Five years after his collaboration with Stanley Kubricks on “2001 – A Space Odyssey” made him world famous, Arthur C. Clarke published “Rendezvous with Rama” – the original title was only used for the third German edition after a hardcover in Marion von Schröder Verlag and the first paperback publication in the Heyne Allgemeine series for the revised new edition in the Bastei Verlag – a new, long-awaited science fiction novel. Twenty-six years later, Arthuer C. Clarke and Gentry Lee began to expand the self-contained first novel into a tetralogy and to extrapolate the insights only hinted at in Clarke’s original version. But the more veils were pulled from Rama and his possible three-person inhabitants, the more the two authors had to run after them with explanations.
Arthur C. Clarke received both the NEBULA and HUGO Awards for Best Novel for the novel, published in 1973. In terms of content, the work fits into a subgenre of science fiction that is popular thanks to Larry Niven’s “Ringwelt”. Abandoned gigantic “objects” whose secrets must be explored by means of at least one expedition. Bob Shaw added “Orbitsville” to this series, and a few years later Frederik Pohl created “Gateway”, a mysterious springboard to the stars whose basic technology was intended to be used by humans but not understood. Brian Stableford turned the hollow world “Asgard” into a playground of adventures and also in Greg Bear’s work there is such a gigantic unspecified object (“eon”).
The appeal of Arthur C. Clarke’s work lies in its fundamentally scientific approach, which often seems to overwhelm the sense of wonder. The starting point, for example, is the Space Guard project, protection against the impact of asteroids. Hollywood should take on this topic in two productions shot in parallel, “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon”. NASA also began to deal with the defense against asteroids. Arthur C. Clarke’s novel is set almost a hundred years in the future. Humanity has colonized some of the planets in the solar system. There is only the United Planets, but virtually no more nation states. What’s interesting is that space technology has undoubtedly evolved, but speed, mass, and fuel still play important roles. On the other hand, Arthur C. Clarke ignores the simplest terraforming rules on other planets. So it seems unlikely that Venus or even Mercury, even under artificial domes, should be regarded as self-sufficient “states” no longer dependent on Earth. Towards the end of his book, Arthur C. Clarke found himself in a small content-related dilemma, from which he tried to escape with an action sequence. In doing so, however, he touches the edge of parody, as John Carpenter portrayed so brilliantly in his student film “Dark Star”.
The social structures are much more interesting. So there is mainly temporary wife and the commander of the mission is even married twice. On Mars and Earth. Perfect for an astronaut as the two women won’t see each other due to the difference in gravity. You just have to be careful with the messages. But Arthur C. Clarke adds a smug note to these social structures with his epilogue.
The actual object of desire is almost forty kilometers in size. Unusual flight characteristics always bordering on a natural scientific explanation put it in the focus of scientists. It will only remain on its trajectory in the solar system for a certain amount of time before it will disappear forever into the depths of space, using the sun’s gravitational pull as a kind of catalyst.
Captain Norton’s Endeavor is the only starship in the area. He lands on RAMA and penetrates into the artificially created hollow body with his crew.
The main part of the book takes up the exploration of this really astonishingly strange world, which is also subject to some natural laws. Arthur C. Clarke also doesn’t shy away from drawing on one of the genre’s ideas with the inexplicable drive of Rama towards the end of the book. If the chapter “Space Drive” delivers exactly what the ambivalent title promises, it shows that the scientist Arthur C. Clarke bows his head to alien technology.
Rama is so gigantic that people cannot explore everything. Rama seems to float through space even without energy. Finally, a fallacy. Interesting and still worth reading today is the very well structured structure of this world – beginning with its three locks and ending with the biots, which symbolize “living” and “dying” at the same time.
Like Larry Niven before him, Arthur C. Clarke deliberately chose to tell the story exclusively from a human perspective. All finds must be assessed and evaluated by the astronauts on board Rama or the researchers at home. The astronauts are threatened primarily by the forces of nature within the gigantic hollow body. In these cases, they are saved by the researchers on Earth, who pool their knowledge and can send warnings in a few moments in good time. It turns out that the weather can be the same everywhere.
Arthur C. Clarke’s matter-of-fact, detached tone adds to the timelessness of this story. Beginning with the gigantic stairs leading to the interior, which basically contradict such a modern construction, and ending behind the gigantic sea in the “south” of Rama, at the end of which the drives are possibly located like gigantic stone peaks lying horizontally.
Evolution is also taking place at breathtaking speed inside RAMA. The hollow world awakens from its hibernation, which has probably lasted for thousands of years, as the gigantic body approaches the sun, only to flee back into the water at the end, from which human life crawled onto land millions of years ago.
Regardless of the short sequence in which Arthur C. Clarke was able to expose the narrow stupidity of people – no matter what planet in the solar system they live on – “Rendezvous with 31/439” is a classic explorer material. Norton’s role model is, of course, Captain Cook. It is no coincidence that his spaceship was named after this famous navigator. But reading it in its present form also reminds this reader a little of Jules Verne’s famous story “Journey to the Center of the Earth”, whereby the heroes do not have to descend through a volcano into the earth. Three bulkheads are enough.
In view of the New Wave and above all the increasingly introverted science fiction of the 1970s, Arthur C. Clarke’s book seems surprisingly out of date from both the past and present perspective. Like his novels from the 1950s and 1960s, the Briton turns out to be an author who is primarily interested in the Sense of Wonder, who himself has recreated a number of dramaturgically fascinating scenes such as the first flight across the South Sea to the machines or the visits to the individual strange terrestrial cities named objects on the inside of the hollow world at the same pace as the long discussions between scientists on earth. Even if time is of the essence, not because of the short flight through, but also because of the ecological challenges, and the life of the crew inside Rama seems threatened, Captain Norton, as a level-headed and highly esteemed, deeply humane commander, never really fazes. And that in the face of probably the most important discovery of mankind.
The novel should be seen in the context not so much of its time – the 1970s – as opposed to the much more modern, perhaps a little too multi-layered, sequels, but rather to the attempt by individual science fiction authors to transform the literal sense of wonder of the early space operas into increasingly gigantic ones to revive discoveries out there. In this respect, “Rendezvous with 31/439” is particularly convincing in the points where Arthur C. Clarke leaves hints and Rama at least concedes a large part of his secrets. In this respect, the novel also seems like a logical continuation of the short story “The Sentinal”, on which Kubrick finally created “2001” together with Arthur C. Clarke.