Rendezvous with Rama
Encyclopedia
Rendezvous with Rama is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke
first published in 1972
. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) cylindrical alien starship
that enters Earth's solar system
. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries.
This novel won both the Hugo
and Nebula
awards upon its release, and is widely regarded as one of the cornerstones in Clarke's bibliography. It is considered a science fiction
classic, and is particularly seen as a key hard science fiction
text.
and named after the king Rama
who is considered to be the seventh Avatar
of the Hindu god Vishnu
(Clarke mentions that by the 22nd century, scientists have used the names of all the Greek
and Roman
mythological figures to name astronomical bodies, and have thus moved on to Hindu mythology). Asteroid 31/439 is detected by astronomers in the year 2130 while still outside the orbit of Jupiter
. The object's speed (100 000 km/h) and the angle of its trajectory clearly indicate that this is not an object on a long orbit around our sun; it comes from interstellar space. Astronomers' interest is piqued when they realize that this asteroid not only has an extremely rapid 4 minute rotation period but it is quite large in size for an asteroid. An unmanned space probe dubbed Sita is launched from the Mars moon Phobos
, and photographs taken during its rapid flyby reveal that Rama is a perfect cylinder, 20 kilometres (12.4 mi) in diameter and 54 kilometres (33.6 mi) long, made of a completely featureless material. In other words, this is humankind's first encounter with an alien space ship.
The manned solar survey vessel Endeavour is sent to study Rama, as it is the only ship close enough to do so in the brief period of time Rama will spend in our solar system. Endeavour manages to rendezvous with Rama one month after the space ship first comes to Earth's attention, when the giant alien spacecraft already is within Venus' orbit. The 20+ crew, led by Commander Norton, enters Rama and explores the vast 16-km wide by 50-long cylindrical world of its interior, but the nature and purpose of the starship and its creators remains enigmatic throughout the book. Inside Rama, the astronauts discover several features, including "cities" (odd blocky shapes that look like buildings, and streets with shallow trenches in them, looking like trolley car tracks), a sea that stretches in a band around Rama dubbed the Cylindrical Sea (see cover image on the top right corner) and 7 massive cones at the southern end of Rama (believed to be the propulsion system Rama uses to move through space).
At one point, one of the newer crew members (Jimmy Pak) who's had experience with skybikes (vehicles that are light, one-man craft that can be used to fly through low-gravity area/regions) decides to ride a skybike across the cylindrical sea to the southern side of Rama, made inaccessible due to the cylindrical sea (the crew had no boats to use to cross the sea). This is possible because of Rama's odd, fluctuating gravity. A few hours later, Jimmy reaches the massive metal cones on the southern end of Rama, picking up a strange magnetic field coming from the cones. Pak takes a few pictures of the area and the strange fields on the southern end of Rama's landmass before leaving. When Pak is a short distance away, he encounters lightning. Unfortunately, one of the bolts hits Pak's skybike, and it plummets to the bottom of the southern landmass of Rama.
When Pak wakes up, he sees a crab-like creature picking up his skybike and chopping it into pieces. He cannot decide whether it is a robot or a biological alien, and keeps his distance while contacting Norton and the others on the other side of Rama for help. Norton sends a rescue party across the cylindrical sea (on a small, improvised craft) and Pak waits. He sees the crab-like creature dump the remains of the skybike into the sea, and he approaches the creature, but it completely ignores him. Pak explores the surrounding fields while waiting for the rescue party to arrive on the southern cliffs of the cylindrical sea. He sees geometric structures in odd shapes and forms. Then he spots a flower, and tells Norton about it. Norton tells him to pluck it. Pak pulls it, and walks to the sea, waiting for the craft to arrive at his location.
Pak jumps off the cliff and swims quickly to the craft, and the ride back is uneventful. When they arrive, they see odd creatures inspecting their camp. When one falls off the walkway to the bottom of Rama, the team's biologist goes down and inspects it. It turns out to be a "biot" or a hybrid of a biological entity and robot. They are believed to be the servants of the Ramans' starship. Meanwhile, the Hermians (human colonists of Mercury) send a bomb to destroy Rama should it have any malicious intent. Another crew member (Boris Rodriguez) rides a skybike to the bomb and luckily manages to deactivate it.
As Rama approaches perihelion, the biots act strangely, jumping into the cylindrical sea. On one last idea to explore Rama, a few crew members decide to visit the city "London" (chosen as closest to the stairways at the "northern" end of the cylinder they use to return to their ship) to use a laser to cut open one of the buildings and see what is inside. Inside, they discover holograms with objects in them, believed to have been used by the Ramans. The most amazing sight is a uniform that is supposedly used by the Ramans. Unfortunately, before the crew can photograph anymore holograms, they must leave. They all exit up through the stairway on Rama's northern side, out the three airlocks, and get onboard Endeavour.
When Endeavour is a safe distance away, and Rama reaches perihelion, Rama is flung out of the solar system toward an unknown location in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud
, harnessing the Sun's gravitational field with its mysterious "space drive" for use in a slingshot manoeuvre. Rama is then gone and never seen again.
The book was meant to stand alone, although the final sentence of the book suggests otherwise:
Clarke, however, denied that this sentence was meant to hint at a continuation of the story-–according to his foreword in the book's sequel, it was just a good way to end the book, and was added during a final revision.
, finding Clarke "benignly indifferent to the niceties of characterization," praised the novel for conveying "that chilling touch of the alien, the not-quite-knowable, that distinguishes sci-fi at its most technically imaginative."
The interior of Rama is essentially a large cylindrical landscape, dubbed 'The Central Plain' by the crew, 16 kilometres wide and 50 long, with artificial gravity
provided by its 0.25 rpm spin. It is split into the 'northern' and 'southern' hemispheres, divided in the middle by a 10-km wide expanse of water the astronauts dub the 'Cylindrical Sea'. In the center of the Cylindrical Sea is an island of unknown purpose covered in tall, skyscraper
-like structures, which the astronauts name 'New York' due to an imagined similarity to Manhattan
. At each end of the ship are North and South "Poles". The North Pole is effectively the bow
and the South Pole the stern
, as Rama accelerates in the direction of the north pole and its drive system is at the South Pole.
The North Pole contains Rama's airlocks, and is where the Endeavour lands. The airlocks open into the hub of the massive bowl shaped cap at the North Pole, with three massive 8-kilometre long stair systems dubbed Alpha, Beta, and Gamma by the crew leading to the plain.
The Northern hemisphere contains several small 'towns' interconnected by roads, dubbed London, Paris, Peking, Tokyo, Rome, and Moscow. The South Pole has a giant cone-shaped protrusion, surrounded by six smaller ones, which are probably a major part of Rama's reactionless "space drive".
Both ends of Rama are lit by six giant trenches (three in the northern hemisphere and three in the south), equidistantly placed around the cylinder, effectively functioning as giant strip lighting.
on September 11, 2077, destroying Padua
and Verona
and sinking Venice
.
A real project named Spaceguard
was initiated in 1992, named after Clarke's fictional device. After interest in the dangers of asteroid strikes was heightened by a series of Hollywood disaster film
s, the United States Congress gave NASA authorization and funding to support Spaceguard.
for the remainder of the series. Lee did the actual writing, while Clarke read and made editing suggestions. The focus and style of the last three novels are quite different from those of the original with an increased emphasis on characterization and more clearly portrayed heroes and villains, rather than Clarke's dedicated professionals. These later books did not receive the same critical acclaim and awards as the original.
Gentry Lee
also wrote two further novels set in the same Rama Universe.
expressed his desire to produce a film based on Rendezvous with Rama. After a drawn-out development process — which Freeman attributed to difficulties in procuring funding — it appeared in 2003 this would indeed be happening. IMDb at one point upgraded the status of the project to "announced" with an estimated release date in 2009. The film was to be produced by Freeman's production company, Revelations Entertainment
. David Fincher
, touted on Revelations' Rama web page as far back as 2001, stated in a late 2007 interview (where he also credited the novel as an influence on the films Alien
and Star Trek: The Motion Picture
) that he is still attached to helm. Revelations and IMDb indicated that Stel Pavlou
had written the adaptation.
In late 2008, David Fincher stated the movie is unlikely to be made. "It looks like it's not going to happen. There's no script and as you know, Morgan Freeman's not in the best of health right now. We've been trying to do it but it's probably not going to happen." However the IMDb entry for the film remains, with an estimated release date in 2013.
In January 2011, Fincher stated in an interview with MTV that after his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea movie, he would really begin to work on Rendezvous with Rama. He also said that finding the right script was very difficult.
based on the book was made in 1984 by Telarium
(formerly known as Trillium) and ported to other systems such as the Apple II and Commodore 64. Despite its primitive graphics, it had highly detailed descriptions, and it followed the book very closely along with having puzzles to solve during the game. It was adapted from the Clarke novel in 1983 by Ron Martinez, who went on to design the massively multiplayer online game 10Six, also known as Project Visitor.
Sierra Entertainment
created Rama in 1996 as a point and click adventure game in the style of Myst
. Along with highly detailed graphics, Arthur C. Clarke also appeared in the game as the guide for the player. This game featured characters from the sequel book Rama II.
As part of their 2009 science-fiction season, a two-part radio adaptation of the book was devised by Mike Walker
for BBC Radio 4
in their Classic Serial series and first broadcast on 1 March 2009 (Part 1) and 8 March 2009 (Part 2). http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hs8tt
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
first published in 1972
1972 in literature
The year 1972 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Fiction:*Richard Adams - Watership Down*Jorge Amado - Teresa Batista Cansada da Guerra *Martin Amis - The Rachel Papers...
. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) cylindrical alien starship
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
that enters Earth's solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries.
This novel won both the Hugo
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
and Nebula
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
awards upon its release, and is widely regarded as one of the cornerstones in Clarke's bibliography. It is considered a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
classic, and is particularly seen as a key hard science fiction
Hard science fiction
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science...
text.
Plot summary
The "Rama" of the title is an alien star ship, initially mistaken for an asteroidAsteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
and named after the king Rama
Rama
Rama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...
who is considered to be the seventh Avatar
Avatar
In Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....
of the Hindu god Vishnu
Vishnu
Vishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....
(Clarke mentions that by the 22nd century, scientists have used the names of all the Greek
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
and Roman
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
mythological figures to name astronomical bodies, and have thus moved on to Hindu mythology). Asteroid 31/439 is detected by astronomers in the year 2130 while still outside the orbit of Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
. The object's speed (100 000 km/h) and the angle of its trajectory clearly indicate that this is not an object on a long orbit around our sun; it comes from interstellar space. Astronomers' interest is piqued when they realize that this asteroid not only has an extremely rapid 4 minute rotation period but it is quite large in size for an asteroid. An unmanned space probe dubbed Sita is launched from the Mars moon Phobos
Phobos (moon)
Phobos is the larger and closer of the two natural satellites of Mars. Both moons were discovered in 1877. With a mean radius of , Phobos is 7.24 times as massive as Deimos...
, and photographs taken during its rapid flyby reveal that Rama is a perfect cylinder, 20 kilometres (12.4 mi) in diameter and 54 kilometres (33.6 mi) long, made of a completely featureless material. In other words, this is humankind's first encounter with an alien space ship.
The manned solar survey vessel Endeavour is sent to study Rama, as it is the only ship close enough to do so in the brief period of time Rama will spend in our solar system. Endeavour manages to rendezvous with Rama one month after the space ship first comes to Earth's attention, when the giant alien spacecraft already is within Venus' orbit. The 20+ crew, led by Commander Norton, enters Rama and explores the vast 16-km wide by 50-long cylindrical world of its interior, but the nature and purpose of the starship and its creators remains enigmatic throughout the book. Inside Rama, the astronauts discover several features, including "cities" (odd blocky shapes that look like buildings, and streets with shallow trenches in them, looking like trolley car tracks), a sea that stretches in a band around Rama dubbed the Cylindrical Sea (see cover image on the top right corner) and 7 massive cones at the southern end of Rama (believed to be the propulsion system Rama uses to move through space).
At one point, one of the newer crew members (Jimmy Pak) who's had experience with skybikes (vehicles that are light, one-man craft that can be used to fly through low-gravity area/regions) decides to ride a skybike across the cylindrical sea to the southern side of Rama, made inaccessible due to the cylindrical sea (the crew had no boats to use to cross the sea). This is possible because of Rama's odd, fluctuating gravity. A few hours later, Jimmy reaches the massive metal cones on the southern end of Rama, picking up a strange magnetic field coming from the cones. Pak takes a few pictures of the area and the strange fields on the southern end of Rama's landmass before leaving. When Pak is a short distance away, he encounters lightning. Unfortunately, one of the bolts hits Pak's skybike, and it plummets to the bottom of the southern landmass of Rama.
When Pak wakes up, he sees a crab-like creature picking up his skybike and chopping it into pieces. He cannot decide whether it is a robot or a biological alien, and keeps his distance while contacting Norton and the others on the other side of Rama for help. Norton sends a rescue party across the cylindrical sea (on a small, improvised craft) and Pak waits. He sees the crab-like creature dump the remains of the skybike into the sea, and he approaches the creature, but it completely ignores him. Pak explores the surrounding fields while waiting for the rescue party to arrive on the southern cliffs of the cylindrical sea. He sees geometric structures in odd shapes and forms. Then he spots a flower, and tells Norton about it. Norton tells him to pluck it. Pak pulls it, and walks to the sea, waiting for the craft to arrive at his location.
Pak jumps off the cliff and swims quickly to the craft, and the ride back is uneventful. When they arrive, they see odd creatures inspecting their camp. When one falls off the walkway to the bottom of Rama, the team's biologist goes down and inspects it. It turns out to be a "biot" or a hybrid of a biological entity and robot. They are believed to be the servants of the Ramans' starship. Meanwhile, the Hermians (human colonists of Mercury) send a bomb to destroy Rama should it have any malicious intent. Another crew member (Boris Rodriguez) rides a skybike to the bomb and luckily manages to deactivate it.
As Rama approaches perihelion, the biots act strangely, jumping into the cylindrical sea. On one last idea to explore Rama, a few crew members decide to visit the city "London" (chosen as closest to the stairways at the "northern" end of the cylinder they use to return to their ship) to use a laser to cut open one of the buildings and see what is inside. Inside, they discover holograms with objects in them, believed to have been used by the Ramans. The most amazing sight is a uniform that is supposedly used by the Ramans. Unfortunately, before the crew can photograph anymore holograms, they must leave. They all exit up through the stairway on Rama's northern side, out the three airlocks, and get onboard Endeavour.
When Endeavour is a safe distance away, and Rama reaches perihelion, Rama is flung out of the solar system toward an unknown location in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud
Large Magellanic Cloud
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a nearby irregular galaxy, and is a satellite of the Milky Way. At a distance of slightly less than 50 kiloparsecs , the LMC is the third closest galaxy to the Milky Way, with the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal and Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy lying closer to the center...
, harnessing the Sun's gravitational field with its mysterious "space drive" for use in a slingshot manoeuvre. Rama is then gone and never seen again.
The book was meant to stand alone, although the final sentence of the book suggests otherwise:
Clarke, however, denied that this sentence was meant to hint at a continuation of the story-–according to his foreword in the book's sequel, it was just a good way to end the book, and was added during a final revision.
Reception
John Leonard, writing in The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, finding Clarke "benignly indifferent to the niceties of characterization," praised the novel for conveying "that chilling touch of the alien, the not-quite-knowable, that distinguishes sci-fi at its most technically imaginative."
Design and geography of Rama
Artificial gravity
Artificial gravity is the varying of apparent gravity via artificial means, particularly in space, but also on the Earth...
provided by its 0.25 rpm spin. It is split into the 'northern' and 'southern' hemispheres, divided in the middle by a 10-km wide expanse of water the astronauts dub the 'Cylindrical Sea'. In the center of the Cylindrical Sea is an island of unknown purpose covered in tall, skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
-like structures, which the astronauts name 'New York' due to an imagined similarity to Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. At each end of the ship are North and South "Poles". The North Pole is effectively the bow
Bow (ship)
The bow is a nautical term that refers to the forward part of the hull of a ship or boat, the point that is most forward when the vessel is underway. Both of the adjectives fore and forward mean towards the bow...
and the South Pole the stern
Stern
The stern is the rear or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite of the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Originally, the term only referred to the aft port section...
, as Rama accelerates in the direction of the north pole and its drive system is at the South Pole.
The North Pole contains Rama's airlocks, and is where the Endeavour lands. The airlocks open into the hub of the massive bowl shaped cap at the North Pole, with three massive 8-kilometre long stair systems dubbed Alpha, Beta, and Gamma by the crew leading to the plain.
The Northern hemisphere contains several small 'towns' interconnected by roads, dubbed London, Paris, Peking, Tokyo, Rome, and Moscow. The South Pole has a giant cone-shaped protrusion, surrounded by six smaller ones, which are probably a major part of Rama's reactionless "space drive".
Both ends of Rama are lit by six giant trenches (three in the northern hemisphere and three in the south), equidistantly placed around the cylinder, effectively functioning as giant strip lighting.
Project Spaceguard
Clarke invented the space study program which detects Rama, Project Spaceguard, as a method of identifying near-Earth objects on Earth-impact trajectories; it was initiated after an equally fictional asteroid "struck" ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
on September 11, 2077, destroying Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
and Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
and sinking Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
.
A real project named Spaceguard
Spaceguard
The term Spaceguard loosely refers to a number of efforts to discover and study near-Earth objects . Asteroids are discovered by telescopes which repeatedly survey large areas of sky. Efforts which concentrate on discovering NEOs are considered part of the "Spaceguard Survey," regardless of which...
was initiated in 1992, named after Clarke's fictional device. After interest in the dangers of asteroid strikes was heightened by a series of Hollywood disaster film
Disaster film
A disaster film is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject...
s, the United States Congress gave NASA authorization and funding to support Spaceguard.
Books in the series
Clarke paired up with Gentry LeeGentry Lee
Bert Gentry Lee is the chief engineer for the Planetary Flight Systems Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a science fiction writer. As an author he is best known for co-writing, with Arthur C. Clarke, the books Cradle in 1989, Rama II in 1989, The Garden of Rama in 1991 and Rama...
for the remainder of the series. Lee did the actual writing, while Clarke read and made editing suggestions. The focus and style of the last three novels are quite different from those of the original with an increased emphasis on characterization and more clearly portrayed heroes and villains, rather than Clarke's dedicated professionals. These later books did not receive the same critical acclaim and awards as the original.
- Rendezvous with Rama (19721972 in literatureThe year 1972 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Fiction:*Richard Adams - Watership Down*Jorge Amado - Teresa Batista Cansada da Guerra *Martin Amis - The Rachel Papers...
) ISBN 978-0-553-28789-9 - Rama II (19891989 in literatureThe year 1989 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 24 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.-Literature:...
) ISBN 978-0-553-28658-8 - The Garden of RamaThe Garden of RamaThe Garden of Rama is a novel by Gentry Lee and Arthur C. Clarke. It is the third book in the four-book Rama series: Rendezvous with Rama, Rama II, The Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed, and follows on from where Rama II left off.-Plot summary:The book picks up the story nine months...
(19911991 in literatureThe year 1991 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Douglas Coupland publishes the novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularizing the term Generation X as the name of the generation....
) ISBN 978-0-553-29817-8 - Rama RevealedRama RevealedRama Revealed is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee. It is the last of three sequels to Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama by these authors, and as the title suggests reveals the mysteries behind the enigmatic Rama spacecraft.- Plot summary :The book picks up the story...
(19931993 in literatureThe year 1993 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Professor Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, becomes the longest running book on the bestseller list of The Sunday Times....
) ISBN 978-0-553-56947-6
Gentry Lee
Gentry Lee
Bert Gentry Lee is the chief engineer for the Planetary Flight Systems Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a science fiction writer. As an author he is best known for co-writing, with Arthur C. Clarke, the books Cradle in 1989, Rama II in 1989, The Garden of Rama in 1991 and Rama...
also wrote two further novels set in the same Rama Universe.
- Bright Messengers (19951995 in literatureThe year 1995 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea is opened by Jimmy Carter....
) - Double Full Moon Night (19991999 in literatureThe year 1999 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*June 19 - Stephen King is hit by a Dodge van while taking a walk. He spends the next three weeks hospitalized...
)
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
In the early 2000s, actor Morgan FreemanMorgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
expressed his desire to produce a film based on Rendezvous with Rama. After a drawn-out development process — which Freeman attributed to difficulties in procuring funding — it appeared in 2003 this would indeed be happening. IMDb at one point upgraded the status of the project to "announced" with an estimated release date in 2009. The film was to be produced by Freeman's production company, Revelations Entertainment
Revelations Entertainment
Revelations Entertainment is an independent movie production company founded by actor Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary in 1996. In 2006, Revelations became the first film production company in history to distribute a film online while the movie was still playing in theaters...
. David Fincher
David Fincher
David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
, touted on Revelations' Rama web page as far back as 2001, stated in a late 2007 interview (where he also credited the novel as an influence on the films Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
and Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...
) that he is still attached to helm. Revelations and IMDb indicated that Stel Pavlou
Stel Pavlou
Stelios Grant Pavlou is a British author and screenwriter.-Biography:Stel Pavlou was born in Gillingham, Kent in England, of Greek Cypriot descent. He grew up in Rochester and Chatham, Medway and attended Chatham Grammar School for Boys. The middle child of three, his younger brother is the...
had written the adaptation.
In late 2008, David Fincher stated the movie is unlikely to be made. "It looks like it's not going to happen. There's no script and as you know, Morgan Freeman's not in the best of health right now. We've been trying to do it but it's probably not going to happen." However the IMDb entry for the film remains, with an estimated release date in 2013.
In January 2011, Fincher stated in an interview with MTV that after his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea movie, he would really begin to work on Rendezvous with Rama. He also said that finding the right script was very difficult.
Other media
A graphic adventure computer game with a text parserText parser
In an adventure game, a text parser takes typed input from the player and simplifies it to something the game can understand. Usually, words with the same meaning are turned into the same word and certain filler words are dropped .The parser makes it easier for the game's author to react on input...
based on the book was made in 1984 by Telarium
Telarium
Telarium Corporation was a subsidiary of Spinnaker Software. The corporation was founded in 1984 and went defunct in 1987. The headquarters were in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. President of Telarium was C. David Seuss, the founder and CEO of Spinnaker Software.- Adventure games :Telarium...
(formerly known as Trillium) and ported to other systems such as the Apple II and Commodore 64. Despite its primitive graphics, it had highly detailed descriptions, and it followed the book very closely along with having puzzles to solve during the game. It was adapted from the Clarke novel in 1983 by Ron Martinez, who went on to design the massively multiplayer online game 10Six, also known as Project Visitor.
Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...
created Rama in 1996 as a point and click adventure game in the style of Myst
Myst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
. Along with highly detailed graphics, Arthur C. Clarke also appeared in the game as the guide for the player. This game featured characters from the sequel book Rama II.
As part of their 2009 science-fiction season, a two-part radio adaptation of the book was devised by Mike Walker
Mike Walker (radio dramatist)
Mike Walker is a radio dramatist and feature and documentary writer. His radio work includes both original plays and adaptations of novels, classical and modern...
for BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
in their Classic Serial series and first broadcast on 1 March 2009 (Part 1) and 8 March 2009 (Part 2). http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hs8tt
Awards and nominations
The novel was awarded the following soon after publication- Nebula AwardNebula AwardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
for Best Novel in 1973 - British Science Fiction Association Award in 1973
- Hugo AwardHugo AwardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
for Best Novel in 1974 - Jupiter AwardJupiter AwardThe Jupiters were an annual award presented to science fiction writing infrequently between 1974 and 1978. The awards for the best novel, novella, novelette and short story were presented by the Instructors of Science Fiction in Higher Education.- Winners :...
for Best Novel in 1974 - John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1974
- Locus AwardLocus AwardThe Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
for Best Novel in 1974
External links
- Rendezvous with Rama at Worlds Without End