At the heart of Trek is the trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. This book and Star Trek handle characterization quite differently. They solve several problems using math alone, and you feel Clarke it's having fun setting himself challenges and figuring how the night be met using real technology instead of the miracles that Star Trek puts at its crew's everyday disposal. The varying gravity plays a huge part to determining how the crew navigates the alien craft, which they do mostly on foot. Gravity along the axis is zero, but it gradually increases as you reach the curving outer wall. Even an alien construct must obey the laws of nature, and he does a great job of explaining how they apply to the inside of a rotating cylinder. You can rely on Clarke to get the science right. While Star Trek equips its crew with transporters, hover shuttles, and warp drives that are essentially magic, this book makes you appreciate the thought, planning, and physical exertion required in space exploration where the laws of the universe cannot be tamed with a mere button press. Clarke thought hard about how a crew might land on and move about a cylindrical world. The ocean at its center is a band of water that wraps all the way around, like the band on a cigar, except it's on the inside.
The rotation along its axis creates a weak gravity on the perimeter. Rama is a cylinder a hundred kilometers long, twenty kilometers wide. They dub it Rama because Clarke loves Hindu culture and is tired of seeing everything named after Greek and Roman myths. In the book, an alien craft, by all appearances empty, passes through our solar system, seemingly by chance, and a crew of experienced astronauts enter it to see what they can see. But while Star Trek uses science fiction setups to illustrate human failings and strengths, Rendezvous With Rama is almost entirely focused on the science itself. Both stories revolve around spaceships and their crews exploring alien worlds and technologies. I'm just fascinated by the different ways to approach to the same theme. That's not a swipe at either the show or the book. I've been watching the original Star Trek series for the first time, and this book is nothing like it. Clarke Reading Review by Michael Channing
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