Rating: 
Summary: STOP BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!!
Review: Look, I can understand why you'd want to read this book. "Rendezvous With Rama" was a gem of a science fiction book. Maybe it was a little short on character development, but with such a wonderful world to explore, who cares? Around every corner of the exploration were wonders... flights over a cylindrical sea, biots, mile-long stairways... Wasn't it great? Didn't you feel like you were reading the journals of explorers who themselves felt like ants in a cathedral? Didn't the whole book just blow your mind?Well you WON'T find any of those virtues in this book or any of the sequale that follow. Gentry Lee seems to have been given the seemingly impossible task of making RAMA--a space-bourn Grand Canyob-sized artifact of an alien culture--a boring place. What's his secret? He filled Rama with insipid caricatures straight from a 20th century soap opera. Remember that heroic group from the first book that pulled together in the face of catastrophe? Gone! Rama II and it's sequals leave us with short-sighted bureaucrats, beautiful-but-power-mad Italian women, impossibly altruistic scientists, amoral lawyers, American corporate types who want to use Raman technology to create new weapons (boy, that's not cliche!), cowboy presidents, the pope, African-American gangsters, chess-playing Russians, oversexed teens, murderously jealous lovers, and a computer geek who overcomes his social ineptness to save the day and win the girl (Gentry Lee, not surprisingly, is a computer guy). Maybe Clarke and Lee were worried that Commander Norton and his crew were all cut from the same "noble scientist" cloth that many of Clarke's characters use. If so, they overcompensated drastically. A spear-toting Eskimo or a peg-legged pirate wouldn't seem out of place in this group, but an intelligently written character would. Most of the gaggle of Knots Landing rejects don't care at all about Rama II and since the book focuses on their bickering, their pregnancies, and their murders, neither will you. After this one the books actually get worse. And by the time the Ramans reveal themself you (and conincidentally enough, many of the characters) are completly indifferent. If you've read "Rendezvous with Rama" and haven't read this book yet, then please please PLEASE don't read it! You'll be sorry you did.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The book suffers from a lack of application on behalf of the authors. Many scenarios are not plausible and read like a mystery novel. The cavalier manner in which the journey is planned and executed is unreal. Things cannnot be happening in such style even in current expeditions. The expedition looks like a wild-west excursion, the doctor having to rely on memory for doing healthchecks, the lack of a chain of command, decision that would definitely have been taken on ground being taken in space etc. ... The story is dragged too long and the hallucinations of Nicole and the psycho-stuff grind the pace of the novel down.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible! Boring!!!!!
Review: This book commits the unpardonable crime of being excruciatingly boring. The characters are painfully wooden. The writing is absolutely dreadful. I have read better stuff written by 5th graders. How Lee Gentry (and make no mistake, this book was written by HIM) ever became an author is beyond my comprehension. He should be ashamed.
Rating:
Summary: Apparently Clarke has sold his soul to the devil.
Review: ... The original book in this series was very good-close to a classic. One of the few criticisms one could make of it was it was so transparently commercially manipulative was clear more books were on the way and this was as much--if not more--a money making exercise as an artistic one. But the book was good and this trilogy thing has apparently become a (bad) habit in the sci-fi world, so you give people a little leeway. Or I did till this monstrosity came out. If you read the first book then read this one, one thing is brutally clear-the books were written by different people. Clearly this book should have read "By Gentry Lee, based on the ideas of Arthur C. Clark. The book is awful-the worst sort of 4th rate pulp sci-fi fiction. Sex and sensationalism replace sci-fi as the driving force of the book. It advances the readers understanding of the Raman'-their form, ideas, intentions, etc.--not one whit. It's even a lousy read if you never had exposure to the first novel and were clueless about the whole Rama concept. It's sad to see a giant of the genre sell out but I can think of no other explanation for this abomination. Save your money...
Rating: 
Summary: Good, as long as you're not a hardcore sci-fi fan.
Review: Unlike most of the people who reviewed this book, I really liked it. Yes, it was a little soap operish, but I've always liked character driven stories. That's why Rendevous with Rama left me feeling so empty. The religious themes were,in my opinion, part of what made the ending so spectacular! My favorite parts were the avians and the character backgrounds. You find yourself really feeling for our heroes, especially when some of them die! All in all, if you're looking for a science-centered story, like Clarke's other novels, I can understand why you wouldn't like this book. But as a college history major with very little scientific background, I thought Rama II rocked!
Rating: 
Summary: ruining a great concept for commercial gain
Review: It is sad that Clarke is cashing in on the wonderful, self-contained creations that were his and only his. Now he has a co-author, whom I suspect does most of the work, and then tries to sell these knock-offs by the power of his name. In the process, he does much to ruin the original concepts. This books brings Rama back, with the promise of explaining what was left the most pregnant mysery at the end of the first book. He did the same with the Space Odyssey series, though those eforts are far better because there is more of his mind in them. This book is not without merit: there are good characters in it, idealism is matched by an equally powerful cynicism, and the story is relatively fun. But there is no question that it lacks the spirit of the first tome. The mission goes awry this time, with interesting consequences and some potential for the later books. Get it only if you can bear disappintment and yet must see where they will take it.
Rating:
Summary: Sci Fi embarrassment
Review: Reading this novel made me feel embarrassed -- it felt like Rama II was written by a high school freshman, so obviously wanting to sound mature and sophisticated. The novel also reminded me of some of the worst Hollywood action movies. Sorry Arthur Clarke, this was one of the worst books I've looked at to my memory, so laughable, so pathetic.
Rating:
Summary: Stop NOW!
Review: Look, I can understand why you'd want to read this book. Rendezvous With Rama was a gem. Maybe a little short on character development, but with such a wonderful world to explore, who cares? Around every corner of the exploration were wonders... flights over a cylindrical sea, biots, mile-long stairways... Wasn't it great? Didn't you feel like you were reading the journals of explorers who themselves felt like ants in a cathedral? Didn't the whole book just blow your mind? Well you won't find any of those virtues in this book or any of the sequale that follow. Want to make Rama a boring place? All you have to do is fill it with insipid caricatures; each one of them straight from a 20th century soap opera. Remember that heroic group from the first book that pulled together in the face of catastrophe? They're gone. Rama II and it's sequals leave us with short-sighted bureaucrats, beautiful-but-power-mad women (Italian of course), impossibly altruistic scientists, amoral lawyers, corporate types (American of course) who want to use Raman technology to create new weapons, cowboy presidents, the pope, gangsters (African-American of course), chess-playing Russians, oversexed teens, murderously jealous lovers, and a computer geek who overcomes his social ineptness to save the day and win the girl (guess what! Gentry Lee is a computer guy). Maybe Clarke and Lee were worried that Commander Norton and his crew were all cut from the same "noble scientist" cloth that many of Clarke's characters use. If so, they overcompensated drastically. A spear-toting Eskimo or a peg-legged pirate wouldn't seem out of place in this group, but an intelligently written character would. Most of the gaggle of Knots Landing rejects don't care at all about Rama II (the second spaceship that shows up 70 years after the first one) and since the book focuses on their bickering, their pregnancies, and their murders, neither will you. After this one the books actually get worse. And by the time the Ramans reveal themself you (and conincidentally enough, many of the characters) are completly indifferent. If you've read "Rendezvous with Rama" and haven't read this book yet, then don't. You'll be sorry you did.
Rating:
Summary: Better than ever and leading to a climax in the third
Review: This is an excellent novel and I believe that Gentry Lee spruced up Clarkes already supurb writing style by adding a more human side to the turmoil. I am a hard core science fiction fan, but if all that is being discussed is biots, with no human plots at all, you might as well be reading a technical manual. It is very realistic how the authors portray the events following the original discovery and exploration of Rama I. The downfall is portrayed extremely logically. As for the characters, they annoy and enthral you. Thier arrogance and cut throat tactics for self serving purposes annoyed me over and over. However, that is what a book should provoke, a multitude of varying reactions. All in all, I recomend this book to all who enjoy a good novel eclectically spread from sci-fi to personal struggles between characters that are definently more momorable than the Norton crew. On i go to the next book...
Rating:
Summary: not bad... but no Rendezvous With Rama
Review: As plenty of other reviewers have pointed out, yes, character development has always been Clarke's weak spot. This book is no exception to that trend. The only difference is that, this time, it seems as though Clarke (and Lee) really *tried* to give their characters depth. Unfortunately, the result was overdone and, yes, soap-operaish. (The fact that one of the reviews cited on the cover is from Playboy probably should have alerted me to this...)
I have to congratulate Clarke and Lee on attempting to tell this story primarily through women's eyes, but as a female reader, I had difficulty believing their characters. Nicole DesJardins, for one, is just begging to be martyred, with her mixed family background, her impossible list of achievements (doctor, cosmonaut, Olympic gold medalist...), and her tortured memory of a certain past love affair-- not to mention the unflagging perfect goodness and faith she retains through all three Rama sequels.
Even harder to believe is Francesca Sabatini, who boils down to nothing more than the stereotypical two-bit villainess of drugstore paperbacks and daytime tv. Cunning and ruthlessly ambitious, without any discernible shred of compassion or conscience, she is also beautiful, and not above using sex as a weapon. But she was molested as a child, so that explains it. Give me a break.
That said, this is not a *bad* book. Neither are the other two sequels. There are moments in all of them that do manage to retain the thrill of discovery that made RWR a classic. Sifting through the melodrama, I found enough genuine scientific speculation to satisfy the SF fan in me. I confess a weakness for alien-contact tales; I really, really liked the avians and the octospiders. The climactic discovery of the Ramans' true identity in the last book is a bit weak, however; a botched attempt at pulling the whole thing onto a higher, more spiritual level that just doesn't play with the pattern the sequels were following. A reasonably good read... but anyone expecting another Rendezvous With Rama will be sorely disappointed.
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