The Garden of Rama

Published: 1991
Language: English

Nine months after Rama II left the Solar System, the three astronauts still aboard have accepted that this is their life now. The voyage to Sirius takes twelve years. Nicole des Jardins bears five children during it, and what began as a stranded crew becomes a family living inside an alien machine.

At Sirius they find a Raman Node, are tested by whatever runs it, and are given a task: go back and bring two thousand humans. Three ships are filled, and the colony that results is not the one anyone hoped for.

The colonists turn on another species living aboard Rama, and the war they start ends in something closer to extermination. The book closes on the eve of an execution, and the person facing it is one of the original three.

Book three of the Rama series, written by Gentry Lee from Arthur C. Clarke's world.

Prose complexity: 6/10

Thought-Provoking Dark Atmospheric Melancholic

First Contact Survival Family Saga

Science Fiction Hard Sci-Fi Space Opera

Authors

Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke CBE FRAS was a British science fiction writer, science writer and futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He is famous for being co-writer of the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, widely considered to be one of the most influential films of all time. Clarke was a science writer, who was both an avid populariser of space travel and a futurist of uncanny ability. On these subjects he wrote over a dozen books and many essays,...

Gentry Lee

Gentry Lee is the author behind the popular Rama series. His work often explores science fiction themes.