If you haven't read Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, start (and perhaps finish) with that one. It was much better than this sequel. Rana II starts with two chapters of mostly irrelevant background information. Although the writers filled in a lot of background information to develop the various characters, it didn't work well enough to justify the extra pages and detracted a bit from the overall impact of the book. I didn't dislike Rama II. I just think it could have been better. This sci-fi is about exploring and trying to discover the origins of a gigantic space vessel which appears out of nowhere.