|
-
Hivemind social net
-
News
- Features
- Blogs
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Google Toolbar scifi
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
Saturn by Ben Bova
01/07/2008 . Source: Rod MacDonald 
audio CD. pub: Audio Renaissance/PanMacmillan. 13.5 hours. 11 CDs. Price: $44.95 (US), $62.95 (CAN) ISBN: 1-59397-494-9). Read by: Amanda Karr, Stefan Rudnicki and cast. Buy Saturn Ben Bova in the USA - or Buy Saturn Ben Bova in the UK  check out websites: http://us.macmillan.com/Book.aspx?isbn=9781593974947and www.benbova.net
Next to the moon, Saturn is the most popular telescopic object. When visitors to an observatory are introduced to the wonders of the night sky, the ringed planet is always a favourite request. It's an iconic image which transcends astronomy to become associated with many other aspects of contemporary culture. This is no surprise because the sight of Saturn's mysterious and beautiful rings through a telescope will never be forgotten and it is to this planet that Ben Bova takes us in this audio book.
Ben Bova uses the solar system as a stage to transport his readers on a grand tour of the planets. At about 800 million miles from the Sun, twice the distance of Jupiter, Saturn is the second largest planet. Basically a large ball of gas of a density less than water, it spins so quickly on its axis that it has become an oval shape instead of a sphere. Exactly how the rings were formed is still not fully understood. They may not be a long-lasting (in astronomical terms) phenomenon so we are lucky to be existing at the right time to see them.
Moving from Jupiter, Ben Bova takes us to Saturn. Writing about the planets would be interesting enough but he takes people there with a basket of human agendas and conflict only to stirr them up in a storm just as ferocious as one of the storms on the planet's surface. It is also easy to see that there is no basic difference between these people of the future and ourselves: they have the same hopes, fears, hangups, emotions and motives! This time on his journey to the outer planets, it's not just an expedition but a mass movement of thousands of people in a huge spaceship destined to remain in the far reaches of the solar system for a very long time if not forever.
This somewhat reminds me of Project Orion, the defunct programme from the 60s which proposed using nuclear pulse rockets to take vast spaceships around the solar system with ease. Bova's ship is substantially more enormous and contains a rotating cylinder which enables the inhabitants to experience a force similar to gravity. Incidentally, the ship is named Goddard after the American rocket pioneer of the early 20th century.
Sad to say, I think the book falls down in certain aspects. The ship serves two purposes, that of a social experiment and secondly, a dumping ground for dissidents rather like the ship containing hairdressers, etc which crashed into Earth in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy'. Why do I say this? Well, even for the time in which this is set, a ship containing 10,000 people is rather large and expensive for a social experiment and why go all the way to Saturn? Additionally, it seems to be the case that the New Morality, the fundamentalist religious movement on Earth, seems to want these people, these agnostics, non-believers and troublemakers out of the way.
If New Morality is so all-powerful with the ability to organise the selection of these people, why go to the expense of sending them into space when an island on Earth would serve the same purpose? Further, for the stated purpose of investigating microbiology, such a huge spaceship is not required. In fact, a dozen scientists with robots would be more than adequate. I think Bova was trying to re-create a space ark story and use the Goddard as a convenient vehicle.
Subterfuge exists within the characters on the Goddard. If the religious authorities have had to use devious and underhand methods to manipulate the people on the ship, they cannot be all-powerful and yet they were powerful enough initially to organise the whole expedition. Is there a paradox here?
Besides this, the story progresses rather well and the narrators, who are good at their jobs, take us along with them. Eberley, one of the main chiefs, is a plant from the New Morality but he is only there on sufferance because of a dodgy past. Holly, his trusting assistant, thinks he is wonderful, initially, but then begins to have doubts especially when a suspicious death occurs. Just what is really going on in the ark?
There are lots of other characters coming and going, including a swashbuckling chap who flies through the rings of Saturn just for kicks. Sometimes, it's difficult just to keep track of who's who. However, as with the Cassini mission to Saturn a few years ago, although a lot of the science and wonder was centred on the beautiful Saturn, it's basically a big ball of gas, smaller and less active than Jupiter. The real prize where all the biology is taking place is Titan, Saturn's largest satellite. That's where all the real excitement resides.
I think 'Saturn' by Ben Bova is exactly the same as the Cassini mission. The expedition to Saturn was okay but we were left wondering about something else and in this case it is Titan. It's a good enough story if not a great one. In fact, it is more of a story to pass the time on a journey. The real prize is Titan and that's where Ben takes us in a subsequent novel.
If you are doing 'The Grand Tour', this is a necessary part of the journey but remember, as with the grand tour in the 19th century of European cultural centres, there is only one Florence.
Rod MacDonald
|
|
