For those who don't know, this is basically the plot of a classic science fiction novel, Rendezvous with Rama. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama)

better than 2001.

I thought the commie Russians dated the novel when I read it in the 90s, but here we are, 2017, and everyone is worried about the Ruskies again. Funny ol world.

The sequels are pretty bad, by the way - Clarke eventually just started "co-writing" books where the other less-good writer did all the work. One of them has a foreword just so Gentry Lee can apologize he wrote a chapter about his historical hologram waifu.

I only made it a few chapters into the sequel, the writing is completely different and completely uninspiring.

Thanks, as some who hasn't grown up watching Hollywood or reading English sci-fi, I couldn't get the context.

Many of others like the name too: https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/217308...

Seconded. They did say it was oddly rectangular/columnar.

This reads as if you're trying to draw a similarity between Oumuamua and Rama, but if that's the case, Rama was spherical, so I don't see the similarity. The only other thing I can think of is that the 2OO1(&) monolith was rectangular, but they never really moved IIRC.

(&): Sorry, screenreaders, but it's so much nicer with the letter 'o' rather than zeros :/

...no? It was cylindrical in the book.

Holy crap. You're right! I read it back in February and must have consistently read "cylindrical" as "spherical" :o

I guess I should go back to see if the experience is better knowing the true shape...

Iirc, it was all cylindrical.