This is a Book Club Associates edition with four of Arthur C. Clarke’s books: The City And The Stars; The Deep Range; A Fall of Moondust; Rendezvous with Rama. I read a separate edition of The City And The Stars in the beginning of the year, so I skipped over that one. The book as a total gets four out of five stars.
The Deep Range
In the not so far future, humankind found a way to regulate ocean life in such a way that it is a practical food source for the billions of humans on earth. Whales are held as cattle in the Great Barrier Reef, and plankton is another source of food, farmed like a crop. This is the background of the story of Walter Franklin. Traumatized and after a year of therapy, he arrives at the Warden training centre where he meets Don. He gets a crash course into being a Warden for the whales, and turns out to be a natural at it. The rest of the story is the story of Franklin, about his work, his personal life and his trauma.
It is a pretty nice story, a bit moralistic about the eating of animals, but nice. Nothing special. Three out of five stars.
A Fall of Moondust
Humankind has made it to the moon and beyond. The story starts with tourists on the boat Selene, sailing the Sea of Thirst on the moon. It is not filled with water, but with dust, dust that acts somewhat like a fluid. Captain Pat Harris has made the trip many times before, and expects no surprises. Until a once in a million earthquake happens right under the Sea, and Selene sinks. Without anyway to reach the outside world, and without any visible traces of what happened to them, will they be saved? And how?
This story is a lot more suspenseful and even though I had an inkling on how it would end, I couldn’t put the book down. A very entertaining read. Four out of five stars.
Rendezvous with Rama
It’s 2130, and a strange asteroid is discovered approaching Earth. Earth, and the rest of the inhabited planets and satellites, soon discover that this is no asteroid, but a made object, which has travelled for millions of years and is aiming for the sun. They send a ship to the object, named Rama, to explore. The story follows the crew of the ship Endeavor as they enter Rama and try to discover and survive that alien environment.
The story is inspirational and a very good read, I understand why it won the Hugo and the Nebula awards. All I want now is to know more about Rama and the why, what and who of the story. Four out of five stars. ( )