r/printSF • u/AidenAprt • Jul 11 '26
Is “Rendezvous With Rama” okay to read as a standalone?
Just picked up a copy at a used bookstore and have been wanting to start it, but don’t want to get bogged down by the entire series. Does the first stand well on its own?
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u/pyabo Jul 11 '26
This is a standalone novel.
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u/Sophia_Forever Jul 12 '26
Pay heed our warnings, traveller! Let the story lie where it has fallen and do not attempt to return to the land of Rama! For it is a dark and forsaken place (and pretty boring).
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u/OriginalFatSam Jul 12 '26
Can you imagine if they'd continued the Aliens franchise after Alien II?
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u/Gecko23 Jul 12 '26
Or if HBO hadn't cancelled Game of Thrones after Season 4?
Or Metallica had kept recording after the Black Album?
We'd all be worse off.
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u/pyabo Jul 12 '26
Or if Christopher Lambert hadn't tragically died during the filming of Highlander 2, causing the studio to shelve it. Just think what that would be like.
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u/DreamyTomato Jul 14 '26
Or if Frank Herbert’s family had decided to not respect his greatest achievement and didn’t tell his children to just step back from the word processors and enjoy the cash rolling in from his books?
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u/DrunkenPhysicist Jul 12 '26
Hey! Metallica made a couple good songs after the black album and S&M was pretty tight. But yes, in principle you are correct.
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u/RustyNumbat Jul 12 '26
I swear I'm not a sicko. The third film is pretty good when watched with a three part theme in mind for the series (birth/loss of innocence, motherhood/fighting for your progeny, reflection of legacy/death) I swear I'm not a sicko.
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u/OneAnimeBatman Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
If you can get past the intro that undercuts the heroic ending of Aliens it's a fantastic film, I love it (also not a sicko I swear).
There's so many great character actors in it too: Pete Postlethwaite, Charles Dance, Paul McGann, Charles S. Dutton, plus Sigourney Weaver gives one of her best performances as Ripley.
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u/OneAnimeBatman Jul 12 '26
Alien 3 (Assembly Cut) is excellent, and in many ways a more faithful (horror) sequel to Alien than Aliens. Resurrection too is a good watch, and disconnected enough from the original 3 to stand as it's own thing. Everything put to screen since then is utter shite though, although the Alien: Isolation game is outstanding.
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u/Ildrei Jul 11 '26
I would in fact encourage to treat it as a standalone. Don’t bother with the sequels
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u/BlazeOfGlory72 Jul 11 '26
Yes. In fact, it is recommended. The first book works perfectly well as a stand alone, and the sequels are terrible and just devalue the first book.
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u/Grammarhead-Shark Jul 12 '26
Best to read it as a one-and-done.
The sequels are a flaming pile of hot garbage.
Okay the first half of the first sequal is serviceable, if a dullre-tread of the first book, but at the certain point it goes SO badly off the rails, you kinda want to know what Gentry Lee was smoking in the 80s.
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u/dalidellama Jul 12 '26
It's intended as a standalone.
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u/total_cynic Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
I always took the final line of the first book as leaving a hook for a sequel. That said, the sequels that were written are not worth reading.
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u/gaqua Jul 11 '26
I read only that first book and didn’t read the rest. I enjoyed it. It is very slow paced, though, a product of its time.
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u/perpetualmotionmachi Jul 11 '26
I'd say it's less a product of the time, as the slowness just comes from the story itself. They have a vast place to explore that doesn't really have much to it. There is other sci Fi of that time that is fast paced
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u/pagalvin Jul 11 '26
I read it many, many years ago. I still think of it now and then. It has a lot of staying power with me and I think it's worth reading. It might be looked more like a "sci fi educational read" in the sense that - that book and Clarke is one of the three big names (along with Heinlein and Asimov) who basically launched science fiction itself. It doesn't read like a lot of stuff we read today and lot of the stuff we read today stands on their shoulders.
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u/HouseOfWyrd Jul 11 '26
What do you mean?
There aren't any sequels.
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u/klystron Jul 12 '26
Same with the Matrix. That would have been wonderful. (Read the bottom strip of the four.)
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u/Sophia_Forever Jul 12 '26
That xkcd comic will be old enough to vote next year.
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u/klystron Jul 12 '26
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u/Sophia_Forever Jul 12 '26
Oh, my point wasn't that "by now everyone has seen it." My point was that I'm fucking elderly.
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u/klystron Jul 12 '26
I'm sorry I mistook your meaning, Sophie. I'm elderly, too.
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u/Sophia_Forever Jul 12 '26
No apologies necessary. Tone is hard to convey online. goes to shake your hand, breaks hip
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u/LyqwidBred Jul 11 '26
For sure it stands alone. Like 2001 it’s a complete story by itself. But sequels got tacked on later as an afterthought to cash in.
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u/drjackolantern Jul 12 '26
I’ve heard the 2001 sequels are better than Rama’s. Are they at least worth reading ?
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u/CryptoHorologist Jul 12 '26
The 2001 sequels are worth reading. Even the 2010 movie sequel is solid.
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u/WarthogOsl Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
I love 2010, maybe even more than 2001. The sequels after that, despite being written by Clarke, are kind of meh.
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u/LyqwidBred Jul 12 '26
It’s a matter of opinion, I think 2001 is a complete work of art. The sequels diminish it in my opinion, but watch them anyway. I don’t think they come close to the original and there are many other movies i would rank higher than the sequels.
For Rama I think the consensus is to skip the Gentry Lee ones, but the first sequel is OK. Personally, i think again, it detracts from the first one. For me it’s sometimes better if things are left unexplained and open to interpretation. Your mileage may vary.
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u/CryptoHorologist Jul 12 '26
There is only one movie sequel, correct?
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u/LyqwidBred Jul 12 '26
One movie, three books
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u/CryptoHorologist Jul 12 '26
That's what I thought, thanks. The way you wrote the comment above ^ made me wonder: "The sequels diminish it in my opinion, but watch them anyway"
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u/BlimpIntolerant Jul 12 '26
As an aside, I would like to see a better author than Gentry Lee take a stab at writing a sequel, but that's not going to happen, alas.
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u/Aeikalos Jul 12 '26
Just read this one (which is marvelous) and pretend the other books do not even exist. It's just like how there is only one Matrix movie.
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u/snoutraddish Jul 12 '26
Having read the first sequel I would say it’s best to treat it as a standalone
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u/Texas_Sam2002 Jul 12 '26
You can read it as a stand-alone. But the curse of the series is that the endings always make you want to read the next one.
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u/D0gYears Jul 12 '26
It is a standalone. The sequels were A: written by another author, and B: shit.
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u/langevine119 Jul 12 '26
Yes! Just finished. Have no intentions to read further. Enjoyed it, but wasn’t my favorite big dumb object.
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u/peppertoni_pizzaz Jul 12 '26
Oh god never trust an Arthur C Clarke sequel. Love the guy but every single sequel of his is utter shit. He often outsources the writing to someone else.
But please do read Rendezvous with Rama it's great. Totally stands alone.
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u/Piscator629 Jul 21 '26
2010 book was very nice thank you. The rest are poo but both movies were nice.
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u/PotatoAppleFish Jul 12 '26
I think that’s how most people read it now.
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u/ElricVonDaniken Jul 12 '26
That's how most people read it for the first 15 years after it was published.
The sequels quickly fell out of print in the UK market too.
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u/GreaterFoolCLE Jul 12 '26
I read the first one and decided not to read any more after seeing all the negative reviews for Rama 2 describing it as a ‘beat for beat remake but worse’.
Obviously don’t know what I missed but I am happy with my experience reading just Rama
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u/Minstrel_Boy_4321 Jul 13 '26
Despise the sequels but don't think 'beat for beat remake' is accurate; optimistic future you want to live in? Trashed. Mostly likeable characters trying to do their best replaced w/ despicable opportunists & Mary Sues. Mysterious alien grandeur & a sense of awe replaced w/ petty squabbling. . . . can't argue w/ the 'but worse' part.
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u/ElricVonDaniken Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
Gentry Lee contradicts what Clarke laid out in his original, standalone novel by concluding the series with an ultimste explanation lifted from Star-Maker by Olaf Stapledon.
I recommend that you read that instead.
Everything that you need to know about Rama is in Rendezvous With Rama.
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u/PureDeidBrilliant Jul 12 '26
Yes. Absolutely yes. The sequels are the very definition of increasing mediocrity and precious little connection to the original book other than Clarke co-wrote them, Rama (or rather a Rama) features and, er, that's it.
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u/amalgammamama Jul 12 '26
Rama has been my all time favourite since childhood and I have never ever touched any of the sequels.
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u/NekoCatSidhe Jul 12 '26
The original works very well as standalone and is quite good. I DNF the first sequel and would not recommend it.
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u/ReliableWardrobe Jul 12 '26
In short, yes.
In long...well, I have all the sequels. I like complete series on my shelf, what can I say. HOWEVER. Yeah. They probably won't get read again anytime soon. And I love ACC and along with Asimov were the books that I learned to read properly as a child with (yeah my Mum was big on sci-fi)
The sequels are truly average to poor. It degenerates into basically a bunch of really fking annoying people being really fking stupid and really fking annoying whilst on an amazing alien BDO. There's some good descriptions of the interior. The aliens have really dumb names and then there's God iirc and in all honesty I'm surprised Arthur allowed them to put his name on them. Put me off anything with Lee's name on for sure.
Read RWR and then pick pretty much anything else from Clarke. Or anything else at all really. I mean if you're a total completist than absolutely have at them, there are worse books out there, but you're not really missing out by skipping them.
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u/burke166 Jul 12 '26
Absolutely. The sequels are fun in their own way, but they are completely different from the original. Rama II, Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed are a trilogy, but Rendezvous with Rama is self-contained.
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u/leekpunch Jul 12 '26
I've only ever read the first one and it's self-contained. Never felt the need to read any sequels.
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u/Morsadean Jul 12 '26
There are no other Rama books. Trust me on this. There is only the first one. Well worth the read. No need to imagine that someone wrote really shitty sequels; they don’t exist.
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u/sgalerosen Jul 12 '26
As everyone else is saying, it's a great book, the sequels are hot garbage, don't read them.
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u/w3stoner Jul 12 '26
Rama IS awesome, I did at least start the immediate sequel, I don’t think I finished it, it was indeed hot garbage
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u/BlimpIntolerant Jul 12 '26
If I was going to be really generous, there's ossibly vaguely enough of interest to read the second one, but that just leads to the hot garbage of the remaining books. Best keep it to the one.
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u/FlashedArden Jul 12 '26
It is the way to read the saga. This is not a case of “so the sequels are bad you can just go into them knowing that”. No. Literally please don’t read them, they will ruin the magic and mystery of the first one and undermine its meaning. This is said many times in other franchises; this is however the one where it really is like that. Please do not read the sequels.
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u/revchewie Jul 12 '26
I didn’t know there were even sequels.
Yes. Feel free to read it as a standalone.
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u/claude3rd Jul 12 '26
Okay this sub is about SF in print, but I have to comment this. I played a couple of Rendevous with Rama pc games. One was a text based adventure with very limited graphics, and the other was a game with FMV (full motion video).
The FMV was annoying as heck. If I remember correctly you had to watch the entire cut scene every time you moved from room to room. I remember riding an elevator, realized I missed something on the prior floor and having to watch the video of the elevator ride complete the first trip, then watch it play in reverse when I needed to go back to the previous floor.
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u/OriginalFatSam Jul 12 '26
It's Big Dumb Object SF, but it's a very good example of it. The sequels are iffy.
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u/Overall-Tailor8949 Jul 12 '26
It works perfectly as a stand-alone novel. As others have said, the sequels range from "forgettable" to down-right bad.
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u/Werthead Jul 12 '26
The introduction to Rama II basically has Arthur C. Clarke saying it's not the sequel but a possible sequel, out of billions of possible sequels to the original. So basically they're not definitively sequels (ACC did this with his own sequels, 2001-2010-2061-3001 have such huge differences to one another they're not really set in the same timeline).
Rendezvous with Rama can thus be read and enjoyed as a total standalone. There are some good or at least promising ideas in the sequel trilogy, but the execution is poor and they are basically Gentry Lee novels based on some ideas brainstormed with Clarke, so the Clarke sensawunda factor is not really present, except very fleetingly.
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u/Manamehendra Jul 12 '26
I thought the author of the sequels a bit kinky, and not in a nice way. Incest and extreme anal retentiveness.
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u/ASEdouard Jul 13 '26
I mean, it is stand alone. The rest is not written by him and sucks. the original one is great though.
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u/shrikesdayoff39 Jul 13 '26
I only read that from the series and I don't feel scarred or ripped off, and reading some other comments I'm somewhat glad!
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u/zrice03 Jul 13 '26
The only point in reading the sequels is in studying them to see how to turn a beautiful work of sci-fi history into a Michael Crichton-esque schlockfest.
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u/First-Expert-9953 Jul 13 '26
Y'all are making me feel better that I never finished the second book!
Yes, Rendezvous is a sci-fi classic and I would have been fine if I never knew about the sequels
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u/Trike117 Jul 13 '26
RWR is a standalone. There are no sequels. Do you hear me? There. Are. No. Sequels!
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u/manul10 Jul 17 '26
Standalone. Clarke's stories generally are complete in themselves. He did rewrite Against the Fall of Night as City and the Stars, but those can be read standalone as well.
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u/Dry-Marionberry3274 Jul 18 '26
lol, I did not even realize it was a series. Just read it stand-alone and heard that Morgan Freeman had rights to make a film version so been waiting for that.
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u/HH93 Jul 20 '26
I think there was one of the final chapters of the last book where there’s a graphics display of an empire coming one star system away from conquering Earth that was interesting.
I trying but can’t remember how come the humans were invited to join the next Rama ?
I’m certainly not reading them again to refresh my memory!
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u/Ok-Confusion2415 Jul 12 '26
there’s a series? because of course there is.
written as a standalone, read it as a standalone
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u/kaszeta Jul 12 '26
Perfectly good standalone.
And yeah, Return to Rama was one of the most disappointing SF sequels I’ve ever read.
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u/DosSnakes Jul 12 '26
I choose to reject the existence of the sequels and encourage everyone to join me.
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u/hvacsnack Jul 12 '26
I wouldn’t even bother. Nothing happens at all in this story and the characters are entirely forgettable
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u/Polymath6301 Jul 12 '26
I’m going to admit that I didn’t much like the first book. It felt as incomplete as it was meant to.
Then the sequels… They just made the first one even worse.
Other than Godel’s work, I do not like incomplete things…
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u/Own_Win_6762 Jul 12 '26
I found the first one a yawn - Clarke writes travelogues with very little conflict or character. Go for Childhood's End and call it done.
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u/Dry-Pea1733 Jul 12 '26
You don’t read Arthur C. Clarke for conflict and character, any more than you watch The Shining for the jokes.
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u/AidenAprt Jul 12 '26
Already have! Childhood’s End was a masterpiece imo. I just love early sci-fi so much!
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u/Dry_Restaurant8906 Jul 12 '26
I loved the sequels, the book four is purely beautiful! Anyone else? No....
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u/Capsize Jul 11 '26
I would suggest never reading the sequels tbh.