Only one vessel is in a good position to intercept: the solar survey ship Endeavour.
The craft, originally designated Rama after the Hindu deity, is moving very fast and has a trajectory, if unaltered, that will take it from humanity’s reach in a matter of months.
Why has it come? Is it passing through, or do the craft and its inhabitants have a more sinister purpose in our solar system? It is the first alien space ship every encountered by humanity, and is far larger and more sophisticated than any construction made by mankind. Initially thought to be an asteroid coming from outside our system, it is quickly discovered to be a gigantic, perfect, rotating cylinder, 54 kilometers long and 20 kilometers in diameter. In 2130, a gigantic object is observed entering the solar system on a hyperbolic trajectory. What they discover, however, is something else entirely. In response, the government of Earth initiates Project Spaceguard, intended to detect and intercept any other planetary threats. The story starts with a disaster of unimaginable scale: in the year 2077, a massive meteor strikes northern Italy, killing hundreds of thousands of people and wiping out the major cities of Venice, Verona and Padua. It immediately entered my list of favorite books of all time, and I’ve spent lots of time thinking about it for weeks after finishing it. There probably isn’t much that I can say about the novel that hasn’t been said elsewhere and more eloquently, but it is amazing. I should note, though, that it wasn’t Freeman’s enthusiasm that intrigued me as much as a variety of related internet comments that suggested that a good film adaptation of Rama was “impossible.” What qualities could make a story a classic book but also make it completely unsuitable (supposedly) for the big screen? I was curious, and reading a synopsis of Rama made me really intrigued. Clarke’s classic 1972 novel Rendezvous with Rama. Recently, though, my interest was piqued when I learned that actor Morgan Freeman has been trying for years, almost a decade, to make a film adaptation of Arthur C. I also have an instinctive aversion to “hard” science fiction, which focuses on scientific and technical detail. I’ve read very few of the works of the classic authors such as Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, and Bradbury*, and I have many boxes unchecked in my list of “must-read” science fiction novels. I must admit that I’ve never been a particularly avid reader of science fiction.
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