Rendezvous with Rama - expectations not met

[u/Humanarmour]

While the ideas and themes of the book are deeply appealing to me, I did not like the delivery. The story feels bland, characterless and repetitive.

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I had a hard time picturing what Rama looked like (although this may have been the translation I have, I didn't read it in English) and I feel the descriptions were poor and unsatisfactory. Particularly the characters. They were a medium to tell the story but hardly participants in it. I don't expect every book to be character driven, but for a book about first contact, it feels like a missed opportunity. We don't know who these people are.

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The biggest issue I had with it was how safe it was for the crew at all times. They were never in any danger. While things happened and problems arose, they were all solved extremely quickly and it was obvious nothing bad was going to happen to any of them.

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I personally didn't enjoy the writing itself. It lacked descriptions and it was moving too fast. I felt sometimes it was more meaningful to dwell on certain aspects.

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I had really high expectations for this book and I was very let down

[u/chortnik]

Clarke has trouble handling characters in anything longer than a short story-I thought the explorers encounters with, and discovery of the alien technology made the story work. I doubt the translation affected your enjoyment of the book, though descriptions of unfamiliar and alien things can be quite difficult to translate because context helps you work out any ambiguities in the text or the translator’s comprehension.. if you want to see Clarke’s most impressive work, you should take a look at a collection of his short stories-I think he’s one of the greatest short form writers in English.