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| Cover art by Paul Swendsen |
| THE GARDEN OF RAMA Arthur C. Clarke Gentry Lee New York: Bantam Books, October 1992 |
Rating: 4.0 High |
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| ISBN-13: 978-0-553-29817-8 | ||||
| ISBN-10: 0-553-29817-8 | 518pp. | SC | $5.99 | |
The Garden of Rama resolves the cliffhanger at the end of Rama II by noting that Rama changed course to avoid both collision with Earth and the nuclear missiles launched from it. It ends with another cliffhanger, the New Eden human colony within Rama having been taken over by a despot. Richard Wakefield has escaped New Eden via a secret tunnel and witnesses the humans break into another habitat and slaughter the aliens there. He again escapes in a submarine to the island called New York where he hopes to help the aliens. Nicole Wakefield has been imprisoned on trumped-up charges of sedition, is convicted and is awaiting execution at the end of the novel.
This last portion, about a fifth of the novel, is fast-paced and contains some imaginative creatures and scenarios. The part of the novel where the Rama spacecraft arrives at the immense Node, near Sirius, and the Wakefield family explores it and helps prepare Rama for its next mission is interesting. So is the portion that introduces major new characters from Earth. But the beginning and middle closely resemble a soap opera containing too much about sex and relationships, and which telegraphs the eventual despotism and interspecies war that continue into Rama Revealed. It is a fairly competent but overlong novel.1 I'll give it a 4.0.
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.