Friday, December 22, 2006

Rama II, The Garden of Rama, Rama Revealed, by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee

Rama II, by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee
The Garden of Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee
Rama Revealed, by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee

WARNING: stay away from these if you don't have free time to read. Failure to observe this warning could result in serious problems like not meeting deadlines or extreme exhaustion because you had to stay up all night until you finished a book. The premises: mankind's fears that Earth could by hit by a massive asteroid or meteor lead to the deployment of an observation system to send out a warning of a colliding astral object early enough in time so that some action could prevent any disaster. What the system shows, though, is that a 50km long cylinder, obviously of alien manufacture, is coming towards Earth. The books talk about manned missions sent to investigate this massive spacecraft and the sociological implications of human contact with a sentient alien race. This is science fiction of the best possible kind and paced in such a way that you get a new revelation every chapter leading you to hours and more hours of uninterrupted reading. You've been warned. If you really get into this, you might want to try to find the old Rama game by Sierra - good luck making it run in a modern Windows PC.

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