Saturn Run
John Sandford and Ctien
G. P. Putnam's Sons
Fiction, Sci-Fi
Themes: Aliens, Artificial Intelligence, Diversity, Girl Power, Space Stories
****
Description
In the year 2066, routine calibration tests for a repaired space telescope reveal the impossible: an object decelerating toward Saturn. Natural objects do not decelerate, and its origin point is outside the solar system: nothing from Earth, in other words. The discovery kicks off a new space race, as America and China - a nation that has already been building the first Martian colony ship - scramble to throw together vessels and crews capable of investigating the new visitor firsthand. Even the smallest scrap from an alien craft, a vessel that must have technology at least a century ahead of anything humans have managed to build if it can manage interstellar travel, could reap untold technological, monetary, and sheer propaganda benefits for the victor... and with stakes that high, space or possible first contact might not be the deadliest dangers on the unprecedented trip.
Review
Standing well on the hard side of the hard/soft science fiction spectrum, Saturn Run might handwave a few minor details, but uses theoretically plausible science to create excellent tension and limitations in a first contact story fraught with unexpected difficulties and thorny politics. Even creating propulsion capable of getting a human crew to Saturn in a year or two becomes a way of raising the stakes, with China and America arriving at different solutions that each have their benefits and drawbacks. The concepts are presented in such a way that even a person like myself, who can barely grasp the principles of a door knob, can understand some hint of both the sheer wonder and the potential for dangerous complications should something go wrong... and, of course, things do go wrong, for both crews (even if the focus is on the Americans). Not that the science and technology is the only potential problem, of course; the personal angle, from the crewmembers to the international politics, creates no end of trouble, as humans simply cannot stop being human even in the face of unprecedented proof that we are not alone in the galaxy. For the most part, the people behave plausibly and not too stupidly for their situations, with no obvious plot-extending stupidity moments and some occasional humor slipped in. There are some nice twists and turns, successes and failures, and interesting conundrums of the scientific and political natures (sometimes both) on the journey, and the plot moves pretty well as it goes, without bogging down in lectures or excessive drama. At the end, I felt there were a few threads that never quite went anywhere, or were apparently forgotten along the way, but not enough to ruin the entire story for me. On the whole, it made for an enjoyable read (or listen, this being another audiobook).