The Rama series is a tetralogy. The first book, Rendezvous with Rama, written by Clarke alone, appeared in 1972 and had as its theme mankind's first encounter with an alien spaceship. The subsequent volumes Rama II, Garden of Rama and Rama Revealed, appeared between 1989 and 1993 and were co-authored with NASA engineer Gentry Lee, and revolved around subsequent encounters with a second Rama ship and extraterrestrial forms. These latter instalments also had a core group of characters who were to spend most of their lives involved with Rama, from their early adult years to old age and death.
The saga begins in 2131 with the discovery that a large asteroid heading through the solar system is in fact an artificial body, a vast cylindrical spaceship 50 kilometres long and 16 kilometres wide. Under Commander Edward Norton a manned spaceflight intercepts the ship and the twenty or so astronauts manage to find their way inside. The purpose and original builders of the spacecraft as well as many of its structures continually elude Norton and its crew, while the vessel appears to be unmanned apart from cybernetic biological entities ("biots"), often resembling invertebrates such as crustacea, that move about the interior with seemingly no reference to the humans. Eventually the proximity of the ship's course to the sun force the astronauts to abandon the ship, after which its swing around the sun propel it out of the solar system.
The following books were somewhat dissimilar in tone and background. Whereas in the first volume humanity had successfully colonised the planets and was living in reasonable harmony, by the second earth had suffered the calamity of the so-called Great Chaos, a period of economic, social and political catastrophe, and as a result human society had become somewhat more rigid and authoritarian. Colonies in space had also been all but abandoned. This change in tone may be due to the bulk of the writing being done by Gentry Lee, although Clarke claimed to be primarily the source of ideas for the books.
In Rama II, a second Rama ship was discovered entering the solar system in the early 23rd century and another international spaceflight is prepared to meet it. However, the character of the crew and the story are rather different. Whereas in the first book the astronauts were all dedicated, dutiful professionals, in Rama II there is intrigue, corruption and even murder, with extremes of character from saintliness to evil. The biots and other entities on board also seem less well disposed towards their new visitors, and a couple of crew members meet a bad end. The Rama spaceship's subsequent change of course lead the authorities on Earth to attempt its destruction, but this is thwarted by three of the party on board who have been left behind by the rest. They find themselves marooned on the spaceship as it leaves the solar system.
In The Garden of Rama, the three astronauts - Michael O'Toole and Richard and Nicole Wakefield - are confronted by their situation as the spaceship heads into deep space and the fact that they are unlikely to see Earth again. Thus they begin a family, and by the time they encounter some of Rama's controllers in a nearby star system there are children of various ages on board who are to play a subsequent part in the story. The alien entities themselves are never seen: instead the humans deal with a bird-like biot called The Eagle. However they do encounter other alien beings at The Node in a similar position to themselves. The Eagle then informs O'Toole and the Wakefields that they are to return to the solar system (although some of the humans must stay) and to collect two thousand other humans on board Rama for the purposes of observation. What might happen if humanity refuses to cooperate is left ambivalent, but the impression is given that the forces behind Rama can take without asking if necessary. In the event the authorities on Earth find two thousand people and deceive them into thinking that they will be living in a Martian colony for five years. This deception is then compounded by the inclusion among the putative colonists of a large criminal element. Although the colony starts off as a democracy in which the Wakefields are respected as veterans of Rama it soon slides into crime and then dictatorship, with both the senior Wakefields targeted by the colonial government. At the same time in defiance of the Eagle's instructions the humans interfere with the systems supporting Rama and also penetrate the sealed-off territory of another species on board.
In Rama Revealed, the Wakefields and their companions finally make contact with the octospiders, an apparently menacing species encountered in all three of the Lee-coauthored books. However the colony government declare war on all of the other species on board, and Richard Wakefield and one of the octospiders who has befriended the humans are executed after trying to negotiate a peace. Loss of life on both sides is extremely heavy after the octospiders release a virus in defence of their own colony, and it appears that peace is only restored by the appearance again of the Eagle. Thereafter the survivors of all species on board Rama find themselves back at the Node, where some of them (including many humans) are placed in the Carrier, a ship where they will be allowed to live peaceful lives but not to intermingle or to reproduce - essentially a form of quarantine. The rest are allowed to remain at the Node. By this time Nicole Wakefield is old and dying and requests one final visit to the Knowledge Sphere, accompanied by the Eagle, before her death.
While Rendezvous with Rama was fairly highly acclaimed, the subsequent books were met with a lukewarm or harsh reception. The main complaints were that sex, sensationalism and violence had taken the place of the speculative science fiction of the original, for which opprobrium was heaped on Gentry Lee as the primary writer. There is some truth in the accusation that the sequels were more lurid, with the workmanlike astronauts replaced by sexual manipulators like Francesca Sabatini or violent fantasists such as the Nakamura. Also many more questions were raised than were satisfactorily answered, such as the true nature of the Ramans or the big "why" of the universe. However it may be the case that some readers were disappointed with the switch from Clarke's utopian vision of the future to Lee's dystopia, with perhaps the acknowledgement that the latter was a more realistic state of affairs. Having read all four books, I do not think any of them were unduly unrealistic, despite the existence of a few characters who were more patently heroic or villainous than the rest.
Arthur C Clarke's own views on religion were a paradoxical mixture of interest and disdain. While many of his works and stories carry a mystic or transcendent feel or theme, Clarke himself disdained any personal religious belief, expressed at times an antagonism towards the historic religious beliefs of humanity and described himself as either an atheist or crypto-Buddhist with the proviso that Buddhism was not a religion.
The Catholic general Michael O'Toole is nevertheless one of the series' more sympathetic characters. A devotee of the cult of Saint Michael, a St Francis of Assisi-style Catholic saint killed in a terrorist nuclear explosion in the 22nd century, O'Toole is a sincere, dutiful and yet compassionate man who balks at the idea of the destruction of the second Rama ship and who finds it hard to bring himself to be a second sexual partner to Nicole Wakefield even when it seems apparent that the three humans left on board Rama II must procreate to create a genetically viable pool of humans. In view of his extreme age he also volunteers to be the one to stay behind while Richard and Nicole Wakefield are despatched to Mars, and his final speech in Garden of Rama is a prayer with the family. Although an atheist, Richard Wakefield submits to baptism and marriage at the hand of O'Toole. The General is shown as a theologically literate man (in Rama II he has an audience with the Pope), which makes the final chapter with the Saint Michael biot all the more surprising (see below). Unlike some science fiction where religion is seen as at least a stultifying force and often a source of evil, in Rama it is portrayed more positively. The negative or evil characters tend to be the humans without any guiding force or principles except self-aggrandisement at the expense of others.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the cycle is the exploration of the biggest themes in science fiction and indeed life, namely the "why" of existence. Here unfortunately the authors' reach exceeds their grasp. The Creator as described by the Eagle and the biotic Saint Michael who now lives with O'Toole and his family is really more of an Aristotelian Prime Mover or the sort of figure popular in English deism rather than a personal deity. For example, in Rama Revealed, the biotic Saint Michael replies:
"Don't you see, Nicole... we're all participating in God's great experiment. This entire universe, not just our own galaxy, but all the galaxies that stretch to the end of the heavens, will provide one single data-point for God... He, She or It is searching for perfection, for that small range of initial parameters which, once the universe is set into motion by the transformation of energy into matter, will evolve, over billions of years, into one perfect harmony, a testimony to the Creator's consummate skill....."
Since deity by definition, and particularly in the three great monotheistic religions of the world (Christianity, Judaism and Islam), must be omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful), one can't help noting that the God described by Clarke and Gentry falls somewhat short in this respect, apparently still lacking perfect knowledge of the beginning of the "great experiment". But worse is to follow:
"Chaos confounds God as well," Saint Michael explained." [ ....] so God cannot, a priori, simply calculate what is going to happen in the future and therefore, by analytical techniques, isolate the zones of harmony.... Experimentation is the only possible way for Him to discover what He is seeking."
Even the devout Catholic O'Toole seems to go along with this approach, which is more akin to the process theology of Whitehead et al or modern "open theism" than what one might term historical, classical Christianity. The problem is not that God is working per se (the idea of "God working" is found in historical religious thought, eg "God is working his purposes out") but that God is somehow lacking in the knowledge department. In this respect the Creator depicted in Rama is more of a super-superbeing than a truly omnipotent deity.
The trip around the Knowledge Module is no more illuminating and indeed somewhat depressing, despite the grandiose views that the Eagle gives the dying Nicole of the universe through time and space, including species that die out prior to reaching the young Earth, glimpses of a great octospider city and a closeup of Paris in France. A few of Nicole's thoughts may serve to show the rather bleak outlook of this view of this universe:
Imagine a civilisation spread out over a region containing hundreds of stars. Then suddenly, pfft, that species is gone... The lesson is inescapable... For everything there is a beginning and an end... Immortality exists only as a concept, not as a reality.
There has been intelligence, and spacefaring, in our part of the galaxy since before there was an Earth, Nicole thought...But very few of these advanced creatures have ever had the thrill of sustained contact with their peers... So loneliness too, is one of the underlying principles of the universe... At least of this universe.
It seems that the Creator is a long way removed from His creatures and offers them no hope of any immortal existence other than as players in His vast experiment.
Ironically in her last moments Nicole recalls the old medieval poem "Timor mortis conturbat me", but tells herself that she will not be afraid because she will understand. At the end, her dying words, when facing a sextet of scenes from her life including the moments prior to the execution of her husband and their friend the octospider, are "I understand". Unfortunately the meaning of this and the trip through the Knowledge Sphere are left unclear to the reader, and left this reviewer with a vague disappointment.