Ctein

The first half of this books is pretty good, the second half, when the Chinese finally show up on the scene? Human nature takes over as do political motivations and sheer stupid greed - all realistic, sadly. Most of the science is pretty realistic too, more happily.

The takeaway here? Humans are humans and are quite, at their most base, stupid. When we pull ourselves out of that cesspit though, amazing things can happen. Just, not in this book.

I received a free copy of this book from Goodreads in exchange for an unbiased review.

While I am familiar with John Sandford's reputation, I have never read anything he has written. I have met Ctein a few times at science-fiction conventions. The combination of the two authors led me to request a copy of this book.

The book is long, almost 500 pages, and there's not a lot of action until the final quarter or so. The first part of the book deals with the setup of the McGuffin, in this case a show more spaceship from an advanced civilization that is detected approaching Saturn. Two spacecraft, one from the U.S. and the other from Communist China (which acts a lot like the China of the late twentieth century, despite the fact that the book takes place fifty years from now) race to see which government will reach the visitor first. The Chinese ship has more mass to burn and has a head start, but the American ship has a better "engine" that will allow it to reach Saturn first, assuming everything goes according to plan.

Of course, it doesn't.

The characters all have their own voices, from the abrasive female U.S. President to the government official/secret agent aboard the U.S ship (a re-purposed space station). The book reads smoothly and quickly, but as noted above, takes quite a while to get to Saturn, and what the characters find when they get there is a bit of a letdown, or else a hook left dangling for a sequel. The last hundred pages have a lot of action, but there are also a few subplots that are hurriedly tied up in the very last few pages, almost as if the authors realized they had spent all this time discussing certain things and never coming to a conclusion (see "Chekhov's gun"). Ctein has written elsewhere how the authors swapped sections back and forth until he wasn't sure who had written what; I suspect he probably took care of most of the science and left the intrigue to Sandford, so each could play off their strengths. Maybe I'll pick up one of Sandford's thrillers and see how he does on his own. show less

Just about every enjoyable aspect of 1970s science fiction is dragged out of the cliché cupboard, given a 21st century splash of dazzle and delivered here with dash and panache. There’s stacks of solid science, credibly extended into the realm of speculation without breaking (or even mildly infuriating) the laws of physics, and deftly rendered easily digestible by John Sandford’s superlative story-telling skills.

The fascinating science stuff is attached to a pretty geopolitical problem, show more and the thrill of maybe meeting aliens for the first time. The authors assemble a credible cast of characters and then ramp up the tension by turning the perilous trip to Saturn into a flat-out race between the American and the Chinese nations.

There's precious little new here; all this has been done before, even down to using ion cannons for propulsion. But there are some nifty twists in the narrative and Sandford’s excellent dialogue makes the tense exchanges between staffers, spacemen, engineers, journos, spooks and politicians both rippingly entertaining and entirely believable. His characters behave, pretty much, like real people – even the super-smart science guys and the glossy, ambitious embedded reporters.

I also struggled slightly with how far ahead the novel is set (2066) yet how little progress had been made. Folks are still using ‘slates’ and have ‘wrist wraps’ to alert them; tech which is doable right now. It’s hard to credit that in another half century, tech development will have slowed so much – even allowing for a couple of major future history events which the authors cannily hint at, but never quite explain.

On any level, Saturn Run is a romp. It’s smart, well informed, and constructed to make the pages fly by. Every stage brings an intriguing revelation, and it certainly succeeds in making a slow-motion race (where neither party knows if the other has a lethal trick up a sleeve) utterly gripping. It may not do much new, but it does everything extremely well.
8/10

There's more on this book and similar titles at
https://murdermayhemandmore.wordpress.com/2015/12/26/saturn-run-the-science-of-f... show less

I put this in the category of a fun read. It’s not great, I don’t think it’s deeply provocative, but it’s fun.

The authors are very good at making you feel their words. After having read the book, I remembered scenes as if I had actually experienced them, not just read them. And they know how to pull you from chapter to chapter, with tensions and questions to be resolved.

The plot centers around the discovery of an alien spaceship and an alien artifact near Saturn, but alien contact is show more itself a foil for a cold-war-like story of competition between American and Chinese space programs.

What plays out is not so much an encounter between humans and an alien civilization, or even alien technology, as an encounter between two highly charged, or over-charged, nations. It’s the space race revisited, this time with the new incentive of access to alien technology and the huge potential advantage that exclusive access could provide.

That race is the central tension of the book, with characters and cultures displaying themselves through it.

The science is central to the plot — the detailed and thought-out science of propulsion systems, requirements, and limits for space travel. Those requirements and limits have their own roles in the story. The race has repeated tortoise and hare scenarios, given the technology choices made by the competing players. There is even an “Authors’ Note” at the end of the book, providing more details and an account of how the authors reasoned and calculated their way through the technology choices and their implications.

Overall, like I said, it’s a good story. It’s entertaining. The cold war tones are not new, but they seem to have never really died. show less