Talk about classics. I used to be rather prejudiced against Clarke, until I read an early draft of the 2001 script and found out that it was actually supposed to be a sci-fi story, and not just the pretty sound-and-light show that Kubrick made out of it. (Did I ever mention I don’t like Kubrick?)

Now, this is geeky science-fiction at its best: unlike Stephenson or Card, Clarke never lectures you about how the whole science of Rama works. He’ll remind you in passing that gravity doesn’t work the same way in a spinning giant spaceship as on Earth, and he’ll definitely use every aspect of that in the story, but he’s not going to give you a physics lesson.

Rama just isn’t targeted at the same audience: while Quicksilver makes literary types feel clever because they learn and understand something scientific (which they’ll unlearn as soon as they close the book, of course), and Ender’s Game tries to explain enough about zero-G disorientation to be accessible to a teenager audience, Clarke’s story is evidently written by an artistically talented scientist (who knew that was possible?) for scientifically-minded people. I don’t think you really have to be a geek, per se, to appreciate the book, but you ought to have been moderately attentive to the science classes in high school.

Like any Clarke story (or so I heard), Rama benefits from scientific accuracy: the book is like a blueprint for an intergalactic ship that could actually work and transport lifeforms for thousands of centuries. What I didn’t expect, though, was how well it would be written, and how vivid the depictions would be — this is pretty much the first time I read a novel that focuses on describing a place rather than a story (and as unfamiliar a place as could be), and I didn’t think it could be quite so successful: the chapters revealing the inside of Rama are really breathtaking.

It may not work quite as well if you’re not a sci-fi geek, and I’ve got a feeling that the sequels aren’t going to be as memorable; but this is a great book (with an appropriately frustrating ending).