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ghostsofthesouthernsong 's review for:
Rendezvous with Rama
by Arthur C. Clarke
I liked the premise, the setting of Rama and how mundanely alien it was -- objects that resembled structures of human origin became increasingly strange and incomprehensible the more they were examined, which is how alien technology should be like. Arthur C. Clarke does a good job in provoking the human imagination, in that regard.
But dear god, his characters suck. The main viewpoint character is so casually sexist it's jarring, and every female character mentioned ends up serving a sexual/romantic function, whether it's to be fucked, or to make babies, or to serve as a spouse. The ship's medical officer first appears in a scene where the captain basically ponders that she should probably not serve on a ship because she has nice breasts. WTF?
Later on, the book ends with both of them having sex, and there's more sexist tripe about how men have 'two-track minds' unlike women. Clarke might have been forward-thinking in terms of First Contact, but with human relationships he was very much stuck in the 70s, and for that I think this book deserves a 3/5 rating.
It's not bad, but it's not good either. It serves as an interesting (and very, very dated) look into how people of the past perceived the future to be, and if you're into that, it's worth a read. Just don't expect profound characterization.
But dear god, his characters suck. The main viewpoint character is so casually sexist it's jarring, and every female character mentioned ends up serving a sexual/romantic function, whether it's to be fucked, or to make babies, or to serve as a spouse. The ship's medical officer first appears in a scene where the captain basically ponders that she should probably not serve on a ship because she has nice breasts. WTF?
Later on, the book ends with both of them having sex, and there's more sexist tripe about how men have 'two-track minds' unlike women. Clarke might have been forward-thinking in terms of First Contact, but with human relationships he was very much stuck in the 70s, and for that I think this book deserves a 3/5 rating.
It's not bad, but it's not good either. It serves as an interesting (and very, very dated) look into how people of the past perceived the future to be, and if you're into that, it's worth a read. Just don't expect profound characterization.