Instruct: Classify the given review as either positive or negative.
Query: Plot Goes AWOL

I loved the RAMA books, but I felt totally burned by this Clarke outing.Through the whole volume Clarke used the device of a mystery--raising motivational questions about the many underdeveloped characters (including the protagonist)--but then the book ended without resolving a single loose thread.If he was making some point about race (a theme so undeveloped that it baffled me every time a character's race was mentioned), I didn't get it.I didn't find the futurism especially novel, either (at least not as a reader in 2001--perhaps it was more exciting in 1976).The ending (and I use the term only because I ran out of pages) left me asking "What the &%? Am I missing some pages?"--reminiscent of the film ending of "2001 A Space Odyssey".Unlike that film (or the Philip K. Dick stories I've read), the interest of the ride didn't make up for the unresolved storyline. It's easily the poorest of the 7 or 8 Clarke novels I've read.