{"id":759,"date":"2012-12-07T14:34:58","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T21:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=759"},"modified":"2012-12-07T14:34:58","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T21:34:58","slug":"rendezvous-with-rama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"Rendezvous With Rama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finished reading Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama<\/em>.\u00a0 What a surprising treat!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rendezvous with Rama<\/em> is considered one of Clarke’s best novels – winning a slew of sci-fi literary awards.\u00a0 While I’m not a huge Clarke fan myself, this came highly recommended as a ‘must read’, so I dove into the audiobook on my drives to\/from work.<\/p>\n

The story (no spoilers):<\/strong>
\nA gigantic, mysterious, cylindrical object appears in space, swooping in toward the sun. A ship is quickly redirected to investigate before the enigmatic object, called Rama, sweeps through the solar system and disappears, or crashes into the sun, or parks and starts an invasion(!?).\u00a0 The astronauts land and soon discover they can enter the kilometers long, hollow cylindrical object to decipher it’s puzzles. What becomes apparent is this object is clearly extra-terrestrial technology of high order; but apparently lying completely dormant without any signs of activity or life.\u00a0 After entering the object itself, they begin and fantastic exploration that leads the reader on an amazing ride as Rama starts to wake…<\/p>\n

My take:<\/strong>
\nIf you want to read a gripping, fantastic story about what a first human encounter with an alien space probe\/vehicle\/whatever – and if you want to watch the exploration process unfold and experience awesome and wonderful sights – then this is a book for you. I found myself riveted by the descriptions and picturing the fantastic scenes in my own mind.\u00a0 This alone is worth the price of entry!
\nWhile Clarke posits what he think alien technology might look like, I found some of the suggestions too implausible, or in some cases, overly simplistic or even a little silly.\u00a0 Still, the parts he really nails are so good that these minor points do not overshadow the amazing sights and experiences he does create.<\/p>\n

I highly recommend this book to someone who loves good old fashioned sci-fi exploration and adventure into strange new areas.\u00a0 It’s quite a treat that is worth a read.\u00a0 A-<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finished reading Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama.\u00a0 What a surprising treat! Rendezvous with Rama is considered one of Clarke’s best novels – winning a slew of sci-fi literary awards.\u00a0 While I’m not a huge Clarke fan myself, this came highly recommended as a ‘must read’, so I dove into the audiobook on my drives to\/from work. The story (no spoilers): A gigantic, mysterious, cylindrical object appears in space, swooping in toward the sun. A ship is quickly redirected to…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4WECr-cf","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}