In 1972, Arthur C Clarke wrote Rendezvous with Rama, which was an incredible success; second only to the mighty 2001: A Space Odyssey in terms of popularity. The story of a massive, mysterious alien cylinder entering the solar system captured the imaginations of readers and earned Clarke both Hugo and Nebula awards, but it would be another 17 years before he wrote a sequel to the open-ended novel. By then, Clarke was working with scientist and screenwriter Gentry Lee, whom he had met whilst working on a screenplay for underwater aliens drama Cradle. The movie version of Cradle never happened, possibly due to the development of the similarly-themed Sphere, but they did write it as a novel, sparking off a 4-novel collaboration between Clarke and Lee.

Rendezvous with Rama ended with the massive cylinder, which human beings have explored and found to contain an incredible but baffling ecosystem, drifting away out of the solar system. Because this is hard sci-fi and constrained by the limits of human scientific achievement, we can’t just go chasing off after it, so Rama is left to drift off away from our sun towards destinations unknown. It is strongly felt, however, that the Ramans do things in threes and another cylinder will be along before too long. 75 years have passed before the events of Rama II, when a second massive cylinder is detected entering the solar system. A lot has happened on Earth and the social and political climate has changed, not necessarily for the better. This feels like a colder, more paranoid version of the human race and it’s very telling that the mission they plan to send to intercept Rama is partially a military one carrying nuclear weapons.

Rama II is a slow burner. Something that can be said of all the books that Clarke wrote with Gentry Lee is that they’re a lot denser, in a literary sense, than the ones he wrote alone. A good third of the book is taken up with very in-depth character analysis, sometimes for characters who’re not that vital to the plot or will end up getting killed off. In terms of investment in the story, it’s a good thing, but it’s a wee bit overdone for my taste and leaves the book lacking the punch of Clarke’s solo work, at least in these early chapters. Religion is something that Clarke has always explored in his novels and it is indeed something that he covered in Rendezvous with Rama, but there’s an awful lot of religious pondering in Rama II; so much so that, even in the relatively secular world of 2019, it feels like a stretch that major world decisions would be so deeply informed by the church.

The lead character in quite an extensive ensemble cast is Nicole des Jardins, a mixed race French scientist with a troubled past. She has an illegitimate child with the King of England, which is hushed up to avoid scandal. The fact that she’s mixed race (and the fact that the King is named ‘Henry’) is strangely prophetic for 1989, but the implication that a mixed race child would cause absolute scandal in the royal family now seems quaintly outdated. Her involvement with the King of England has little to do with the rest of the plot and is an example of how some of the character development is a trifle overwritten; sure, it adds interesting colour to the character, but it does little or nothing to drive the plot forward and ultimately it’s something of a red herring. The stuff about Nicole’s connection to her African heritage is more significant because it’s relevant to an important decision she makes later on Rama.

This is a book of three distinct parts: the first part telling of the arrival of the second Rama module in the solar system, the second part telling of the launch and arrival of the mission to investigate Rama and the third part telling of how Nicole is stranded on Rama, at first thinking she is alone but later finding love with fellow scientist Richard Wakefield. As I mentioned earlier, the first part moves very slowly and goes into incredible depths over the history of some of the characters; a less dedicated reader could easily get bored with Rama II before coming to the meatier content. The story picks up when the exploration team arrives on Rama and things don’t go according to plan; the mission commander dies on the operating table when a routine procedure goes horribly wrong and the others have difficulty agreeing on who should take over. Arthur C Clarke was always great on expounding upon the way in which a mixture of human and mechanical failures can lead to dire consequences and this is a great example.

The third section is by far the most exciting. Nicole is abandoned by the unscrupulous journalist Francesca Sabitini, who convinces the rest of the crew – who are preparing to return home – that she is lost. Left for dead in one of Rama’s ‘cities’, Nicole discovers more about the artefact than the last two missions put together and the reader is treated to a whole new raft of intriguing questions about the origins and purpose of Rama. It’s fascinating stuff and I would have been happier to read an entire novel about this part of the story, but perhaps that’s just me. Nicole realises that she is not alone when she meets up with Richard Wakefield and later General Michael O’Toole; the American General O’Toole has been taxed with triggering a nuclear device to destroy Rama, which the authorities on Earth have declared a threat, but he is struggling morally over whether he can bring himself to carry out the order.

If you’re expecting a whole lot of answers from Rama II, prepare to be disappointed, because this is very much just a part of a 4-novel arc. If anything, it poses a whole lot more questions about the intent and purpose of Rama. You don’t even come away from this with a definitive answer as to whether the Ramans are benign or sinister, but don’t let that put you off, because this is still a terrific read. Could it be read out of context, with no knowledge of what had gone before or intention to read what comes after? Hmm… maybe, but that’s not the best way to enjoy it. The Rama sequence is much more of a protracted serial than the Space Odyssey sequence, for example, and you’ll probably come away from this wanting to read Garden of Rama, which is the next novel. I know that I do.

This edition of ‘Rama II’ by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee was published by Guild Publishing (1989)