Rama Revealed: The Ultimate Encounter

Clarke, Arthur C. and Gentry Lee. Rama Revealed: The Ultimate Encounter. New York: Bantam-Spectra, 1994. ISBN 0-553-09536-6.

The fourth book of the Rama, claiming on the front-cover note to be the conclusion to the series. In RR, not all is well on Rama III as it journies toward the Node. Focuses on two elements: the human capacity for creating dystopia and the existence of some sort of supreme force in the universe (a mystical element frequent in ACC's work from Against the Fall of Night [1948] through Childhood's End [1953] and into his most recent writing). Cf. Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars [1994]. Note, as always in the Rama series, containment of humans and other organisms within the "mechanized" (mechanical, cybernetic, electronic) environment of "the vast Raman ark," tiny robot helpers, a "labyrinthian underground" reached via "a ghostly subway," the octospiders as high-tech "arachnidlike creatures," and a movement outward in a spacecraft toward "a powerful force" that is "summoning the survivors to a final judgment" (quoting cover notes on front and back flyleafs). Note very well the elegant handling of the language of the octospiders. In addition to the other Rama works, cf. and contrast Clarke's City and the Stars and 2001. Rev. Fred Runk, SFRA Review #210 (March/April 1994): 60-61. (RDE, 11/05/94, 30/12/94; TW, 13/01/95)