Saturn Run by John Sandford and Ctien
I love a great space mystery. This one starts with an alien space vessel spotted entering orbit around Saturn.
The race begins. The US and China compete to get to Saturn first, to be the first to meet the aliens, to be the first to gain new technologies. Then, the ship leaves. But the race is no less intense.
What did the alien ship do at Saturn? Did it leave something there? Is there something there we can’t see by telescope?
Well, I really wanted to know. So I kept reading.
The character interactions are really captivating, and the characters have layers that get peeled away as the story goes on. I thought a really, really long time was spent on how the engines and propulsion worked. Too much time. However, that didn’t take away from me enjoying the story.
Once the ship finally gets to Saturn, the thrills and twists keep going. I wish more time had been spent at Saturn and the mysteries there. But again, I still really liked this book. A lot.
A lot of the plot was pretty intense, pushed along by the race with the Chinese, the politics, and the issues with building a vessel that could get to Saturn in a relatively short time frame. Very well done.
Here’s the official description:
The year is 2066. A Caltech intern inadvertently notices an anomaly from a space telescope – something is approaching Saturn, and decelerating. Space objects don’t decelerate. Spaceships do.
A flurry of top-level government meetings produces the inescapable conclusion: Whatever built that ship is at least 100 years ahead in hard and soft technology, and whoever can get their hands on it exclusively and bring it back will have an advantage so large, no other nation can compete. A conclusion the Chinese definitely agree with when they find out.
The race is on, and an remarkable adventure begins – an epic tale of courage, treachery, resourcefulness, secrets, surprises, and astonishing human and technological discovery, as the members of a hastily thrown-together crew find their strength and wits tested against adversaries both of this earth and beyond. What happens is nothing like you expect – and everything you could want from one of the world’s greatest masters of suspense.