Being home from college over Christmas break has given me a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and finally have some free time to enjoy reading. I was talking books with one friend recently and he recommended Rendezvous with Rama to me knowing I am a fan of science fiction. I decided to check it out, and was completely blown away.

I had heard of Arthur C Clarke and knew he was an extremely prominent figure in the Sci Fi world but I was not prepared for how masterfully well done this novel would be.

One of the most impressive components for me was the pacing. While there is very little in the way of super intense, high stakes action; Clarke does a masterful job of slowly upping the ante with each new discovery the crew of the Endeavor make. I felt as if I was constantly on the edge of my seat, and every time I felt my curiosity start to wane a new discovery happened that drew me back in.

I also found Clarke's writing style to be super appealing. His vocabulary is quite impressive and adds to the depth of the story. One of my pet peeves is when an author seems to use "big" words in a way that comes off as pretentious and unnecessary for the story, yet I got the exact opposite of that here. While there perhaps isn't as much of an emphasis on characterisation in this novel as there is in others, I still found the characters very interesting and could still begin to read into their personalities even as they remained consummate professionals. All in all, I would highly recommend this book to anyone (especially SF fans).

Has anyone else read this book? If so, what did you think? Are there any other authors that you have found have similar styles to Clarke?