Rama Revealed

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

On its mysterious voyage through interstellar space, a massive alien starship carries its human passengers to the end of a generations-long odyssey.

But the great experiment designed by the Ramans has failed, and Rama III has become a battleground. Fleeing a tyrant, a band of humans ventures into the nether regions of the ship, where they encounter an emerald-doomed lair ruled by the fabulously advanced octospiders.

As the octospiders lure the humans deeper into their domain, the humans must decide whether the creatures are their allies of enemies. All the while, Rama III continues its in-explorable journey towards the node, where the climax of their voyage awaits the stunning revelation of the true identity of the beings behind this glittering trek across the cosmos.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Rama Revealed marks the fourth and final volume of the popular sf series begun with Rendezvous with Rama (1973). After a long interstellar voyage, an alien spacecraft and its human passengers arrive at their destination. On sale date: the week of January 31. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

This disappointing conclusion to the Rama series picks up at the point where the previous volume, The Garden of Rama , left its characters in peril. Cosmonaut Nicole Wakefield, the former governor of the human colony housed within the globe-shaped spaceship Rama III, is awaiting execution for opposing the fascistic powers that now run the colony. She is rescued from her cell by small robots sent by her husband Richard, whom she had thought dead; he had, however, escaped into the interstices of the Rama spacecraft. Along with friends and family from the Earth sector, they begin traveling through the different alien environments housed in the vast Raman world. As decades pass, the spaceship approaches the star system Tau Ceti, where many secrets are revealed to Nicole and her descendants. Unfortunately, the authors have neglected narrative drive in favor of exposition. Environments are described and philosophies expounded in great detail, but the action is delivered second-hand as characters tell each other about events instead of experiencing them directly. Despite some mildly intriguing revelations at the end, the story is slow and only mildly diverting. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

The fourth and presumably final volume of a saga that began with Clarke's now-classic Rendezvous with Rama continues where The Garden of Rama left off, recounting man's extraordinary adventures inside a trio of colossal, pre-programmed, alien starships. After a third identical Raman spacecraft has appeared near Earth and retrieved a contingent of humans for a voyage to the stars, the resulting colony of New Eden spawns a ruthless dictator named Nakamura, who condemns the former governess to death for treason. Only hours from execution, Nicole Wakefield ingeniously escapes to join her husband outside the settlement where, along with other members of their family, the pair eventually befriends and learns to communicate with the bizarre creatures called octospiders. Meanwhile, perceiving only threat to his regime, Nakamura launches a war against the octospiders that the Wakefields are powerless to stop, and the Raman-bred diplomat known as the Eagle must return to intercede and shut the operation down. Readers hoping for a dramatic final confrontation with the starships' creators may come away somewhat disappointed, although a further adventure in the series is not ruled out. Fans of skillfully crafted hard sf, however, will find plenty of Clarke and Lee's fascinating scientific speculations vividly given form in the marvels of Raman technology. (Reviewed Dec. 1, 1993)0553095366Carl Hays

Kirkus Book Review

Rendezvous with Rama didn't need sequels, but we got them anyway. Now, billed as the final installment in Clarke and Lee's overextended, meandering space odyssey (The Garden of Rama, 1991, etc.), the vast spaceship Rama finally arrives--not back at Earth but at Tau Ceti--and the mysterious super-robot, Eagle, provides some explanations. Many of the characters from previous volumes recur, and the story picks up where Garden left off. Nicole, trapped by the dictatorial regime that now rules Rama's human colony, is contacted by some tiny robots sent by her husband, Richard, whom she had thought to be dead, to arrange for her and selected others to escape. They soon come into contact with the octospiders--friendly, peaceful, advanced aliens with whom Nicole's group learns to coexist and cooperate and whom they eventually come to understand. But then the dictator Nakamura discovers their whereabouts and begins a war of extermination. Richard and an octospider volunteer to try to dissuade Nakamura, but both are killed after interrogation. Finally, as the octospiders reluctantly prepare a devastating retaliation, the Eagle intervenes, ending the war and dividing the humans into two groups, those that can live among aliens and those that can't. As for the Ramans--well, the explanation subsides into flatfooted religiosity and doesn't really bear close examination. A tedious, lumbering ox of a conclusion, hard-working but poorly structured and unconvincingly presented; the aliens look funny but aren't really alien. Still, there will be hordes of Rama fans desperate to discover how it all comes out. (First printing of 100,000)