It was only after I'd read Rendezvous with Rama that I found out it was a Big Dumb Object story. I mean, I knew Rama, the mysterious alien spaceshippy thing which appears in our solar system, was an object, and was dumb too - it doesn't say a word to a soul, not one word - and yes, it was big too, really big. Bigger than a whale! Ten whales! But I didn't put it all together. However, some critics did, and unkindly pointed out that quite a bit of science fiction is about Big Dumb Objects which humans stumble upon and then spend some time poking or landing on or using a can opener on. Fanboys like to gaze upon their bigness and have a shivery awe-fit. In the SF fanboy world, big is big. I read Eon and Ringworld and sure enough they are all about Big Dumb Objects. "It must be 10,000 kilometers long!" etc. And in The Incredible Shrinking Man everything eventually becomes a Big Dumb Object. That's what happens if you just carry on shrinking. Course, if you become the incredible growing man, then even mile long spaceships become mere thimbles, and you can wear them on your gigantic fingertips. "I use your mile long spaceships as thimbles, ha harrr!" Actually in Rendezvous with Rama it's all a bit queasy - astronauts daringly land on it then walk about prodding it and waiting for it to - what - burst into life, exfoliate, produce something, sing - don't just lie there! - it's like they're a bunch of gynaecologists poking around in a stupendously large and complex womb. Maybe Arthur Clarke had problems with his mum, or maybe terrible sibling rivalry - this giant womb is gonna produce a brother or sister who will render earth a smouldering ember! Could be I'm reading too much into all this. But that's Big Dumb Objects for you, they scream out for interpretation. They're all in analysis. But they don't get much out of it. They never speak and they break the analyst's couch.