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So. Two stars. That’s a really low rating for me. Normally, if I really don’t like a book, I just move on with my life. But this one had elements that hit close to home for me.Sorry, I realize that I was just speaking Midwestern Understatement. What I meant to say was that this book is a tangible manifestation of my nightmares. Is this an awful book? No.Did I enjoy it? No. It frustrated me from the first page. From *before* the first page, actually. More than that, even. This book made me angry....
Good: Anything not involving the characters. The history of the economic crisis, description of the saint.Bad: Anything involving characters and character development. Minus the catholic guy who visits the pope and the saint's memorial.I'm sorry, I just can't keep reading this. It's excruciating. I'm bailing at page 100. Parts of it are really good, like the 2 chapter history of the economic crisis. That was fun, detailed, well thought out. But whenever this book interacts with a human being, I
"Worst science fiction book ever" and "Arthur C. Clarke" -- in the same sentence? Sad, but true. How is that possible? I can only guess that Clarke was getting senile, and Gentry Lee, while possessing impressive credentials, just must not be any kind of fiction writer at all.However it came about, this awful book is the result. As a confirmed science fiction fan, having read hundreds of scifi books in my 57 years of life, the contest is over for the worst of them all.I hesitate to provide specif...
"Don't read this one, it's boring!" is what everyone warned me. Did I listen? No. But I should have. Kicked it after reading for about 10 months and realizing I still had 200 pages to go. No one should have to suffer like that. I'll pass on the sequels too, along with everything else Gentry Lee has written.
Let me add my voice to the chorus of other reviewers saying what a load of crap this book turned out to be. The original Rendezvous with Rama was an intelligent and thoughtful treatment about what first contact between humans and another intelligence might look like. Fifteen years later, Rama II arrives with none of the qualities that made the original enjoyable, and instead brings a bunch of characters whose emotional register is similar to the characters from the telenovellas we used to have t...
Two men enter a curio shop and see a delightful object. "I made that!" exclaimed one man. "Now that I am long in years, perhaps I can improve upon it." Replied the second man, with some enthusiasm: "Indeed! I may be able to help with that project. I have certain new-fangled ideas that shall modernize your quaint antique!" Sadly, both men were quite mistaken.why the urge to improve upon what was perfectly fine as is? this sequel adds absolutely nothing to the original - except a host of cheap soa...
I'm about 1/5 in and this book SUCKS. Nothing has happened, the pacing is at an absolute crawl, and all I'm getting in the way of story is far too much backstory on all the characters. Oh, and some of the writing is bad. "She looked up at the lights and Francesca. The gold sequins on the front of the Italian journalist's dress had grouped into a pattern, or so it seemed to Nicole. She saw a head in the sequins, the head of a large cat, its eyes gleaming and its mouth with sharp teeth just beginn...
I was surprised that this book turned out to be so disappointing. I almost gave up a few times but forced myself to finish, expecting it to get better. Now I feel abashed, as if I sent a nigerian prince $10,000.00 because I believed his email about his terrible, urgent need.Rendezvous with Rama (The book proceeding Rama II in the series) was a wonderful book. It was a classic example of "hard" sci fi, Arhur C. Clarke at his best. It had fascinating science, great atmosphere and tension, and buil...
What a pile of crap! Gentry Lee took over what was an amazing hardcore science fiction novel in Rama and turned it into some crappy drama, with novice style intrigue, a bunch of ridiculous characters that having you going from indifferent to totally hating them. This is a afternoon soap opera with the background of space. I loved Rama, I loved the ideas brought up by Arthur Clarke, and I was so excited to learn more about the Ramans and their ship that the second encounter should have brought, i...
I was incredulous of the many 1- and 2-star ratings this book had. But now I've finished reading it, and I get it. In and of itself, it wasn't a terrible book. The writing and story were OK, but this just wasn't a classic Arthur C. Clarke novel. Clarke's stories were always about the science, the science fiction and the wonders and thrills that lay within which propelled the narrative forward. This book was obviously more Gentry Lee, because it was jam-packed with melodrama and soap opera-like s...
My working theory is that by 1989, when Rama II was published, anything with Arthur C. Clarke's name on it was considered above editing. Though Clarke, being creator of the series and the more prominent name, gets top billing, Lee is said to be the main perpetrator of this work, a follow-up to Clarke's award-winning 1972 Rendezvous with Rama. Both novels deal with expeditions to mysterious alien spacecraft, fifty-kilometer-long spinning cylinders containing an entire world with plains, a sea, ci...
The first book in the series, Rendezvous with Rama, was a good read and I was excited about this sequel. No no no. The first was focused on exploration and discovery and the characters were imperfect but hard-working, decent people. Rama II is poorly written, bogged down by inane machinations by cliched and unlikeable characters, and worst of all, reduces the fascinating mysteries of the first book to an increasingly ridiculous premise. Like with the three new Star Wars movies, I wish I could cl...
II: This is the sequel to A. C. Clarke's Rama I, and I think it delivers. It has what the original novel did not have: Well developed characters and sub-plots, and I find that Gentry did a fine job at this. For example, this being published in 1989, well before reality TV became the expected norm, he had the idea that the world would be watching this historical event of a small crew exploring this new Rama in real time, assuming that in the twenty third century, we would still be into that sort
I am obviously in the minority here but I enjoyed this novel... is it even safe to say that I enjoyed it more than the first one? Full review to come. Bought the last 2 books in the series too, even though I'm 100% certain that I will take a break from this series for a while.
Though not in the same league as Rendezvous with Rama, this was quite enjoyable. I was surprised that Lee, a scientist with JPL, made this a much more character focused novel. He didn't do a bad job at it or anything but that probably wasn't what most people wanted out of a Rama sequel.
I honestly couldn't get very far into this book. I really enjoyed Rendezvous with Rama, but this novel failed to hold my attention for two reasons:The worldbuilding was well-thought out, but was written like a well-written history textbook, or the sourcebook for a roleplaying game. I wanted to get into this world, not read its history texts.The few characters I actually saw right away didn't have a "save the cat" moment. I had no reason to empathize with them, and didn't.As a result, I got maybe...
I don't know if I can even be bothered to finish this one. Arthur C. Clarke was never very good at writing believable characters; his strengths were the amazingly inventive premises, attention to detail, and ability to make even the craziest technologies seem scientifically possible. So here we have a novel that Clarke apparently created the characters for (it shows) and outlined ideas, but is actually written by some other author. I absolutely loved the original book, Rendezvous with Rama, it w...
Definitely longer than the first book, "Rama II" is also much more character-centric and person driven than the first one. This installment is all about reminiscing over some lost childhood or getting entangled in relationships with unlikely people, in highly unlikely places. I still love the idea of a ship that resembles "Rama", an enclosed ecosystem so very different but so alike to our own Earth, where stages of evolutionary development are burned over the course of hours, instead of millions...
Imagine being assigned to use as many pure tropes as possible and to push them as far as you can -- without getting to the point of parody or satire (cause that might be fun). Then you're told to stretch that project to cover as many pages as possible, with the minimum actual plot progression. That project would be Rama II.