Bert Gentry Lee is the chief engineer for the Planetary Flight Systems Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...

 and a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. As an author he is best known for co-writing, with Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...

, the books Cradle in 1989, Rama II in 1989, The Garden of Rama

The Garden of Rama

The Garden of Rama is a novel by Gentry Lee and Arthur C. Clarke. It is the third book in the four-book Rama series: Rendezvous with Rama, Rama II, The Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed, and follows on from where Rama II left off.-Plot summary:The book picks up the story nine months...

in 1991 and Rama Revealed

Rama Revealed

Rama Revealed is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee. It is the last of three sequels to Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama by these authors, and as the title suggests reveals the mysteries behind the enigmatic Rama spacecraft.- Plot summary :The book picks up the story...

in 1993. He collaborated with Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...

 on the 1980 series Cosmos

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage is a thirteen-part television series written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter, with Sagan as presenter. It was executive-produced by Adrian Malone, produced by David Kennard, Geoffrey Haines-Stiles and Gregory Andorfer, and directed by the producers, David...

.

Rendezvous With Rama

Rendezvous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke first published in 1972. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a cylindrical alien starship that enters Earth's solar system...

was written in 1972 and Clarke had no intention of writing a sequel

Sequel

A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...

. Lee attempted to turn the Rama series into a more character-driven story following the adventures of Nicole des Jardins Wakefield

Nicole des Jardins Wakefield

Nicole des Jardins Wakefield is a fictional character and the central protagonist of the three sequels to Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee. She is an African-European woman, of heritage from both France and the Ivory Coast...

, who becomes the main character in Rama II, The Garden of Rama

The Garden of Rama

The Garden of Rama is a novel by Gentry Lee and Arthur C. Clarke. It is the third book in the four-book Rama series: Rendezvous with Rama, Rama II, The Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed, and follows on from where Rama II left off.-Plot summary:The book picks up the story nine months...

and Rama Revealed

Rama Revealed

Rama Revealed is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee. It is the last of three sequels to Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama by these authors, and as the title suggests reveals the mysteries behind the enigmatic Rama spacecraft.- Plot summary :The book picks up the story...

. When asked, Arthur C. Clarke said that Gentry Lee did the writing while he was a source of ideas.

Lee went on to write three more science fiction novels after Rama Revealed. Two take place in the Rama

Rama (spacecraft)

Rama is a fictional mysterious extraterrestrial vessel that is the subject and setting of the science fiction novel Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, and the later sequel trilogy by Clarke and Gentry Lee: Rama II, Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed. It exists in a fictional future timeline...

 universe (Bright Messengers, Double Full Moon Night) while one makes several references to it (Tranquility Wars).

In 2009, Gentry narrated and appeared in Discovery Channel's 2-hour special "Are We Alone," which examined the possibility of life on other worlds in the solar system.

Critical response to writing

Lee's writing has been criticized for excessive descriptions of the characters' personal lives and especially plentiful sex scenes unrelated to the plot, reminiscent of romance novel

Romance novel

The romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Through the late...

s. In one critic's words:

"[ Cradle, a novel coauthored by Lee] just drags on and on and is littered with unnecessary sex scenes that, if you read much of Gentry Lee’s work, you will find is one of his obsessions. I fail to understand why Lee feels that he must include sex scenes in the middle of a science fiction novel that have nothing to do with the story. Once would be OK, but after about the fourth time I found myself dropping the book and thinking “again?!”"

Lee has also been criticized for a stereotypical portrayal of race in his work and his unusually abundant use of terms such as black, white, Arab and Mexican to describe characters.

External links

• Gentry Lee at IMDB