The Disaster of September 11…2077
The author chose what would become a charged date on the calendar to situate his fictional disaster from the sky. On September 11, 2077 a fireball appears in the sky and explodes, killing more than half a million people and destroying entire cities:
“It was as if a great war had been fought and lost in a single morning”
New New York
Rama is a spaceship, but unlike any ever devised for a science fiction film. The dimensions too staggering to fully comprehend. Metaphorical imagery helps, though:
“Right out in the middle there's a large oval island, about ten kilometres long and three wide, and covered with tall structures. Because it reminds us of Old Manhattan, we've called it New York. Yet I don't think it's a city; it seems more like an enormous factory or chemical processing plant.”
Darkness
This is not an enormous book in terms of word count and pages. Many much longer novels utilize darkness as a metaphor just once. It is the metaphor that defines the modern age. Of course, this story is set in the future, which could explain why it pops up over and over again, usually within the context illuminated in this example:
“During the first 'nights' on Rama, it had not been easy to sleep. The darkness and the mysteries it concealed were oppressive, but even more unsettling was the silence.”
Misogyny
The future of the 2130’s in which the story is set does not look noticeably different from the 1970’s in which it was written when it comes to relations between men and women. The passage of more than a century and a half of time seems to have had no effect on the presence of patriarchal ideology and the expression of casual misogyny:
'It's a well-known fact, Laura, that men, unlike women, have two-track minds.”
Originality Not Always Necessary
When it comes to a metaphorical turn of phrase, originality does not always count. On some occasions, it is preferable to go with the familiar rather than spend time trying to come up with a new way of phrasing an old idea:
“He suddenly recalled—and this did nothing at all to help—a phrase he had once come across: 'Someone is walking over your grave.'”
