seems to me that we are toonprone to humanizing any concept of life .
@@emceha I was about to mention Lem, but you beat me to it
@@emceha
Thanks! I was a teenager in the 1980's when I first read A.C. Clark, starting with "A Childhoods End." Been a while since I read much SF, but I really enjoyed the recent adaptation of "The Expanse" and "Good Omens" on Amazon. Like the short lived "Firefly," I was so disappointed that the recent "The Tick" was cut so short.
The ender series kinda explores this
I didn't find "Rendezvous with Rama" boring at all. It was fascinating and exactly what a SciFi novel should be. I absolutely loved it. I also read the next books in the series, but they never captured the fascination I felt with the first one. I've been looking for a movie adaptation of this book for years and always wondered how in the hell no one thought about it. (I guess the answer may be the seemingly endless superheroes movies that many classify nowadays as SciFi...) I can't wait for Villeneuve's take on this masterpiece.
I found them fascinating too..........ever since I read them in the '80's I wished Spielberg or someone would cinematize the books.
The closest we got to an adaptation was a computer game in the early days of graphic adventures. Not very cinematic.
Read it as teen. Read it in my 50s. It held up. It’s fascinating
Morgan Freeman has been trying to produce an adaption for a long time. I have been waiting a long time too for this, super excited!
@@adamreason4422 I was just about to mention this. Morgan Freeman has spoken about how he just couldn't get it greenlit. His goal to make that movie had been a long endeavor, as he apparently has been trying to make it happen for around twenty years. He wanted to star in it though, and now I think he would be way too old.
I picked this book up in a second hand book store in 1989, I sat on the toilet and started to read. I was still reading on the damned toilet a few hours later and had almost finished the book. I was enthralled, and I just had to know what happened next. I think Rama is completely underrated. Its not about the big and flashy, its about atmosphere, and Rama had it in spades. I went on to read all the other books and loved them, but for some reason, the first book left a very profound affect on me even to this day. I think Dennis is a perfect option to make a movie about Rama, his previous works all have a similar tone.
You must read very fast. I'm a slow reader but retain most of what I read.
I can imagine you had trouble getting up after hours of sitting on the porcelain throne.
Did you ever have a poo in the end?
Arthur C. Clarke gave me hemorrhoids
@@loadingmikke7451
AKA Outhouse Polio
For me, the book was incredible - you as a reader knew just as little as the characters in the book, and it was a journey of discovery, wanting to know the answers to all the questions the story kept throwing up. That's what kept me enthralled. I hope the film will be as good.
This is my firm hope.
I agree, I read the book when it was first published and thought it was amazing. Clarke wasn't great at characterisation, but his ideas were fantastic. I, too, hope the film will be good, but I don't have a lot of faith in modern films.
Exactly! That was my feeling too.
@@rogueriderhood1862 you just have to have faith in Denis Villeneuve. The man knows his sci-fi
@@valentin7693 I hope you're right.
I work at an observatory in southern AZ and in 2005 I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with Morgan Freeman as he was visiting to get a feel for a small observatory. He apparently owned the rights for this movie at the time and visited numerous facilities in the area. So glad to hear the project is moving forward. Mr Freeman, we’d love to have you back!
I read Rendezvous with Rama when I was 13 yrs old, waaaay back in 1979 (you do the math) and absolutely loved it and still do today. Yes, the story is slow and doesn't really focus on the characters or their interplay, but what the book does achieve is evoking an absolute sense of wonder and discovery through it's highly detailed description of this alien craft. Humans aren't really supposed to be on show in this book - it's all about the wonder of what else might be out there in the universe. We are inconsequential in the shadow of a civilisation that can construct an enormous interstellar craft such as Rama. Let's not forget that the craft isn't heading for Earth at all - humans don't figure at all in Rama's greater purpose, whatever that purpose might be. An absolute sci-fi classic!
When I first read it as a young teen, the "emptiness" of the novel was, for me, filled with suspense and mystery. I can see how that would be found boring by some. I will read it again to see how it stands up to my memories of it.
@samuel holt. It should hold up alot better than the utter fantasy,teeniedrama, politically correct, nonsensical, totally implausible non science dribble we get nowadays.
Can't remember the last really good sci-fi author/book I've read.
Not Sci fi, but I did enjoy "wise man's fear" enough to read it twice.
I found it 100% the same way. In my late teens, reading it after reading a lot of more modern sci-fi and fantasy, I took the lack of character development as 'you have no idea what may happen to them, anyone could die, disappear, or radically transform at any moment'. It ended up with a bit of an Alien feel mixed with a 2001 feel for me as a reader. Strange, bizarre, potentially dangerous, totally mysterious, open and undefined. The story could take any direction at any moment and I would have felt it fit.
@@jeffbowers950 David Brin's "Existence" and Andy Weir's "Project Hail Mary" are 2 of the best sci-fi books I've read in recent years.
@@jeffbowers950 Try Iain Banks' Culture novels, if you haven't already. Some of the later ones get a bit too complicated, but the early ones, for example 'The Player of Games', are excellent. I also agree with Matt Falk about 'Project Hail Mary'.
@@jeffbowers950 example of what you mean
Grew up in a very toxic environment and (sort of) small minded, rural communities (we moved a lot) and I read to escape. In my teens, I discovered Arthur C Clarke and I can honestly say I’ve read most of his library. In fact, the prize book in my mini-book collection is a compilation of correspondence letters between Arthur C Clarke and CS Lewis about God. It’s not the most amazing read, but it use to be a rare book.
But as I read Clarke’s work, an because I lived in rural areas without much light pollution, I would sneak out at night and just stare up at the sky. On a new moon, it was MAGNIFICENT! All the stars! If I had money for batteries, I would plug in a cassette (kids, ask your parents) and just listen to music, escape from the hell that was my upbringing and be amazed.
Clarke shaped my thinking of the cosmos. I hope the adaptation will be a good one. Villenevue is descent film maker and I’m sure he’ll do a good job. And if not, I just steal a thought from the old MST3K theme song and tell myself, “it’s just a show. I pretty much should just relax”.
One of my favorite aspects of Rendezvous with Rama is the pacing. The book moves incredibly fast and leaves you wanting more after each page. This is one of those books that is difficult to put down once you start.
Yes, but people should NOT read the rest. They were not written by Clarke and are trash novels. Read the first, dump the rest, they're crap.
@@Folker46590 That's often true of many franchise novels- and movie sequels! Rocky XII, Superman XXI, ad nauseum. Happy New Year!
As I was coming to the end of the story, I felt myself being engulfed with a great sense of loss until I learnt the Ramans did everything by threes.
@@Folker46590 Yup!
The one thing I really hated about the book was the Simps. A genetically engineered slave race for humanity. I still find it morally offensive and to enjoy the book I skip every part where it talks about them.
I came across "Arrival" purely by accident and loved it. It's not a fast, flashy, slam bang kind of movie, but, for me, a thoughtful, thought provoking story. I loved it. I have also read "Rendezvous With Rama" a number of times and it's one of my favorites. If it's anywhere near "Arrival" it should be great.
Arrival has a really unscientific, silly twist. Rama is pure science fiction.
both are real jewels, in book form, Arrival is also a Movie Jewel, watched it more often than many other movies...can't wait for the Rendezvous with Rama Movie...
Arrival would have been better served by being an episode of an anthology series such as Outer Limits. Beautiful stuff, but not enough going on for a movie.
@@MettleHurlant I have to respectfully disagree. I think so many people see "science fiction movie" and they think fast, loud bang bang shoot 'em up. This is more of a philosophical story. There's a lot going on here, but it's more internalized. I like fast, loud movies as much as anyone but sometimes I want to see something that makes me think.
Rendezvous with Rama is my favorite book of all time. The completely alien discription and strait forward "let me show you what I can come up with" made it feel like it was beyond what a normal book needed. The second one couldn't grab me at all unfortunately. It felt like it was missing the Clark parts. He had the most amazing way of describing things so that they were barely in reach for us never to achieve.
Because it was, Clark merely put his name on the sequels and the other guy did the writing.
Yeah, I really, really hope they don't try to add basically anything from the sequels to the movie. Just keep it to the original book.
I loved the “trick” they used to go faster🌞
Yeah, I didn’t like the sequels either. Was it Gentry Lee that wrote them?
The first Rama book was basically optimistic. The others struck me as grim.
I read many of Arthur Clarke's books. I especially enjoyed the realism and depth of detail that his books contained. In 1964 I went to a lecture at NC State University where he was speaking on the future of the Space Program. We were able to ask questions and I got to shake his hand and tell him how much I liked his works, especially "A Fall of Moondust". I was 12.
This book was what started my love for science fiction. I haven't read the other two, so I know first hand that you can definitely enjoy this book as a standalone.
This book didn't start my absolute enjoyment of science fiction but it was one that certainly cemented my love of the genre. The book that hooked me was called 'Tarnsmen of Gor' by John Norman..
I still fondly remember this series, must re read them, i dont understsnd why it took so long to be made into a movie
2001 Space Odyssey for me, but Rama series immediatly after.
It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that Rendezvous With Rama was the very first science fiction book that I ever read when I was a child. One of the very few works where an alien culture actually felt "alien". I don't know if a movie could capture it, especially in current times.
You may be right, but I'd love to see an attempt nonetheless.
Fun fact, but the big "whale probe" in Star Trek IV was originally a prop made to be the ship in Rama. The movie never materialized, and the prop got reused.
he could do it ex,sand worms
Protheans from Mass Effect had such staunch sort of fascism that even our fascists would find it alien in that they subjugate thrall species to never become spacefaring under death and considering superluminal travel too pure for anyone but them and their predecessors.
Agree, my first as well, but the mystery and strangeness of Rama is maybe not something that will make a good movie.
I read the whole series and found it absolutely gripping. Clarke paints the characters very well and gives them all strong personality. These people are thrust into an environment that is difficult to understand and yet they mould into a reasonably good team in the end. It is the adventure of a lifetime wandering around that huge ecosystem and discovering strange creatures from other planets and a perfect opportunity to conduct scientific analysis of their surroundings. I read them all when I was about 22/23 so it's not to heavy otherwise I would have got bored.
I’m personally interested in Villeneuve’s interpretation of Clark’s work because IMO Clark’s major weakness was Characterization, whereas Villeneuve’s greatest strength lies in expressing a characters personality to the viewer in ways that Clark was not capable of pursuing. Can’t wait for your future videos covering Rama, and dune part 2 for that matter!
Did you feel the same about the characterization in the following books in the series? I haven't read them since I was a child, but I recall Nicole des Jardins as an impactful character to me who I think upon often still. Maybe it's because she's the first female character in fiction who I really got to spend a lot of time in their internal thoughts, and she was dealing with really novel situations to me, like grappling with issues regarding her reproductive choices aboard Rama. I maybe appreciate her too since she was like a mediating voice between the more ideologically extreme characters of Richard and Michael - that conflict of religion and science they have to navigate together as a family - and that theme just happened to be important to me at that time of my life. I don't know. I just like her as a character, and I'd be curious how others remember her.
@@m.branson4785 to be fair I haven’t read the sequels to “Rendezvous”. And as far as I know Clark’s involvement was minimal insofar as narrative progression was concerned beyond the initial novel in the series. To reiterate; clark’s characters, though he did not ignore them, were not the focus of “Rendezvous”. IMO.
I mean… Consider any seminal Arthur Clark story. Weather it be something personally cared for or something well regarded throughout the Syfy community, I can almost guarantee the last thing on your mind when you think of those stories are the characters. It seems to me that when Clark wrote he wrote to instill an emotion or to implant an image in the readers mind that went far beyond anything that a character could portray or translate. Not because he wasn’t capable of doing that as a writer but because that, in my opinion, was never really his goal to begin with when writing a story.
True, but I don’t think characters were his focus and rendezvous with Rama. I think his focus was on humanity as a character, ended that he definitely characterized us. We are complex, internally arguing with ourselves, with parts of us lashing out at what we don’t understand, while other parts of us hold intense curiosity. We are progressive, as indicated by the homosexual and polyamorous relationships considered normal at this time in history. We are protective, perhaps too protective. We’ve experienced trauma, as indicated by the astroid that kicks off spaceguard.
Your comment made me think, and I’m grateful for it. I think rendezvous with Rama is almost a love story, Or perhaps the start to one. Two stranger civilizations meet, experience a very brief connection, only for it to be cut short by light circumstances. Perhaps we will meet again?
Everything doesn't need to be a wordy soap opera where mindless interpersonal drama drowns out the story just so mouth breathers can mantain interest. Leave it niche.
Really excited for this film, love Clarke and love old school sci-fi. I used to live by this really cool used book store hidden away in the back of an industrial park. I loved going there on rainy days and hearing the rain on the metal roof while the owner played jazz records all day. I'd walk out with a stack of old pulps for like a quarter each, lots of Clarke, Heinlein, and Herbert.
Pulps?
Books my friend
Winning memory.
This wasn’t in Bethesda, Maryland perchance? Almost exact same memories of row upon row of books in a giant space that were frequently so cheap I could but an armful for the same as my lunch!
Mmm... the days of actually having to go somewhere to get printed, unillustrated content a chapter at a time... Didn't appreciate this while we still had it.
I read the book (and sequels) in 1975 as a senior in high school. I was preparing for the SAT and underlined all the words I didn't know. Then I looked the words up and transcribed the definitions. It really helped my vocabulary. I found the book 45 years later, reread it and remembered all the words.
The key element for me of the first book was that Rama was just using Sol as a waypoint and refuelling stop. The alien culture and Rama itself were completely oblivious of mankind and all our conceit. That was a very powerful message for me as a teenage reader that was spoilt by the sequels. I suspect being a Hollywood production we'll lose that subtle message in the movie.
I agree, it makes you realize how insignificant the human race really is.
Interesting that Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, written at the same time, with a similar theme of an alien "domaine mystérieux", carries the same idea.
Frankly, I'm not so sure we'll lose it; Villeneuve has proven himself masterful in the execution of those sortsa deep, sci-fi movies, but ofc we'll just have to see!
@@canislupus9208 Also Denis Villeneuve is well known for implementing ideas you wouldn't ever expect Hollywood to accept. People there put trust in him even if they don't think that the ideas would be successful normally
This is not given as the reason to my recollection. Its one of the reasons they speculate may be true but not definitive. The final book confirms that the real reason is that "God" is mapping the shape of possible universes that exist where life can unify under one banner. Rama is part of the infrastructure to do this by picking up species to come live at a Central location. You can study If this universe is one of the desired ones, but studying the interactions between the different species
It kind of annoys me that Oumuamua wasn't named Rama, being the first known extrasolar object to 'fly' through our solar system. I loved the book and its three sequels. I am very much looking forward to seeing a film version!
Oumuamua had the Rama vibe for me since it has been discovered.
You're talking about something that was big news in the United States. I saw a decorative shape flying
over the sky late at night that didn't have an arc to earth, it just kept going straight into outer space.
Right? It was extra-solar, cylindrical, spinning... literally every nerd immediately thought "Rama!" And then some idiot decides to name it for some Hawaiian thing.
Same, such a wasted opportunity there. If we could put a lander on a comet, we could/should have investigated this pbject
We have another possible extrasolar object: Comet C/2014 which is the size of a Dwarf Planet going through the Outer Solar System and should be at its closest in 2031, near the orbit of Saturn. This is one of the largest comets ever and from the Oort Cloud and may have been picked up from another star while the Sun was orbiting the Galactic Core. This particular object at around 119-137 kilometers in diameter would make a great alien colony ship if it's extrasolar. Imagine if it were a colony ship. Near the orbit of Saturn, it releases many transport ships with the goal of landing on Earth, which humanity would see as an invasion. The alien's technology would be significantly more advanced.
I didn't know Villeneuve has Rama on his "to-do" list until now! This is great news and I'm very excited for this. Rendezvous With Rama is an excellent book, and Villeneuve absolutely nailed Dune for me :)
Wonder how they are going to make three movies outnof it
Lets hope the film is better than the book, which was really boring i found.
Spoiler : There will be three of everything, like in the book.
Villeneuve is excellent at making boring enjoyable! 😉The older I get the harder it is to enjoy long slow paced artistic stories. With Villeneuve I can appreciate it again. @@sirmalus5153
In my younger years I came across Henlein, Asimov and Clarke. The book Rama was fascinating because it was so realistic and thought provoking. I read the book in one go because I was thrilled. The same with the book 2001. Now, today we grow up with action movies, Transformers, Star Trek and so on and we are spoiled. But when Rama was written, we as humans just had WWII behind us and rocket science was still only for rocket scientists. Today everyone is an expert in everything if we watch TV news shows. So the book might seem boring. Same goes with "Contact" (with Jodie Foster), a classical non-action movie with a lot of thought from the late Carl Sagan.
Thanks for that enlightenment, I to grew up with the joy of books,heinlen, Asimov,Clarke,Ashton smith etc,books make the mind more fluid.
transformers and the like were cool and all, but it never blew me away like asimov's and clarke's books did. still have all the books i could get my hands on in my library. terrible thing about third world countries is the acquisition of books.
@@commanderfarsight2351 Are you serious by comparing Transformers and the like with Clarke and Asimov?
Ever heard about Lem?
Sci Fi books for me are like another dimension of stories told in the mind ..so I try to avoid them as I become hyper focused if I pick a good one up as I can't stop reading it. The reward is quite gratifying but wow it can be draining. and not always easy to share. .but to the plus I can't as easily predict what's next with them and I feel mentally enlightened by sci fi books that have a thread of reality mixed with a reasonable amount of what if and imagination. But ..good sci fi movies do have lots of eye candy, I would see ringworld put on the screen.
I am a huge fan of early scifi written in the 60-70s I think mostly because they blazed a trail so many writers followed which led to great TV and Movies. I am super excited to see these older classics reach a new medium.
60-70 is not early sci-fi, it is a pretty much mature genre by that time.
@@egioch So you don't want to see sci-fi written over 50 years ago to become series and movies today? only good sci-fi is new? Sci-fi maybe older than the 60-70s but the genre did start awarding authors for their work until the Hugo awards in 53 and the Nebula Awards in 65... so maybe saying early sci-fi of 60-70s isn't sooo wrong.
@@SoCalStyles To your point, there was so much great S-F back then going to waste while they remake Alien 15 times. It seems that movie name recognition is more important to the marketing guys than some obscure S-F writer and a cool plot.
BTW I had an old S-F book from the 1930's. Old and yellow even in the 60's it had the last couple of pages missing! That stuff would not work today. Traveling through the 'ether' in space and so on. But the 60's stuff stands up today.
Quinn. Thank you for doing this work. I am 74 and read the masters of sci fy when I was in my teens and twenties. An other commented that’s one could make movies of most of those masters works. I totally agree , but then ima a sci fy nerd. Thank you for your discussions. Keep them up.
I liked the fact that there aren't a lot of "bells and whistles" in Rendezvous With Rama. As you say, it's about context and time. Really has that "classic" feel.
My favourite story by Arthur Clarke as he was known back then,was "Childhood's End", which I have read several times. The way humanity is going these times,becoming less human each year that passes,makes me suspect that Clarke had a very possible vision of our future,when he wrote this book in 1953,although he does disavow any personal beliefs expressed therein.
Clarke's work is amazing to me. Maybe it's not sparkly or magical but as a child it taught me more about science, more advanced science certainly than what I was seeing in 6th to 8th grade..even as an adult, it's good "quick" science that will work logically in the stories.
Mine too, the ending still gives me chills...
There was a movie made of Childhood's End. I have a DVD copy. Not very pleasant. I remember it as being very sad. Something like Cages movie "The Knowing".
"Childhood's End" was the first SF book I read. Got me hooked on this genre.
Childhood's End is my favorite SF novel of all time!
Loved this book in the 70's. I'm a massive Arthur C Clarke fan. His short story The Nine Billion Names of God gives me goosebumps. I still have my original copy of Rendezvous of Rama, and will be re-reading it now I know this film is coming out.
Does anyone reading this remember the old Star Trek: Next Generation episode that guest starred James "Scotty" Dohann? It was called "Relic" or something like that and it involved the same concept as this book!!
I read this novel when I was in high school. First Sci-Fi book I had read. Honestly, it creeped me out. The mystery behind the ship was unsettling. But I really enjoyed it, and solidified my love of sci-fi.
100% !!! I always felt like there was some presence watching the expedition. Seemed a little too safe.
John 3:16
New International Version
16 For God so loved(A) the world that he gave(B) his one and only Son,(C) that whoever believes(D) in him shall not perish but have eternal life.(E) 🙏!!
@@reclusiarchgrimaldus1269 and your point?
The first sci-fi I read was Larry Niven’s “Neutron Star”. I was absolutely hooked. That was about 85’ and science fiction has been such a love and joy of my entire life.
Reading “Dune” a year later I was so engrossed in the story I missed my school bus and hid in my family’s tool shed all day reading it. I of course was caught but given a pass by my principal as he too loved the book lol.
I remained friends with him and his family until he passed away a few years ago but he recommended several new authors to me including Arthur C. Clark. It would be amazing to see Rama as a film but I would have to admit that at the time I didn’t really like it. I was waiting for the drama and adventuring and space aliens lol!
Reading Rama years later as an adult I understood it more as an exploration of what may be possible rather than a space adventure. Really looking forward to seeing it come to life.
Is 'Neutron Star' the story where the main character (is it Louis Wu?) deduces the Puppeteers don't have a moon, because they didn't know about tides, and ends up blackmailing them for extra money because this knowledge would narrow down their homeworld if it were known?
@@Tasarran Louis Wu and the Puppeteers are from Ring World.
My first sci fi was dune followed by a crazy book called the Demu Trilogy
@@Tasarran Substitute Beowulf Shaeffer for Louis and you've got it.
I've not heard of that first book you mentioned. I love your story about reading Dune. It defeated me the first time I tried reading it. But I want to give it another shot, especially because I want to watch all of Quinn's videos about it but I don't want to be spoiled!
I am 77 years old. I read rendezvous with Rama when I was quite young but I still remember parts of it fondly. I think I’ll skip through it and get the next two books which I didn’t know existed. Thanks for this video.
Same age here, but I had forgotten the plot of this novel except that it was alien contact. I saw 2001 A Space Odyssey in 1968 and ran the two stories together in my mind. After Starship Troopers in about '68 I dropped Heinlein and switched in the 70s and 80s to Silverberg, Poul Anderson,F Pohl,PK Dick, Niven, Bear, etc and more recently the British authors but if this film emerges, I will try to see it!
@@treefarm3288 I imagined my self in that cylinder. It could have been paradise, but no, we are humans and fuck everything up.
@@jerrys4841 Haha, I'm a more positive person. Back in 1977 I joined the L-5 Society and my partner and I thought we could do farmwork in the ag-chambers orbiting an O'Neill cylinder. It would work. Hopefully it will still happen. I don't see any downsides.
Does anyone reading this remember the old Star Trek: Next Generation episode that guest starred James "Scotty" Dohann? It was called "Relic" or something like that and it involved the same concept as this book!!
Save yourself the time and effort. The sequels, co-written by Gentry Lee, are mostly an excuse for incestuous pedophilia.
I like the alien purposes in Rama. So strong and passive. Yet not showing off. Rama is in my top 3 fav book. Can't wait to have updates on the production.
I read the book circa 15 years ago (and followed by all the other Rama books), and to this very day I'm completely mesmerized by it. Rarely does a book stay so vividly in my memory. I was especially blown away by the alien tech images, and never noticed a "slow pace" or "character under development". Since then I've dreamed of seeing it on the big screen. I absolutely loved Arrival (and the story it was based on) and I'm thrilled to learn that Villeneuve is taking a shot.
Your statement ‘ rarely does a book stay so vividly in my memory’ brought back a book that did that for me. I was 15 at the time and through having a lot of me time in a new country and home I picked a book from dad’s pile. The book was Regenisis, it took me on an immersive journey I’d never thought possible from a book. I’ve never read Rama but your comments on it have swayed me to look it up, so thank you!
ARRIVAL was amazing. the aliens communicate in a manner we couldnt even comprehend yet in a way thats so rooted in the human experience. amazing
Same for me with the first book. I could see the images vividly in my imagination as I read it; almost as if the text were secondary.
@@wombat2248 Which Regenesis? The one by Eric Walter? I can't wait to read it and there are apparently couple of others with the same title.
I got so hooked on this series, that I spent four days straight just binging them. read all four books cover to cover in four days, no sleep just stopping to get food and water, plus restroom breaks. It is still the most fascinating read I've had. I even got my Nephew to read the series.
Clarke's books blew my mind at an early age, and probably got me hooked on science fiction in general. This and A Fall of Moondust stand out in my mind.
I bought A Fall of Moondust from Scholastic Book Services back in the 70's. Clarke may have been a bit off on the topography of the Moon, but it was still a great story.
A fall of moondust is one of my favorites too. I did not like the other two Rama books but 3001 is one of his best. IMHO.
Fountains of Paradise is amazing too. Engineering hard sci-fi, framed so well
I absolutely loved the RAMA series.. The first book kinda scared me as a teen when I first read it. it had a desolate feeling to it, remote and errie. It goes pretty deep down the rabbit hole later, and still retains that bizzare atmosphere throughout.
The journey of discovery and mystery of the book is the key to captivating the reader. That is the best science fiction.
I've read the whole series many many years ago and I never really thought I would be possible to make a tv or film series of this but if anyone can do it justice , I'm sure it will be Mr Villeneuve . I definitely got more into it in the later books , if he only adapts the first book, that's gonna be a hard sell in this market I think and that's why I wasn't sure how it would work. I feel like Arrival gave him experience in trying that hard scifi style and Dune gave him the experience of scale, he probably feels very confident he can tackle it . Very excited for this.
I loved the first book, sort of appreciated the second, hated the third and totally felt "meh" about the fourth. It started as an interesting Sci-Fi concept but morphed into a strange space version of Lord of the Flies. I wouldn't mind seeing the first book made into a film by Villeneuve just to see his vision, but the rest of the series won't be too high on my list of "must watch".
If he can dig into other scifi greats to follow Dune and Rama I'd be happy with that, he doesn't need to finish every single series of books for each for sure
I completely agree, the second one felt horribly mean-spirited, it was nowhere near as enjoyable as the first one was.
The first has a kind of "grounded star trek" feel, and that's what really sold it for me. I haven't read 3 and 4 in series, and i don't feel like I've missed out terribly.
@@SymbioteMullet Having just re-read Rama II, I completely agree with you. For me it is missing the hallmarks of ACC's style, so I guess it was mostly written by Gentry Lee, as were the other sequels. The original is more of an SF mystery story, which works well but is quite slow-paced. If that's not what people want, they don't have to read it except to provide context for the other books in the series.
@@SymbioteMullet I have to say, your name has me imagining some seriously disturbing headwear.... 😉
I am not sure the later Rama books were actually written by Clarke.
I just checked and they were co-authored by Gentry Lee, I tried reading one of the sequels but couldn't get into it.
I read Rendezvous, 25 years ago. I must read it again and the rest of the books.
I love Arthur c clarke and everything rama and it getting a motion picture is extremely exciting
It's insane. I've been waiting on this for years and years. It's been picked up and dropped a few times.
Honestly I don't think a modern audience would like Rendezvous with Rama if made faithfully. That being said if anyone could pull it off, it's him.
you could say a modern audience wouldnt like a film about a linguist learning an alien language from giant elephant squids with time travel, but it kind of worked, if anyone can capture Rama faithfully, and Ive listened to decent radio drama adapations of it, its Villeneuve, as he wont feel obliged to chuck in more action sequences, the whole book is about the joy of discovering this ancient alien thing and the secrets it holds, and teases the reader with hidden secrets the characters can never discover.
The BIG difference between Heinlein and Clark was that Heinlein focused much of his stories on characters that were full and rich with life, and you became invested deeply with them and their personalities and drama. Clark was more the cold, hard Sci-Fi writer who was also a Futurist of the Nth degree who was a creator of amazing Worlds and Machines and Environments which are just recently now being appreciated by the Science Community. They are BOTH great writers and two of my favorite Sci-Fi books are STILL Stranger in a Strange Land and A Space Odyssey. I look forward to the movie Rendezvous With Rama.
I just hope that Denis Villeneuve can do the series justice. I didn't find his interpretation of Frank Herbert very entertaining. I found his characterizations to be flat and lifeless in the new DUNE movie. I honestly fell asleep trying to watch it.
I really hope Stranger in a Strange Land will make it to the Silver Screen eventually. Michael Fassbender would be spectacular in the role of Valentine Michael Smith!
This makes me nostalgic, Rama was one of the first Sci-Fi books I read maby 15-20 years ago, was a great experience! Strongly recommend this book. Personally, I like that its slow paced, makes it more satisfying to read in my mind.
First read it in 1992. Blew my mind.
Another excellent video Sir. Keep up the great work, I always look forward to your latest publications. Thank you.
At age 12, I read Stranger in a Strange Land. Later banned in my library. I had also consumed Rendezvous With Rama at the ripe old age of 19 and couldn't wait for the next book to come out. The realization of 3 kept me interested..
"banned in my library" How is it possible, in the land of the free..
@@Ultimaginair 12yo weren't suppose to read about sex and naked people in a school library.
I found the short story really interesting and engaging. Maybe because I wasn't familiar with the tropes in science fiction but the descriptions of the spacecraft and the mystery around it and the atmosphere it created were wonderful. Could not put it down.
"Childhood's End" is my favorite novel of all time and I was so disappointed at the attempt to bring it to life that I am hesitant to be excited by this. Hesitant, however, is not unable and I am allowing it only because of Villeneuve's attachment to the project. Here's hoping!
I think Childhood’s End was written before Clarke’s childhood ended. I found it almost condescending as opposed to hopeful. I much prefer Against the Fall of Night from that period of Clarke’s career.
I've been waiting a long time for this to be made into a movie. Hope they don't botch it. One of the best ever sci-fi books of all time.
Sometimes you become aware of great stories before you learn about the book. 26 years ago I purchased a graphic adventure computer game with the same title. It had cool and imaginative visuals and as an explorer you get to discover all these crazy creatures and oceans and cities, while having to solve various situational puzzles in order to advance to the next scene. A couple of years later I read the book and remembered the visuals in the scenes and in a way it felt like I lived the story before. Exciting to play and read.
I think I remember that adventure game and playing it with my children on like a 486 PC.. Wasn't in the same fashion as Myst?? Maybe I will download the audio books and listen to them while I sleep to get dream sparks..
I read this book at the beginning of this year and it blew my mind. I loved it, the sense of awe and discovery. Yes, it reminded me of Arrival too which is my all time favourite movie. I'm yet to read anything better this year.
Also read it this year after hearing that Villineuve would be making a film! It's really so very good, the kind of writing that cannot be replicated by anyone but the author himself. The concept of a gigantic cylinder hurtling through space, with an entire world hidden within it, will forever be food for my imagination for years to come
Honestly can't wait. One of my favorite Sci-Fi books ever.
I read Rendezvous with Rama in the 70’s as a teenager. Science and exploration was a strong interest of mine then. The book spoke to me in those terms. The story is indeed slow; but for a reader who is curious of such things, it is full of wonder.
I think of Rama as an attempt to put the reader into the same dilemma any crew of any craft would find themselves in at first contact. The story is as much about human reaction to first contact as it is the contact itself.
For a science enthusiast, the text invites the reader to explore the possibilities that are unexplained. Thus, Rama is as much their story as it is the crew’s.
I still remember how the Earth astronauts get into Rama, once they realize that "Righty-Tighty-Lefty-Loosy" isn't a universal maxim. I read RWR when I was in high school (class of '83) and was on a huge Clarke binge then. I'd like to see IMPERIAL EARTH, too. I'm still waiting for that Tom Hanks-produced sequel in the Space Odyssey series -- I think they were gonna skip "2061" and jump to "3001" with the thawed-out Frank Poole story.
Every year or so, I check myself to make sure that I can still derive the coriolis effect -2m(wxrdot)...
This is one of my favorite sci-fi books, full stop! It does a fantastic job of mixing an exploration of other intelligences in the universe, with the deep mystery of (seemingly) lost/abandoned civilizations. I have not ventured onto the purported sequels, because I've read some disparaging things about them. So given the my immense and thorough enjoyment of the book, and it's wonderfully satisfying ending, I am fine with not venturing any further.
Ever since I started tracking Villeneuve's work, I've felt he would be well suited to tackle this masterpiece. Consequently, I am eager to see what he comes up with!
I was brought up on A.C Clarke, love his Novels and short stories- read the sentinel sometime before 2001 came out. Already looking forward to Rama, might re-read the books, it's been a few decades
Such a perfect book. Never felt the need to dive into the others. Some feel Clarkes carachters are not developed enough but I do think that comes from some wanting everything spelled out for them. The focus is on science and I dug the more “boring” parts more than the “action” parts of this book. Time for a re-read! Nice to have a competent director developing the film, hope it happens! And NICE jacket! :)
I agree! A lot of older sci fi authors like Clark and Ansimov don't invest a lot of time building their characters' personality and emotions. It's very hard to build both a gigantic world and build realistic characters. A counter example would be The Expanse series that almost seems as if it was written to become a tv show from the start with a large emphasis on people and their everyday lives in a changing world.
Loved this book but the sequels were pretty lame.
Clarke is more a philosopher writer than a deep human vs a given challenge story teller is what I feel because he wrote many opinion articles for science and science fiction magazines and his work best known for writing hard science fiction
Yes, both Arthur and Isaac didn't really need to delve into characters as they were delivering ideas without trying to show how clever they were.
If character development is important to readers then Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars are for the reader seeking all that detail.
A lot of the science fiction from that time was about exploring ideas not people. And I still like stories written like that. Character development is more important now, but I have read science fiction stories where the ideas were so lacking I stopped reading because what's the point?
Read “Rendezvous with Rama” when I was in hospital after a car crash about 48 years ago. Loved it, and it’s captured my imagination ever since. Villeneuve is perfect to bring the visuals onto a big screen.
The Rama series is hands down one of my favourite of all time. I know he's only going to make the first book, or maybe a mix of info from the first few. But honestly, I love basically everything he does. So I will adore this movie pretty much no matter what.
I think is good idea to do only first book.
I found later books a bit off in climate and more about human conflict and really didn't liked it.
@@Tom_Kowalczuk I love the later books. But I think they would translate terribly into a movie and fully agree with you that sticking with the first book would be ideal.
That book is very good, if the film is well made, it can be a masterpiece.
I have hope in Denis. Dune was a masterpeice, this could be great too.
Last week I began this video, paused at around 2:00, ordered the book, LOVED IT, now finished the video. Perfect material for a Villeneuve movie! Thanks Quinn :)
I got 'Rendevouz with Rama' in a 'double feature' book together with 2001 and first read it when I was maybe 12. I liked the way the novels did kinda mix together there, even if they are completely different storylines.
This book is "exploratory", most movie goers expect sci-fi to mean thrill ride anymore. Lasers, explosions, demonic aliens that rip people's bodies apart. I hope this works. Maybe if they play up the Oumuamua parallels it might make it more real to people, but I bet most people don't even remember this happening since it's not on TikTok.
Agreed. I don't doubt that Villeneuve has the talent to bring it to the screen but it may well bomb.
Ridley Scott's Prometheus had strong Rendezvous With Rama vibes. Yes you had the aliens but before that it was very much exploration and discovery...
@@Artificial-Insanity The Story just does not have enough going on to make a movie even though it is a good book. the answers are just too ambiguous.
You could probably have said the same about Arrival, but I thought that was a great movie. You just gotta be okay with that slow burn style of movie
Nice video; good presentation; good ideas. I read Rendezvous as a teenager who consumed a lot of sci-fi novels indiscriminately. Later I discovered that many of the books that I read were written by P.K. Dick, Frank Herbert, Arthur Clarke. I liked the Rama book rather a lot. In my asshole teenager way, I found a lot of challenging new ideas and possibilities. I thought that it was fun, and I was pleased that it didn't throw around a lot of conflict for its own sake. It left a lot of questions unanswered, and I discovered a high tolerance for ambiguity, a condition that served me well a couple of years when I moved more into the international classic film genre. It's sixty years since I've read it, but I'm still comfortable to recommend it to others. Thanks again for a nice, thoughtful video.
Might I recommend Clarke's "The City and the Stars"? It is a rewrite (by Clarke himself) of his first novel, "Against the Fall Of Night". It is, in contrast to his later works, a character driven story as well as a cracking tale. The fifties paperback of the first novel accurately describes it as "A story of an unimaginable future". Of all the Clarke books, as much as I enjoy ones filmed so far it is the one I most wish had been filmed already. CGI has progressed sufficiently to make that possible, and it would need to have waited for that. Also in its favor, it is not lengthy so nothing needs to be left out.
Definitely in my top ten of scifi stories, could you even imagine it as a 3 part mini series... I absolutely love it, and for an author I feel didn't always create 3 dimensional characters (tho' I love all his books) Alvin was instantly relatable to me - might've been the age I first read it tho', putting myself into his shoes. The ultimate heroes journey.
100% agree. This is not only a story of the future, but relevant for today. Seems to me that our future may well go the way of ‘Diaspar’ and ‘Lys’.
This is one of my favorite Clarke's books. It starts out very personal, and very microscopic, then gradually expands until it takes in the universe.
If I had a spare $100 million lying around, I'd make this film. But I'd keep the original title, 'Against the Fall of Night', which is a great title.
s'a good one. the sense of labyrinthian isolation in a "modern" world seeking to see something new. almost as if the joker/jester KNEW and just edged him on
Clarke missed the "Matrix" by _that_ much with "The City and the Stars." The citizens of Diaspar spend most of their time as files in the memory banks in between incarnations as living beings, and while they're alive, amuse themselves in virtual reality "sagas."
Think of the twist it would have been for Alvin et al to discover all of Diaspar was, and had been for millions of years, a simulation.
Good story anyway.
Gregory Benford wrote a sequel to "Fall of Night" which moved out into the Solar System of Diaspar's day. Interesting place, that. Main characters were a "primitive human" only a million or so years evolved beyond what we are today and her friend the intelligent raccoon who controlled his organic spaceship by crapping on the controls. Benford's physical description of Alvin made me think of a comic-book villain drawn by Jack Kirby.
I'm so glad to see that you discovered Folio Society's spectacular version of the book! I can highly recommend their print of Dune as well. Truly the pinnacle of collectors editions.
Is that what that was? Very impressive.
If they are anything like the Criterion collection of DVDs that is a world class job
I read Rendezvous with Rama when I was younger, and I loved it. I think I did read the next one in the series, but I don't recall much of it. Great review Quinn!
i was lucky enough to read this book over 25 years ago, before as you say the onslaught of copying the greats such as Arthur C. Clarke. But this is one of those books that has stuck in my mind ever since and has left a beautiful impression on my heart. I am really looking forward to see what Villeneuve will do with it. I have faith. Also, great video. Liking and subscribing!
I really like Clarkes style when it comes to characters. They really are only the bare minimum to get the points across. And the point is usually not the characters themselves but the strange situations they face. So for me it's more refreshing to not have it be bogged down with superfluous digressions of character motivations.
Big agree. Not everything has to be a Netflix show, with segmented character explorations as the key focus. Plot is more important frankly, and it's why the new Halo sucks. No one gives a shit about Master Chief's feelings. Show me the STORY.
@@MrMrHiggins Today's media industry caters mostly to female audiences. So the focus will always be on characters and feelings over plot and events. Sorry to break it to you.
Yeah there's a very accessible simplicity to his work, quite charming really, it was very easy for 11 year old me to get into
@@mylesleggette7520 that has zero to do with it and it's about revenue but sure. Men respond just as strongly to high characterisation.
I worked with Gentry Lee at Lockheed Martin during the Stardust, Genesis spacecraft builds and some while he was at JPL. Very smart guy.
I immediately thought of Rama when I saw the final ship of 'Interstellar' :)...you are SO right about the characters not being so memorable as the places and spaceships. I love Clarke, Heinlein, Wells, Lewis, Herbert, Asimov and all the old SciFi the Library and bookstores could offer! :)
It's funny, the whole bomb plot in Arrival felt shoehorned in. The implied threat of the Chinese moving their military around could have easily been enough, and would have shown a better sense of subtlety.
I got that feeling too, though it did serve to advance the plot. One thing I didn’t like was the soldiers planting the bomb felt literally anonymous. I had no idea who they were, and didn’t get any sense of why they were doing this stuff.
That movie sucked in a major way. I dont know what people saw in it. It looked cool I guess. The story was dumb
@@Pete...NoNotThatOne there was a thread of going back to that one soldier again and again to show that he was paranoid and influenced by conspiracy theories... Jan 6th certainly proved that subplot much more believable than at the time.
For me it emphasised the commitment of the visitors. They know that it would happen, but they stayed, accepted and forgave. That was pretty supernatural.
This with a sidenote of fear of unknown like Quinn said, but also the harmfullness of fear mongrelling media.
@@patreekotime4578 They probably decided not to go _to deeply into his background_ as showing his political beliefs (besides listening to the anti Alien conspiracy stuff) would have "alienated" a lot of Conservative audience members and gotten the *usual Culture Warriors* into a tizzy.
We can all read between the lines and guess that he was a Alt Right Qanon style Alex Jones FOX News nutter that believes that yadda yadda yadda Trump.
But did we need a see a Confederate Flag sticker and a NRA cap to get where he was coming from?
And to be serious… ask the characters were presented in a cold and standoffish way, even when showing their intimate emotions, it was just the style of the film.
My father introduced me to the Rama series when I was in high school. I read the first one and was hooked. One thing you forgot to mention was that the first "Rama" was tracked but it was the second one that they rendezvous with. The ending where they realize they do everything in threes is what sets up the final 3 books.
I loved this whole series. Got a LITTLE over dramatic in the later books but still fun and imaginative to read.
Denis has my full confidence to knock this one out of the park!
I have loved this book since the 70s when I first read it as a middle schooler. I never read the others in the series. I didn't want to. I loved the wonder of exploring Rama and the wondering what it all might mean. I don't want answers. Like Bill Norton, I love being left with more questions than answers.
I think I read "Rendezvous with Rama" in 1979. I felt the same chills as the character when he sat up in his bed thinking "The Ramans do everything in threes" Sadly, the follow on books of the series, while not actually bad, do not live up to expectations. It is probably just as well that you haven't read them; although, I will not go as far as saying that I wish that I had not read them.
the sequels certainty were one of the books ever made
Loved reading Clarke growing up, not having the internet had its advantages
I've just re-read Rama II, and frankly I thought it was nowhere near as good as the original. I remember feeling the same about the other sequels when I read them. Rendezvous with Rama is about the suspense and the mystery of Rama rather than a lot of action. I'm excited about the prospect of a movie, but I hope the director doesn't try and turn it into an action-packed space opera along the lines of Star Wars. RwR isn't that kind of story, and IMO should not be interpreted in that way, but it seems that is what cinema audiences want from science fiction these days.
Yeah, since Star Wars added action to a science fiction setting people think SF movies must have action. Perhaps we're past that. Hope so. I don't remember any battle scenes in Arrival or gunfights :)
@threedoubleyou dotcom Hahah, remember the coked out anal beads sex scene with Nicole's (I think?) Chinese mafia drug whore daughter? I certainly remembered that part as a kid, haha. Yeah, those sequel novels were exactly the kind of thing a modern film company would love to do: A lot of interpersonal drama with actual big science-fiction ideas just sort of in the background.
Don’t worry Dennis Villanova gots this
I think the problem with the sequels was that they were cowritten by Gentry Lee and the style didn't feel exactly like Clarke. They were definitely bluer than what Clarke was known for.
@@JoseyWales44s My suspicion is that little of any of the sequels was written by Clarke. The style is completely different and the storyline is far more to do with the characters than with Rama itself. Clarke has been criticised for poorly-developed characters, but that misses the point of most of his stories.
A. Clark is one of the legendary sci-fi writers of all time. He had a spooky way of writing stories that later came to pass in a very similar way. I never read a bad Clark book, including Rama. Such ideas were unheard of at the time of it's writing. All sci-fi tropes of today are just repeating the genius of Clark and others who came before. On a side note, everyone on the planet who knows Clark's work, immediately said to themselves; "Dam, he did it again!".. When Oumuamua passed through our Solar System. Anyone who would think Rama is "underdeveloped" or boring simply may not have the required brain horse power for it.. or is polluted with the nonsense that passes for sci-fi today.
Let's made a distinction here. Rama is full of story. What it lacks is conflict. Clarke was an optimist, rare for a novelist-futurist. Most write dystopian fiction. Clarke wrote about peaceful futures. That's unique. Yet his best novels never suffer from lack of conflict. Childhood's End, 2001, Rama, and Songs From Distant Earth are excellent stories because they're full of epic ideas. In Clarkes stories, the majesty of cosmic scale and all its mysteries are what draw you in. Clarke's excellent prose keep you going.
For some reason i only read Rama a couple of years ago - having read the bulk of Clarkes works since the 70s (and his peers).
It was a masterpiece of its kind - cerebral rather than physical, uncluttered and direct. All story no padding. Loved it and hope the film is brave enough to appreciate the source material.
Then I started on Rama II.
Worse. Book. Ever.
Don't let Clarke's name fool you - nothing in the story comes from him. Its all Gentry Lee, and is everything the original isn't. You can skip entire chapters as they have no bearing on ghe story - and i recommend you do if you have to read it.
Why did Clarke put his name to this? There are clues in the forword written by the man himself: He, Clarke, had no intention of revisiting Rama. The "threes" line at the end of the original was just a throwaway cliffhanger. But he was interested in Jupiter exploration for his Space Odyssey series - and Lee was instrumental in one of the ongoing missions at the time (forget which - use google). So Clarke got a direct line to a Jupiter mission and Lee got a big name "coauthor" for his work.
I didnt try for book 3. Rama is best left as a one-off masterwork.
"The i started on Rama II." Then? opps...
@@lordchickenhawk big fingers small keyboard.
@@trollson66 The post I read said "then," not "the." Unless you can go back and edit out errors, your fingers are fine.
Simon Watts ! I didn't like Rama two either, except for the last few chapters, when suspens began building! I loved the part, when the protagonist has to find a way how to communicate complex messages about the danger that Rama was facing ( nuclear annihilation) yeah the second book could have been better, but the third one delivered ! I loved the various alien races, the mysterious Octospiders, the Avians, among others ! I also loved the Emerald city, the deep-spacestation(the Node) with the Eagle at the helm ! Over all Gentry Lee has dreamt up some wonderful characters, magical places and technologies! I think that The Garden of Rama, and Rama revieled were great books !
One more thing ; English is my second language, so if Lee's writing is not on par with Shakespeare's, I wouldn't notice
I’ve been a dune fan for a long time. I caught some of your videos a ways back. Always a very refreshing take him, I always enjoy your videos. Keep posting my friend.
I remember reading Rendezvous with Rama back in the 70’s. I think it was the first full length science fiction novel I ever read, and I was absolutely captivated by it. In some ways it set my expectations so high for what science fiction could be that everything else, including the whole Star Wars universe, and even Rama II seemed kind of sappy and overwrought. I imagine if I read it now I’d find it kind of dry and tedious, but that might be an indication of my own decline that issues with the source material.
As a kid in the seventies I read this series called The Expendables (Convicts were used to explore planets to determine their suitability for colonization. A lot of bad things befell them.). I thought the three books I read (4 in the series) were soooo good and so just a couple of years ago I found the entire 4 book series in Australia - bought them - aaaaand after about 3 or 4 paragraphs of the first chapter I knew I had made a big mistake; they were absolute garbage. I guess my 60 year old brain had changed since I was 12. :)
Was my first ever novel too. Read it in 1992. Was blown away. Loved the trilogy too.
I loved this book when I read it (and re-read it, again and again) decades ago but, as Quinn said, it probably won't hold up on the big screen today unless A LOT of changes are made. The plot is VERY simple. A rough outline (spoilers): A gigantic object enters the solar system. Scientists quickly realize that it is an alien spacecraft of some kind. A manned mission is dispatched to explore the object. The astronauts explore the object and discover that it is a massive interstellar habitat with no inhabitants other than the "biots", which are basically non-intelligent maintenance drones. They see many strange, mysterious, awe-inspiring things, but ultimately find no satisfying answers to any of their questions. Then they go home. That's pretty much it. The characters are vague and uninteresting for the most part. The true star of Rendezvous With Rama is Rama itself. But after decades of CGI-fueled spectacle after spectacle on the big screen, it's going to be hard to create something that is going to inspire awe in modern audiences with visuals alone. There's a good reason why this adaptation has been in "Development Hell" for so many years.
IIRC a later book in the Rama series had a human meet an intelligent alien for the first time I thought it very well written.
I can see where you're coming from. If they rely on lots of big pan-shots with symphonic horns blowing, then it will fall flat. This needs to be an adult-level sci-fi movie. Like "Master and Commander" was for historical fiction. Pacing will be a big part of it. Villeneuve proved that he can deliver a strong sense of the "alien" with Dune. This could be just what we want it to be.
@@rickjohansson4257 All of the later books were co-written with Gentry Lee and are much more traditional novels, plot-wise. The characters are more fleshed out and relatable. But the power of the original novel was mostly in the mystery of Rama. The later novels explain the mystery which takes away from the original, IMO. They're good books, don't get me wrong. But they make Rendezvous a little less fun to re-read.
@@jasonlundberg1083 I was thoroughly blown away by Villeneuve's Dune adaptation. So I agree, if anyone can do it, it's him. The thing that makes me skeptical in the case of Rendezvous is that it doesn't have strong characters and a juicy plot to work with, something the Dune novel had in spades. As I said, a lot of changes will have to be made. Otherwise, all you have left is a visual effects extravaganza with no satisfying conclusion.
@@Duncan_Idaho_Potato Did "Dune" have a juicy plot? I fell asleep after 40 minutes of NOTHING happening. For years I heard people talk about how great the book was, so I finally gave in and slogged my way through a couple of years ago. Hell, the book itself was both boring and stupid as hell. Paul and his mother ... spare me. And ProgHead777 is right about "Rama" as a movie - I enjoyed the world-building in the "Rama" books but there is even less conflict and action than in "Dune."
It's such an important point to remember and remind people of, that for works of art, writing, etc. that originate tropes, they really are best enjoyed while read and watched on a curve with that in mind. I'm personally not a huge Star Wars fan for example, but it was massively more fun to watch when you think about the DNA of hundreds of other movies constantly on the screen (and the films that lead to it as well) and appreciate that aspect of what it all means to the collective culture and understanding.
I've been waiting for this movie for a long time. I would love to see a few books made into movies, they include:
1) The entire RAMA series Arthur C Clarke
2) The entire Old Mans War series John Scalzi
3) The entire EON series Greg Bear
4) The entire Uplift series David Brin
5) Footfall Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven
6) Fadeout Patrick Tilley
What about David Weber in the Safehold series? The detail that he weaves into his stories is amazing. To me he is the Tom Clancy of Science Fiction with the detail and story telling he uses.
There's a bunch of books that would make brilliant films (if done correctly - *cough* starship troopers *cough*).
On this list, Footfall is definitely a doable thing (in my opinion). It could be brilliant.
@MLT LOVE that list (extra points for Fadeout) I would add Hyperion series by Dan Simmons, the Many Colored Land by Julian May and ANY novel at all by Neal Stephenson/Bruce Sterling or The Culture books by Iain M.Banks.
@@SuperGinkgo I haven't read much over the years because of working but now that I'm retired I'll check out some of the suggestions above. I'm always up for a new SciFi story.
@@mlt6322 Over the years I have read thru pallets of scifi! I love recommending books, can't go wrong with the above. Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, try that. 😊🖖👍
I never knew that there were other books in the series. I almost feel like Rendez-Vous with Rama is complete. I love coming this far to being in contact with an alien civilization and ultimately not knowing the whole story. I say, for me, Rendez-vous with Rama stood out on its own :)
_"...the Ramans do Everything in threes!"_
I think book two came out something like 20 years after the first one. The sequels are so different, I pretty much consider the original and sequels as two totally different things. Books 2-4 had a continuous cast of characters and they focused on, for lack of a better term, the adventures they went on. The star of the original book was the ship itself and imagining what it would be like to be on such a huge, strange vessel. I remember thinking the humans visiting the ship (which was a totally different cast than the sequels) were secondary.
Rendezvous with Rama _is_ complete. Having attempted to read Rama II (with great expectations) and Garden of Rama (with considerably diminished expectations) with Gentry Lee's clunky characterizations and junior-high book-report level of writing, not to mention the complete vaporization of RwR's interplanetary society, I prefer to pretend the Gentry Lee sequels never happened.
An excellent review of this classic. Thoughtful and informative. I particularly like the way Rendezvous with Rama is placed in context with the development of Sci-fi.
After watching Dune I agree that Denis Villeneuve is the perfect director to do "Rendezvous with Rama". His more cerebral take on Dune would be perfect for Rama. However, the Octospiders from the thumbnail were not in Rendezvous with Rama, they appeared in the third book, and personally I have doubts how much input AC Clarke had in the later books.
He had next to no input. It’s all Gentry Lee, for better or worse.
And it’s worse.
Rama is probably my favorite science fiction novel ever just by virtue of letting the setting be the star of the show and being such a wonderland of mystery. I am supremely hyped for this and have been ever since Morgan Freeman purchased the film rights to it. And holy hell he picked the perfect director to head the project.
I hope he's in it.
Morgan Freeman has had the rights to this film for like 30 years, and every time I hear him talk about it, he says he is too old.
I have read them all several times, in fact, and after reading the first (Rendezvous) I really, really, really wanted a film to be made about the whole shebang. But then I realized the impossibility of that with the technology of those days (b 1951) . But I. do look forwards to what the MasterOf Dune can do with it, but I fear that to cover the whole four books would take years and years. Time which, probably and unfortunately humanity doesn’t have.
Anyway, good luck to the crew making it.
I read it decades ago. I loved it, and the following books. 👍🏻
I didn't read Rendezvous with Rama until 6 years ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it on its own merits. It was fun trying to unravel the mystery of Rama along with the characters, and gratifying to figure some things out before they did. It's not a perfect book by any means, and it was a lot shorter than I would have liked, but a great read nonetheless. I recommend it to any sci-fi fan.
You got me back into reading sci-fi. Thank you for another wonderful recommendation. Keep up the stellar work!
I strongly suspect that Villenueve's plan is to condense the plots of the later books into a single movie. Effectively modern science fiction can pretty much cold open upon final approach to Rama, and burn through the plot of the first book - poking around Rama - in the span of the first 15 minutes. As mentioned, Rama is the progenitor of a lot of these tropes we all know now - so the movie doesn't need to explain them - it can leap to the book 2/3 plots and actions and consequences as the movies Act 2 & 3.
The same cannot be done for Dune precisely because it is so character driven - but Clarke's focus on the visuals and science of science fiction I think is a perfect fit for Denis. With Rama, Denis gets to do a kind of orgy of visual storytelling, that can almost occur without actors at all. That kind of esoteric, impersonal, loneliness of science fiction is true of both AC and DV. To be clear, I'm not saying Denis is bad with actors - he's IMO the best living director and nobody earns that accolade without being great at directing actors, but what makes him exceptional is his 'show, don't tell' grandmastery, and fundamentally all dialogue is a form of telling.
I must admit I was surprised when I heard that Villeneuve had chosen Rama as his next project. The book concentrates on the mechanics of the exploring an unknown space vessel but rarely touches on the philosophiocal side of that. Also I can barely remember a single character from the story.
I suspect that Villeneuve is going to have to - paraphrasing The Martian's Mark Watney - 'adapt the shit out of this.'
Villeneuve should check out "Forbidden Planet," the movie with Walter Pigeon and Lindsey Neilson (sp?). THAT movie I would LOVE to see with up-to-date Special Effects!
@@paulbrinkman5631 too true. Fantastic film and great concept. Ofc aspects of character and dialogue that are very antiquated can be easily updated. But its basic premise is classic and timeless and with modern effects could be thrilling and quite scary too. Great movie though and has a lot of potential for adaptation in different ways. Though you would have to try to play down any parallels with Aliens which in hindsight it has a few of, especially with the whole military expedition into an abandoned planet with alien structures left behind and how it threatens to silently kill of the men etc etc.
At The Mountains Of Madness could be a good adaptation
@@paulbrinkman5631 TBH... I don't think that one (Forbidden Planet) need's a lot of better SFX.. Was pretty good then, even for late 50's and still stands up now. We can always make it more NOW, but can we make it better??
I think that what made 2001: A Space Odyssey the apex of science fiction was the fact it spent little time toward character development. Haywood Floyd was just an administrator. He is given a sense of realism with his talk with some Russian friends and his chat with his daughter and then having to read a list of instructions about how to use a zero-g toilet. All of this just serves to demonstrate what an average man can relate to. The astronauts on Discovery act like real astronauts. We do not really care about their background stories as it would interfere with the thrust of the plot. Even when the emergency of Frank Poole being in danger, Dave Bowman shows little emotion. He does what he needs to do ... and just does it. Real, professionals subsume their emotions and stick with protocol. When we see that HAL is not going to allow him back into the Discovery, Dave is noticeable disconcerted but doesn't break down. He thinks of an alternate plan. Rendezvous with Rama could follow in this tradition, with only slight character development, with a focus on the actual science of observing the interior of an alien craft. We have gotten so used to things popping out of peoples' chest and emotionalism, it seems like we've lost our ability to discern between real science fiction and horror sci-fi. Can real science fiction make a come-back? I don't know. After seeing 2010, I'm doubtful.
well said sir
Great points. I thought ‘2001’ character development was fine. I enjoyed the realism of the astronauts. It’s a bit irritating to watch modern Sci Fi depict astronauts/fighter pilots as “frightened” and “emotional” everyday citizens.
Excellent take Thor
You got it rama was not that easy read say like city of lead and gold i read in the ,70s hope hollwood never touches only the french would make it work to ped ie for most people .
Spot on.