Saturn Run

Twenty-seven percent into the book, the first incident takes place. Before that is just background, technical and character-related. The story begins to get interesting at that point, but it’s rather slow in spots. These is lots of technical info about both the American and Chinese version of a long-distance spaceship, which I could have done without. The authors were attempting to be as realistic as possible. Sci-fi is not my usual genre, but I love John Sandford, so decided to give this a try. It’s 496 pages long, but if you like your sci-fi well thought-out and plausible, this book might be for you.

Like many others, I purchased this book because it was written by John Sandford and Im a long time fan.

Getting through the first half of the book was agonizing. In the second half there was less science and more human interaction, but not enough to make it worth the time spent.

I would not recommend this book, and if I could do it over, would not purchase or read this book. Very disappointing.

This is not science fiction. It is SCIENCE, annotated at the end of the book but don’t read that part unless you like spoilers (I do). Yes, it’s fiction, and extremely well-written fiction with multi-dimensional characters that you care deeply about, and it’s Space Opera at its Most Operatic, but the key thing about this book is its solid science. I don’t pretend to understand it, and I suppose a real rocket scientist might well dispute it, but very little of the tech in this book is dreamed up. It is tech that is almost within human grasp right this minute. I can’t say more without getting spoilerish, but I don’t bother to write reviews unless I give 5 stars. I’d give this one 6!

John Sanford, my favorite mystery author has teamed up with some heavy weight science theory to write a compelling sci-fi novel about space travel to Saturn. Some of the characters will remind you of characters in his crime novels (think Virgil Flowers). The tension is high, but some humor is thrown in as well. If they translate this book I’m not sure the people of China will appreciate it, as they are the heavies here. I’m not usually a sci-fi fan, but this novel is the exception.

The story seems to be — half baked might be a good description. As Sci-Fi goes it leaves a good deal to be desired. There are some interesting but only partially (or glancingly?) developed ideas. The idea is not a bad one generally. Much of the story is not particularly original and I can lay hand to several sci-fi novels that contain many parallels in many areas. That said, it also meanders and digresses unevenly, but enough to be frustrating at times. Some of the characters seem to be very much Sandford characters, while others are a blend, and still others are not Sandford-like at all. The story arch includes a first-contact element, and incredibly long and not particularly useful account of an interplanetary voyage, presumably to develop characters (doesn’t work that well), International thriller (spies and good guys), highly trained, special-forces veterans suffering from PTSD – cliche (PTSD is so much NOT a cliche that use as a character device trivializes something far from trivial), and an espionage arc. I won’t indulge in spoilers, except to say that there is a lot of potential that is not resolved into a story line.

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