About This Book

In the year 2131, in a solar system whose asteroids and colonies are now routinely tracked, an object catalogued as 31/439 is found to be no rock but a perfectly smooth cylinder fifty kilometres long and twenty across, spinning as it falls sunward on a hyperbolic course out of interstellar space. Named Rama, it is plainly the artefact of an alien intelligence, and the survey ship Endeavour, commanded by the level-headed Commander Bill Norton, is the only vessel positioned to reach it before it whips around the Sun and is gone. Norton's crew enters through triple airlocks and descends into a vast dark interior that wakes as the ship nears the Sun, its lights blazing over a curved world of geometric "cities", a frozen Cylindrical Sea and the strange mechanical biots that tend it. Clarke, at the height of his powers, keeps the aliens themselves offstage and lets the awe reside in the artefact, in careful, patient exploration rather than conflict. The result is the purest expression of his abiding subject: the confrontation with the genuinely unknowable, a cosmos vast and indifferent that offers wonder without ever condescending to explain itself.

Science Fiction

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Hugo Award for Best Novel (Winners)
The Hugo Award for Best Novel is the premier honour for science fiction and fantasy novels, voted on annually by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) since 1953. It is one of the field’s highest distinctions - past winners span foundational works from Ursula K. Le Guin and Isaac Asimov to N.K. Jemisin, who won three years running. This list collects the winning novels by year.
Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (Winners)
The Locus Awards are voted on each year by the readers of Locus, the magazine of the science fiction and fantasy field. Locus gave a single Best Novel award from 1971 until it was split into science fiction and fantasy in 1978, and this list follows the science fiction line from Larry Niven’s Ringworld through Ursula K. Le Guin, Dan Simmons and Connie Willis to Ann Leckie, Martha Wells and John Scalzi. This list collects the winning novels by year.
Nebula Award for Best Novel (Winners)
The Nebula Award for Best Novel is presented annually by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, chosen by the genre’s own professional writers rather than by a fan convention - a useful counterpoint to the Hugo. Awarded since 1966, its winners run from Frank Herbert’s Dune (the very first) through Ursula K. Le Guin, Joe Haldeman and Samuel R. Delany to the field’s leading contemporary voices. This list collects the winning novels by year.

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Rendezvous with Rama

About This Book

In These Lists