Thread: RAMA

who has read all rama series book. i find it really woderful and facinating. it inspired me more than anything i have ever done.

:-D

I read all the books too. It really changes one's outlook on life. Definitely on my top ten.

that's really great. at least i have found one person who has done that. to be honest, i asked this from lot of people. But most people have just read one or two books in that series. But i must say, if somebody has not read the whole series, they are missing a lot! :-D

author ?

Arthur C. Clarke

Rendezvous with Rama
Rama II
The Garden of Rama
Rama Revealed

I have read these. Rendezvous is excellent. Certainly in my top twetny of SF novels - maybe not the top ten.

I understand Gentry Lee has also written two books whose events take place within the Rama universe. I have not read these.

oh i see - read the first one, wasn't even aware there were sequels
should really remedy that gap

Well actually Gentry Lee co-authored "Rama II", "Garden of Rama" and "Rama revealed" so you have read his work

Read the whole series about 5 times! Definitely my favourite!!!

And yes, I strongly advise you to finish the series. EPIC!

RAMA is good. Although I think Clarke is the science-fiction world's Charles Dickens. If you take the 400 pages and condense them down to the actual plot, it's a good story. Line by line, do we really need to know what each atom is doing in a grain-by-grain explanation, everywhere we go? lol

Clarke's works are perhaps the only SF works I know of where the abridged version is better than the unabridged!

Originally Posted by Wolf

Clarke's works are perhaps the only SF works I know of where the abridged version is better than the unabridged!

i'm sure Asimov and Heinlein in their later works could have given him a run for his money - Asimov's last foundation novel (Forward the Foundation) reads better because the book was put together from bits that for a large part hadn't been padded out yet

I read Rama 1 and two, and they were good, especially the first one. But the foundation series was fantastic. My favorite book would have to be Asimov's collection of short stories, I Robot. Brian Aldiss and Robert Silverberg also know what they are doing.

I have read them all. I thought Rendezvous was superb but the sequels got progressively duller.

Originally Posted by KALSTER

My favorite book would have to be Asimov's collection of short stories, I Robot.

The Robot series was awesome. I still find the first book, "I, Robot" to be very intriguing, even though I've read it about two-dozen times already. It's interesting to study the problems, not to mention read about how robots were envisioned. I doubt we'll ever see a robot with a "clockwork brain," but we're already seeing robots accompanying humans into space and in our daily lives on Earth. Although my personal prediction is that (outside of the realms of sex) we won't see any mobile home robots, but instead home-based computer systems.

If anyone's really into novels with AI themes, they should check out Keith Laumer's BOLO stories. They're not only great stories, but there's a lot of "I, Robot" style AI troubles in them. (Of course, the subject of BOLOs is anything but small, so...I warned you. )

Only ever read the first - Rendezvous, and thought it was excellent, but I'm not much of a fan of sequels. Having said which, the first three Foundation novels form an outstanding trilogy. Everything that came after was contrived and more Jacqueline Susann than Asimov, IMO.