Rendezvous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (1973) I read this book when I was in high school and I still think about it, so I thought I'd re-read it. Not disappointing! It's set in the future when there are various space colonies (Moon, Pluto, Mars) and exploration ships. An alien spaceship makes its way into the solar system, heading for the Sun. It's like a 30 mile long metal cylinder and a party make their way inside it to explore. It's spinning, to create artificial gravity, and there's an entire landscape inside, complete with light source and ocean. The best thing about the book, to me, is the imagining of this landscape and world in there, and then the exploration and discovery of increasingly weird stuff, little by little. Apparently a few people have tried to get a film off the ground, including Morgan Freeman. I've read that he wants to keep it true to the spirit of the book, where it doesn't try to explain everything. I imagine, however, that the big companies who would have to finance a fairly expensive project like that would want to turn it into a horror movie with shit jumping out at you, scores of gruesome deaths, fights, chases, good vs. evil, and a sappy explanation of it all. Maybe it's best if that never happens.