Rama: The Omnibus

This book holds all four Rama books, but only the first one is actually written by Clarke himself, the rest by some d-level author that just screws it all up.

Recommendation: Read only the first book, skip the rest.

Spoilers might be below

Rendezvous with Rama (Rama, #1): Five Stars

This one was written by Clarke and it is fantastic, amazing, awesome, well written, great story, good characters and all above and beyond.

Rama II (Rama, #2): Two Stars

Because the Omnibus does not tell you when one book is finished I was first really confused on why the writing style has changed so much. It turned into some personal drama-lama. Soap Opera. Worse than than some schlock sci-fi b-movie. How such a crew was ever selected that acts like they are in some big brother house is just beyond understanding. While in the first book the mission came first here it is everyone for themselves.

The Garden of Rama (Rama, #3): Two Stars

Same crap as above but now we travel away from earth. Small parts are interesting, overall crap, especially when have that time on that alien space station and the return trip. Forgettable. You realize this book is bad when you start skipping parts and not missing anything.

Rama Revealed (Rama, #4)

One one hand it is the best of the three other books, on the other hand it is the same crap again. It has some nice interesting parts, but it gets all crapped on top with some super-mega-god alien that are behind this. This is just stupid. Also I had to skip over parts because this was just unreadable.