I am not much given to reading science fiction. I don't dislike the genre, rather, I have had too much other stuff to read to pay it much heed. Having said that, I have only just finished an audiobook of Arthur C. Clarke's, Rendezvous with Rama. I came to this tome by way of an interest in science speculation, especially the concept of generation ships and O'Neill Cylinders.

Rama is an O'Neill Cylinder for all intents and purposes. This kind of structure is a very large spaceship, as big as a city, which rotates about an axis, allowing for a kind of artificial gravity to exist through centripetal force. Within it's curving walls are rivers, cities and plains, permitting something like normal habitation and settlement to take place. The Ramans, who do not appear in the book, have journeyed for hundreds of thousands of years and have entered our Solar System. A team is dispatched to investigate.

Clarke has a vibrant imagination and his writing is situated within the realm of science possible, rather than pure science fiction. His prose style is somewhat flat, plodding and particular, with undeveloped characters at every turn. Still, it's a very interesting book and worth a read.

It made me sit up and think again about Oumuamua, the interstellar object that passed through our Solar System three years ago and caused considerable excitement. More than likely it is a natural object, though there is an outside chance that it has 'alien' origins. That would be a once in a million thing if it were true, given how vast space is and how unlikely the chances of intelligent life being extant in our cosmic neighbourhood.

Not Rama

Courtesy of NASA