Rating: 
Summary: Rama what ?
Review: Allow me to be a little retrospective . The first book was a gem. Not often are there books which concentrate purely on the technological side and get away with little or no character development . The second was pleasing only towards the end although I found the need to explain life stories of characters profoundly irritating and often irrelevant . Who cares if Francesca is a slut ? I was hoping for a redemption of sorts in this third book but nope , didn't find it . If this book were set in an urban 20th century environment , it would be a mid-day soap opera with sex and drugs thrown in . As a science fiction novel , it somehow manages to discard most science . Maybe it was Lee's influence , maybe I just lost patience with the black and white characters . This book could have done with better characterisation , less politics , less pointless sex , less Shakespearen quotes and finally , a helluva lot more science fiction . Ultimately I was disappointed since I started reading this series with much enthusiasm and ended up flicking chapters just to see who would cark it next.
Rating:
Summary: what's the definition of insanity?
Review: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
And for all intents, since i am going to go for the sequel- I must be insane.
Or not, since I don't really expect it to be better- just some closure.
Garden was better than the the soap opera that was Rama 2 (hence 2 stars), but still a total let down from Rendezvous.
It really bugs me that the people chosen to populate Rama by the government included convicts. I would really think in reality people would be willing to cut off their right arms to be part of something like this and would chosen from the best and the brightest. (And if the analogy is the New World- well, a look at the punishments of colonial times would tell you that the death penalty was a popular punishment for any number of crimes including theft. The colonists took it into accounct that their members incuded criminals.)
Rating:
Summary: Continuing the downward spiral
Review: Ever so gently this series is starting to drift. GET BACK ON FOCUS!!! Much of the writing was about mundane people doing mundane things, petty conflicts, a lot of wondering and wandering and not much continuity. Once again, as he has done in the past over and over, Clarke comes up with a superlative idea but his literary talents - or lack thereof - are not up to the task. Only rarely does he succeed with character development and this is not an uncommon occurrence among scifi writers. I found myself staring into space several times and even peeking ahead. The best parts were all the creatures in the Garden. It is an axiom that the really memorable science fiction stories do not center on the unworldly aspect but on unforgettable people - Contact, Stranger in a Strange Land, Dune. This series could have been really remarkable but it has been dithered away. What a waste of time and energy.
Rating:
Summary: Continuing the downward spiral
Review: Ever so gently this series is starting to drift. GET BACK ON FOCUS!!! Much of the writing was about mundane people doing mundane things, petty conflicts, a lot of wondering and wandering and not much continuity. Once again, as he has done in the past over and over, Clarke comes up with a superlative idea but his literary talents - or lack thereof - are not up to the task. Only rarely does he succeed with character development and this is not an uncommon occurrence among scifi writers. I found myself staring into space several times and even peeking ahead. The best parts were all the creatures in the Garden. It is an axiom that the really memorable science fiction stories do not center on the unworldly aspect but on unforgettable people - Contact, Stranger in a Strange Land, Dune. This series could have been really remarkable but it has been dithered away. What a waste of time and energy.
Rating: 
Summary: exception to everyone else
Review: I guess I am the exception to the rule, as I absolutely loved all 4 of the Rama books. I was so caught up in what had happened and would happen with Nicole and her family that I could hardly wait 'til the next book in the series was published! To let you know how much I was affected by the series: at the end of Rama Revealed, I was moved to tears at the death of Nicole and the realization that this was IT. But, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed in what was and was not reavealed.
Rating:
Summary: High hopes, little substance
Review: I have to say that I found the whole Rama series to be a bit disappointing. I expected a series with the quality of Clarke's "Odyssey" Novels, but they just didn't live up to expectation. There was too many sub-plots and mysteries left un-resolved, events that were over emphasized but never clarified. And to be honest, I found many aspects of the book to be totally unrealistic. Overall this series was quiet a let down. If your going to buy this book, buy if used!
Rating:
Summary: Typical thought provoking Clarke work
Review: I read this book several years ago and am now getting ready to read it's precursors. I must admit I'm a bit biased being a fan of Arthur C. Clarke, but only because I enjoy his thought provoking works.
To date Garden of Rama is my favorite book from Arthur C. Clarke. It is imaginitive and alien as it should be. I was disappointed to see others didn't feel the same. I found it quite enjoyable to read the tale about how these few humans would have the desire to explore and learn, no matter the consequences. Then the heart of the book about the birth of the universe and it's outcome and research provide the thought provoking stimulus I expect from Clarke. A wonderful book in typical Clarke fashion.
Rating: 
Summary: Wreck/Dreck of Rama
Review: If Rama II disappointed, avoid this one. The entire plot line is silly (as Nicole and Co. go back and forth between star systems, mostly asleep but aging) and at the end the reader is no where -- third-rate 'cliff-hanger' to get you to buy the next book. It will take another 400 pages in Rama Revealed to get to the so-called revelation. Fans of ACC will not recognize any of his ideas in this volume which basically assumes humans have learned nothing over the years: just plain ignorant, easily manipulated by political leaders, guided by superstition, and usually kill anything in sight. Most of the lead actors are mere caricatures, no personalities or redeeming features and you'll probably despise the heroine, Nicole, who is portrayed as perfect. You're more likely to be entertained by an old B-film from American International than this sludge.
Rating:
Summary: Suds in Space
Review: In this, the 2nd sequel to the fine SF novel, "Rendevous with Rama," our herione, Nicole (from "Rama II") flys around the Milky Way having babies, then she leaves her oldest (14 yo) daughter to marry an old geezer at some triangle-shaped parking lot near another star because it would reduce inbreeding, then this eagle-headed biot dude wants to send the rest of them back to our Solar System so Nicole goes to sleep for 19 years (I about fell asleep, too) in order to find another 2000 losers from Earth to join this pathetic venture. (Remember, things are pretty sorry on Earth by then, after the great Chaos/depression, so it won't take much.) Oh yeah, her younger daughter learns how to masturbate while they enter orbit around Mars. If it sounds stupid, it is. I fought to preserve my memory of the beauty of the original story. But hey, its your time to waste.
Rating:
Summary: Terrifically bad writing!
Review: Like many others who've reviewed this un-masterpiece, I expected big things from the sequels to Clarke's classic novel. Realizing that the three sequels were ghostwritten by someone named "Gentry Lee" only diminished my excitement slightly-- that is, until I read the first few pages of "Rama II". Still, I kept with it, hoping that things would pick up after Gentry got all the boring exposition out of the way. Didn't happen.
Now, after reading "Garden of Rama", I realize that I would rather have my fingernails plucked off with a rusty tweezers than suffer through the last installment.
Gentry Lee's writing style is the downfall of these books. It's hard to believe that Clarke would have allowed this hack to massacre one of his finest storylines, but it happened. Lee seems concerned more with creating cardboard cut-out, stereotypical characters, and tossing them into a cheap story to see how much sex he can make them all have. The two main characters, Richard and Nicole, seem to have sex several times a page. I can't figure out whether the spacecraft Rama is an alien experiment to observe humans or just to observe their sexual habits. Additionally, Lee goes waaaay overboard to try to make his non-European characters seem "authentic", e.g. the boring, endless Japanese cultural studies that prop up the character of Kenji Watanabe, who dies before he does anything important anyway; and of course, the accounts of Nicole's ridiculous "spirit journeys" with her tribal people, which I've learned to skim right over whenever they occur.
In all, terrible-- although if you want a manual for how NOT to write, "The Garden of Rama" works for that. I'm giving it two stars, though, because the parts that aren't straight soap opera, the ones that concentrate more on the aliens themselves and their technology, are at least interesting. Not enough to save this poor novel, though.
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