Rama II

I had bought this book a while ago, directly after having finished the first Rama, without having taken a look at the reviews first; when it then finally arrived and I added it to my To-Read list and checked its Goodreads page, I found out how many people were disappointed with it and decided to concentrate on other books first. As time went by, I found myself taking quick glances at the book every now and then but was unable to get myself to read it.
However, this weekend, I decided to get through it and was actually somewhat pleasantly surprised.

There is, obviously, no doubt that this book does not even come close to the original and it can also hardly be called a sequel to the original. It's filled to the brim with the backstory of characters so that, especially in the first third of the book, I was not sure I was actually reading a book about Rama and not some weird drama set in the 22nd century.
And speaking of characters, I found a majority of them to be highly unfit for one of the most important exploration missions of mankind; a bunch of old people (one with an underlying heart-condition that apparently went unnoticed?) and a psychomaniac as a reporter. Only a few of the characters were, in my opinion, actually worthy of going on the mission.

Yet, as the book went on, things got much more interesting; whereas the first third to half of the book contained a lot of character backstories and the like, the latter parts contained more exploration of the ancient, Alien space vessel and this is also the part that, in my opinion, redeemed the book.

In short, as a sequel to the original Rama, this book is abysmal; however, when seen on its own, I do believe it would be unfair to give this an awful rating and I have decided to rate it a solid 3.5/5 stars, which I have round up to 4/5 because you are unable to give half a star on Goodreads.