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quite enjoyed, thanks (again) for another great recommendation!
— Andrej Karpathy
2016-05-18 on twitter.com
https://twitter.com/karpathy/status/733055241080295424
Reading Randevouz with Rama is a simultaneously fantastic and frustrating experience, best comparable to sipping delicious honey juice from a heavy container but through a very thin straw. When Arthur C Clarke giveth you’re in awe of the ideas - they are technical, plausible, intriguing. Much more often however, Arthur C Clarke withholds, teasing the reader into madness with mystery. At the end of it your first reaction might be anger, a primal urge to kick and scream like a child deprived of candy. But when it passes you’ll realize that this is not Arthur C Clarke’s fault or limitation. It is ours, collectively as a species. The torture and the eventual humbling realization is the point of the book. For who are we, in our present primitive irrelevance, to unravel the secrets of intellects separated by vast ages? The book falls short in some narrative respects, recycles some themes from previous works and slightly overstays its welcome, but it is still well worth recommending as an intriguing member of the hard sci-fi genre. What I absolutely cannot recommend are the sequels in the “Rama series”, which in my opinion are an abomination that should not have been allowed to exist. The book, slightly improved, would have radiated brightly as a lone gem. The series shatters the gem, drenches it in mud and smears the sparkles in senseless patterns. 4/5
— Andrej Karpathy
2016-05-18 on goodreads.com
Really fun mystery alien contact page turner. I refuse to acknowledge the sequels.
— Andrej Karpathy