Introduction to the Rama Trilogy

One of the science fiction novels written by Arthur C. Clarke was A Rendezvous with Rama. Published in 1973, it depicts the arrival in the solar system of a gigantic cylindrical spacecraft of unknown origin, designated "Rama" by the naming system of the time. It appears in 2130, a time when humanity has learned to travel routinely throughout the solar system. Of course an expedition is mounted and a brief exploration of that spacecraft is achieved. The humans encounter many wonders before they have to leave. They watch Rama plunge inward past the Sun, apparently drawing sustenance from it, before heading outward on its unknown mission. One sentence at the end of the novel suggests that humanity will have another chance to unravel these mysteries.

"And on far-off Earth, Dr. Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had wakened
from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain:

The Ramans do everything in threes!"

That insight led to the writing of three more novels. Although Arthur C. Clarke's name is on them as lead author, it is likely they were entirely written by Gentry Lee, currently chief engineer for JPL's Planetary Flight Systems Directorate and a devout Catholic. These novels are:

Rama II (1989)
The Garden of Rama (1991)
Rama Revealed (1993)

A Rendezvous with Rama is one of Clarke's masterpieces. It avoids teleology entirely, leaving the identity and nature of whoever built Rama completely mysterious. For Lee, however, the works evidently presented a chance for Biblical exegesis in a science-fiction context. In his novels, Michael O'Toole is the devout Catholic while Richard Wakefield is the atheistic scientist. Nicole des Jardines Wakefield falls in between; a former Olympic champion, worldly and practical, she nevertheless follows the spiritual tradition of her African forebears (though mainly in dreams and her internal musings) and at times this gets her out of a jam. She also sometimes prays for God's help — and He too seems to pay heed.

Lee goes further, positing in Rama Revealed that the entire apparatus he shows us — Rama, other alien spacecraft, the Node, and constructs yet more immense he mentions — are tools created by God3 for the purpose of learning what factors make for a truly harmonious universe. And The Garden of Rama is a transparent retelling of the Garden of Eden story in which humankind is given a paradise and fouls it up. All this is too doctrinaire for my tastes.4

Reaction to these collaborative Rama novels is very much a mixed bag. I have heard that many people don't like them at all. The complaints on Amazon bear this out, running along the lines I've mentioned: too many sex scenes; too long-winded and boring; flat characters.

1 Clarke said he did not intend to write a sequel, but perhaps he left himself the option out of good writerly practice. Regarding the three successor novels, he described his role as contributing ideas.

2 Clarke and Lee also collaborated on Cradle (1988), a non-Rama SF novel. By himself, Lee wrote two more novels set in the Rama universe: Bright Messengers (1996) and Double Full Moon Night (2000). I have not read them, but per Amazon customer comments they are more of the same.

3 Yes, Lee actually uses that name.

4 I do regard Clarke's Childhood's End, published in 1953, as a non-spiritual interpretation of the Apocalypse myth, and even argued such to a student from Union Theological Seminary. (He didn't buy it.)

THE RAMA TRILOGY

Reviewed various dates