Jason Silver

Tuesday, December 21st, 2004

Rendezvous with Rama

Austin Fusilier and Ray Laqua introduced me to Arthur C. Clarke books, and I started with this Rama story. Terrific.

Here's the premise: some distant world sent a spinning drum on a crash course with our sun. It was commissioned thousands of years before earth had humans crawling around on it.

When they could get close to it, human astronauts landed on, then climbed into this gigantic drum to find an entire world inside. Continents, islands, cities, even a marvellous sea was inside this drum, held to the outside walls by the steady gravity-creating spin along it's axis. The world was apparently dead and frozen as a result of the icy temperature of space. But once in our solar system, it began to thaw. This thawing caused life to start crawling to the surface from tunnels deep below the surface.

Humans had only a few weeks to explore, before this world, which they named 'Rama,' would crash into the sun. Before this final collision, however, Rama adjusted course, and careened out of the solar system as suddenly as it arrived.

If you like Sci-Fi, you'll love this.

~Jason