The Rama Series

First published:Rendezvous with Rama (1973), Rama II (1989, written with Gentry Lee), The Garden of Rama (1991, written with Gentry Lee), and Rama Revealed (1994, written with Gentry Lee)

Type of work: Novels

Type of plot: Science fiction—alien civilization

Time of work: About 2130-2220

Locale: Earth’s solar system and a Raman base in deep space

The Plot

Considered Arthur C. Clarke’s best novel since his classic Childhood’s End (1953), Rendezvous with Rama tells a story with the familiar science-fiction theme of humans’ first encounter with a visitor from the depths of space and time. Gentry Lee, a chief engineer on Project Galileo and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Viking mission to Mars who worked with Carl Sagan on the television series Cosmos, collaborated with Clarke on the sequels Rama II, The Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed.

Rendezvous with Rama, by far the most scientifically and technologically interesting of the four novels, begins in 2077, when an asteroid strikes Earth, destroying Padua, Verona, and Venice. In 2130, the asteroid early warning system SPACEGUARD identifies the alien ship Rama entering the solar system. United Planets launches a space probe (Sita) from Phobos, a moon of Mars, toward Rama. Simultaneously, Australian commander Bill Norton’s spaceship, Endeavor, is dispatched to explore the alien craft.

An expedition finds a way into Rama’s interior. Flares reveal walls of a cylindrical vessel with a dark, cold interior cavity fifty kilometers long and sixteen kilometers wide. A twenty-member search party descends an enormous stairway to a flat Central Plain circled by a Cylindrical Sea of ice. Team leader Dr. Laura Ernst detects an oxygen-rich breeze moving within Rama. A few hours later, the light of six blue “suns” suddenly floods through the great machine, melting the sea ice. Hermian colonists on Mercury warn governors on Earth that Rama may pose a military threat. Others see in Rama a cosmic egg or ark sent to save those worthy of salvation.

Norton and his team set sail on the raft Resolution for “New York,” an island in the Cylindrical Sea. “New York” is revealed to be a kind of machine resembling a giant chemical-processing plant. Lieutenant Jimmy Pak convinces Norton to allow him to fly his sky bike, Dragonfly, over a rampart shielding Rama’s South Pole. A sudden windstorm collapses Dragonfly, leaving Pak to wander through empty fields waiting for crops. He discovers six-legged, crablike scavengers and dust devils the size of a human. He collects a flower resembling a butterfly. Jimmy jumps over the rampart and, using his shirt as a parachute, floats down to Norton’s raft in time to outrace a tidal wave. A giant starfish emerges from the sea, only to be chopped to pieces and recycled by other shadowy beings. An intruder enters Norton’s camp, a three-eyed, tripod-bodied “spider” two meters long. One of the scientists opens it and discovers it is a biological robot, a battery with legs. The Hermians of Mercury try to shoot down Rama with a missile. Norton’s crew disables the bomb, and the vessel proceeds toward the sun and beyond on its way to the Greater Magellanic Cloud.

Rama II, published sixteen years after the first novel, opens in 2197. It is hard to find evidence of Clarke’s work in the sequels, which do little to advance the image of Ramans presented in the first novel. A second Raman vessel is intercepted by the International Space Agency inside the orbit of Venus in late February of 2200. A new exploratory team from New Space Academy is selected to study Rama II. Earth has come through the “Great Chaos,” an economic collapse that brought an end to the age of space exploration, and can afford to send only one ship, the Newton, with an international crew. General Valeriy Borzov dies suddenly during a routine appendectomy on the journey out. Crab biots accidentally kill some of the crew members. Dr. Takagishi dies of fright while exploring “New York” in the dark. Francesca Sabatini pushes sex and drugs among the men in the crew. When Nicole des Jardins, the novel’s superwoman central character and the team medical officer, falls into a deep pit in “New York,” Francesca abandons her. Rama II positions itself to collide with Earth, and the team re-turns suddenly to the Newton. Richard Wakefield, the team’s mechanical genius, returns to rescue Nicole, and the religious Michael O’Toole tries to rescue both of them. The three cosmonauts help Raman avians prepare Rama II for a missile attack. Rama II takes off for the stars as Nicole and Richard celebrate their love.

The Garden of Rama, published two years later, continues Nicole’s story through her journal of the years 2200 to 2213, during which she reared a family on Rama II, first with Richard and then with Michael. In part 2, “At the Node,” the cosmonauts reach a Raman base and are given help by the “Eagle.” Michael and Simone are left on the Raman node as a breeding pair while Nicole, Richard, and four children return to Earth on Rama III, sleeping for nineteen years. In part 3, “Rendezvous at Mars,” the cosmonauts on Rama III are joined by hundreds of colonists who had been diverted from Mars by disease. With the help of Raman avians, they raise the village of “New Eden” as the ship continues toward the star Tau Ceti.

Part 4, “Epithalamion,” begins with a wedding but tells of the colonists’ growing problems in developing their new world. It concludes with Nicole’s arrest for murder and Richard’s disappearance undersea. In part 5, “The Trial,” both are imprisoned for sedition, the former by humans and the latter by aliens. Civil war has begun within Rama III. Nicole drinks a potion and falls asleep. Rama Revealed, the conclusion to the series, describes her voyage back to the Raman node and her lost family members.