This is one of those classics of science fiction that you would think I would have read by now. Well, I am hoping to get to it now. I found my copy really cheap in the second hand store. We'll see how it goes.

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It was not as riveting as I thought it would be. While the science is good, i.e. Clarke does pay attention to the science in the story, overall, the story itself moves very slowly. In a way, reading this book was like playing the game Myst, and I am not saying that as praise. That game is great visually, but that is about it: it's a puzzle that looks pretty, but in the end, remains a puzzle. This book is pretty much like looking into a puzzle, a mystery. In that sense, it immerses the reader. The environment of Rama is great. However, the plot itself is so slow that it lost me. It just plods along. Do A, then do B, then done and gone. On the one hand, I enjoyed discovering Rama, as much as we were allowed to see. But in the end, it left me with a feeling of "is that all there is?" So, not a bad book, but certainly not the big deal a lot of people seem to make out of it. I am glad I read it, for it had some interesting moments, but I will likely be skipping the sequels.