skroderider's

I have been rereading some of the science fiction books that I’ve liked in previous readings. One of them is Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. It’s a series of 4 books, the last 3 being co-authored by Clarke and Gentry Lee. I remember reading the first book, and maybe the 3rd (The Garden of Rama) long back enough to have forgotten most of it, and that essentially meant it was ripe for a rereading.

Rendezvous with Rama is classic sf in Clarke’s unmatched style. The alienness, the unknowableness – of the spacecraft Rama – is what sets this book apart. Indistinguishable from magic, to cite one of Clarke’s own aphorisms.

My advice to you is – do not read the other 3 so-called sequels (Rama II, The Garden of Rama, Rama Revealed). This is not out of a misplaced sense of fanboyism for Clarke’s writing but of some conclusions that I have come to after reading them in sequence. Correction – I had to stop reading the 3rd and the 4th about halfway. The reasons will soon become clear.

The conclusions are these -

• Gentry Lee is nowhere near Clarke – that’s something we all know – and he’s also horribly unqualified to write a Clarke sequel.
• Lee’s prose is full of an overuse of adjectives and everything is extremely verbose. I say Lee’s prose – because Clarke did the editing and made suggestions while the actual writing was done by Lee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama#cite_note-5. Sadly, the link cited by Wikipedia is broken, probably caused by a site reorg at syfy.com). People are “listening with rapt attention”, “looking up in awe”, and indulging in excesses of emotion most of the time. Maybe Lee was trying to do something about the critics when they said Rendezvous with Rama did not have good characterization. So he went overboard. Open any page at random of Rama II, read a paragraph and you’ll know what I am talking about. Contrast the clear, concise and at the same time evocative prose of Clarke with the verbiage laden fat volumes of boring sequences that the sequels are.
• Lee is a strongly religious Catholic and he just can’t keep religous nonsense out of his writings. St Michael of Siena, Michael O’Toole, even the name The Garden of Rama (Eden) where the kids are born, the church becoming a strong post-apocalyptic force – the list goes on. You might say that these are merely characters and circumstances he has conjured up to bring variety to the books. Nonsense. Circumstantial necessity is not sufficient justification for this. Let us enjoy Rama in peace, I say. Take your religous symbolism – which the sequels are full of – somewhere else.

The question that I asked myself in the end was this – Why did Clarke collaborate with Gentry Lee at all? Did these things not matter to him? His reasons are not very convincing in Rama II’s preface – “He (Lee) had all the background in celestial mechanics and space hardware to deal with the next appearance of the Ramans”. Is that enough to write good sf? Evidently not.

I probably buy atleast 8-10 books per month from online bookstores in India. Flipkart and Infibeam usually have the lowest prices, so I go there first. Thanks to Swaroop CH’s excellent bookmarklet, searching for the lowest price is not so difficult any more.

Today I wanted to send a gift to a cousin in Delhi, and I got the lowest prices using isbn.net.in. Surprisingly, bookadda.com had the lowest price of all for this particular book, and Infibeam and Flipkart had the same, slightly higher price.

I did not go with bookadda. The reason is simple. I’ve had three bad experiences with them – and all of them had to do with unresponsive customer service. The last time I had to call them up did not give me much confidence from the way the call was handled (the issue was resolved, though, but only after I called them up. Emails? No response).

This book being a gift, I did not want the hassles of non-delivery followed by repeated calls to them. So I skipped bookadda, agreeing to pay 99 bucks more elsewhere.

Flipkart and Infibeam had the same price for the book. Guess which one I went with? Flipkart. Till date I’ve probably bought around 60 books from Infibeam, and I’ve had bad experiences 3 times. These included no responses to emails, unfulfilled promises to get back within 24 hours and no action till I sent them a public Twitter message (!). As far as Flipkart goes, I’ve bought close to the same number from them. Bad experiences? None. All emails get answered within 6-7 hours, and all issues are resolved fast.

All other things being equal, unmatched customer service is how you can add value to your business. Or even have a business in the first place.

I get this feeling of standing on the edge of a high cliff and looking out over an abyss every time I complete a long run. It’s located nowhere in particular – just a brown cliff and nothing in front of me except a dark haze in the distance. These are not the long Sunday training runs that I am talking about. I’m talking about the organized runs – the marathons, half marathons, ultras. I’ve not run many – but whenever I have completed one, this image stays in my head for around a week. It’s always present whatever I am doing. Slowly, it dissipates and the other things in my life take over. Till the next marathon.

I finally put a formal touch to my classical guitar playing by passing the Trinity Guildhall Grade 2 exam in September. The daily practice I had to put in for the past one year, the frustration when I couldn’t practice because of other work, the monotony of playing the same pieces over and over again and trying to achieve that perfect technique and tone – has paid off.

It has been a long journey, but I realize I’m just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Classical Guitar is extremely tough to master, and needs years of dedicated practice. However, my next target is clear – Grade 4.

Yahoo IM conversation today with an old friend -

D: Do you want to be in a place where there’s an earthquake every 10 minutes or so?

Me: Yeah – that would be an interesting place to live in.

D: Check this – http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/Quakes/quakes_all.html

Me: Nice!

D: Yes, you would feel at home there – there’s no lack of momentum.

D meant it in a cheeky way, but I realized that what he said was true. It was a well-thought out insight. I like momentum, movement, things happening.

Some years back I used to fear change. It was followed by a phase where I compromised – and decided that I preferred controlled change.

Now, I just look for change. Disruption. Everywhere. And try to create it where I can.