I found Clarke's journalistic writing style engaging. This, coupled with short, tight, chapters, made for a novel that moved along at a fast clip. Although, I found the premise intriguing, overall it seemed like a bit of a tease. Especially the last line of the novel. It seemed to indicate that there would be a trilogy of Rama stories. But it doesn't seem like this was ever really Clarke's intent. I know there were other Rama books penned a couple of decades later, but Clarke wasn't the author of those books. And from what I gather, they are inferior to the original.
And, yes, this book is a bit dated. I'm thinking particularly of the peculiar meditation on the zero g impact on female breasts here. Apparently, these floating, jiggling orbs would be so distracting to male astronauts that they could potentially compromise space missions. Aside from this fairly minor bit of silliness, the work holds up pretty well 40 years after its initial publication.
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