Hobbit

I'm not complaining, but there's rarely time to go back and reread books at SFFWorld, unless it's a special occasion or I deliberately take time to do so.

I do try though, because as I've said before, I think looking at the past stuff is important.

Every now and then I pick up one at random, just to see if it is how I'm remembering it.

This weekend I picked up (by accident) Rama II by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee.

For the record, I hated - HATED - it first time around, about 1990. I'd loved the original Rendezvous with Rama, but Rama II was so not like any Clarke I'd liked to that date: negative world view (whereas Clarke was usually positive) with characters, generally unpleasant, who had wandered out of Dallas or such like. It was slow, it was meanderingly flabby, it was BORING - something I'd never thought of Clarke as being.

So now, 20+ years later, I expected to be less impressed -I've read a lot since then!

But guess what? We have a Global Crash, based on the banking system, high unemployment, famine and misery as a result.

Whilst the characters are still stereotypical: attractive yet ruthless blonde reporter making her way up the social ladder, a cold unemotional scientist who is embarrassed by his wife and children, for example - there are still flashes of Clarke, both in its comments about the world and its humour.

I might be mellowing, but it might - MIGHT - be better than I remembered. I found I'd read 100 pages before I'd meant to.

So: is it worth giving the latter Rama books another chance?

And what else is worth a second go at?