Fai clic su di un'immagine per andare a Google Ricerca Libri.
Sto caricando le informazioni... Saturn: A Novel of the Ringed Planet- And the Humans Who Explore It (The Grand Tour) (originale 2003; edizione 2004)di Ben Bova (Autore)
Informazioni sull'operaSaturn di Ben Bova (2003)
Nessuno Sto caricando le informazioni...
Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. Bova's forte is human interactions and this book is chock full of them. In fact, it's about creation of a political system among various and disparate groups. Unfortunately, the folks who were aboard consisted mostly of misfits and malcontents...like the Brits sent to Australia? At the end, when the habitat reaches Saturn, the reader must wonder what comes next... 412 pages. Get this one from your Library . Yet worth reading if you are a Bova fan. The last 12 pages sum up the whole book. But the story is worth reading. Bova's bias agaaint religion is less prominent in this story than his others. In this story he examines how one comes to power in a closed habitat. Eberly the anatognist is fleshed out with a good solid motive for wanting to take power. His methods are a reminder of what could happen in the US if we are not careful. The space habitat Goddard, filled with political exiles, social misfits, scientists, and engineers, is on its way to orbit around Saturn. There, the habitat will become mankind's first offworld colony. If it can survive the turmoil and drama inherent in the human condition. Malcolm Eberly had a choice, either spend the rest of his life in a Viennese prison or become the New Morality's watchdog aboard Goddard. Hired on as the manager of human resources, Eberly entertains his own agenda, ignoring the edict of the insidious religious zealots who also happen to be funding the expedition. Eberly wants control of the habitat and everyone in it. Joining forces with other unsavory types, he suddenly finds himself embroiled in conspiracy, murder, and lies. Eberly has all living quarters and offices bugged, he uses the habitat's chief of security to threaten and coerce, and manipulates everyone and anyone on his way to the top. Holly Lane is blind too all of this--at first. Joining the habitat project mostly due to her naieve crush on Eberly, Holly soon finds herself the target of Eberly's treachery after she discovers a murder committed by someone in his clique. Suspicious of Eberly, Holly's older sister Pancho requests the aid of interplanetary stuntman Manuel Gaeta to watch over her. After becoming a media sensation for his stunts on Mars and elsewhere, Gaeta's next objective is to be the first human on Titan. However, the habitat's science director will not have the surface of Saturn's largest moon contaminated. Enter nanotech expert, Dr. Kris Cardenas. Her very presence on the station rankles the religious types, especially since nanotech is banned on Earth. Dr. Cardenas proposes the use of nanobugs to decontaminate Gaeta's customized space suit before it leaves the airlock. Of course, it isn't long before she's sleeping with the hunky stuntman. Meanwhile, habitat administrator James Wilmot observes all of this with clinical detachment and reports back to the New Morality HQ in Atlanta. No one but he and his superiors know the true purpose of the habitat. Unlike the other novels in Ben Bova's Grand Tour series, Saturn is less about science fiction than human relations and political intrigue. About the only SF aspect of the story comes near the end when Gaeta has a change of plans and ends up traversing the rings of Saturn, thereby discovering something completely unexpected about the particles that comprise the rings. We are never treated to an exploration of Titan. I was not as satisfied with this story as I'd ben with Jupiter, Mercury, and the multiple Mars books which dealt more with exploration of the planets than with the dark side of humanity. I found the characters' ambitions to be too obvious, too cliche'. Eberly and his cohorts may as well have been mustache twirling villains. Dr. Bova's books always contain a measure of background political intrigue as the New Morality has infiltrated even the top ranks of the Federal Government. Though when an entire SF novel is dedicated to this, it feels like a cheat. It's almost as if Dr. Bova could not devise a better storyline that actually deals with science and exploration. Nevertheless, I will continue on with the Grand Tour series, hoping for better efforts. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Second in size only to Jupiter, bigger than a thousand Earths but light enough to float in water, home of crushing gravity and delicate, seemingly impossible rings, it dazzles and attracts us:SATURNEarth groans under the thumb of fundamentalist political regimes. Crisis after crisis has given authoritarians the upper hand. Freedom and opportunity exist in space, for those with the nerve and skill to run the risks.Now the governments of Earth are encouraging many of their most incorrigible dissidents to join a great ark on a one-way expedition, twice Jupiter's distance from the Sun, to Saturn, the ringed planet that baffled Galileo and has fascinated astronomers ever since.But humans will be human, on Earth or in the heavens-so amidst the idealism permeating Space Habitat Goddard are many individuals with long-term schemes, each awaiting the tight moment. And hidden from them is the greatest secret of all, the real purpose of this expedition, known to only a few....At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
Discussioni correntiNessunoCopertine popolari
Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)813Literature English (North America) American fictionClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
Sei tu?Diventa un autore di LibraryThing. |
On top of that, I don't really care about any of the characters. They're all either cartoonishly evil or inept or scientists that need concepts they should know cold explained to them. It's kind of a bummer also that the main character went through the cryogenic freeze/thaw that we've seen discussed in other books, leaving her having to rebuild her life from scratch. But it really doesn't actually go anywhere. A missed opportunity.
About the only really cool things that redeem this book were the discovery of life and the set up for even grander future books.
For the former, it's sort of Bova's / The Grand Tour's thing that life is found absolutely everywhere, so it's no surprise that Saturn is no exception, but the way it's done was pretty cool. I would much rather have read a book about life in
For the latter, I fully expect a generation ship to show up at some point. With Saturn, it's within the realm of technically possible. Really, if Saturn had taken place on such a generation ship, I think it would have made a much stronger story. So it goes.
Overall, another skippable book in the Grand Tour, unless you really want the full set.
Onwards (and backwards?) to [b:Leviathans of Jupiter|8730311|Leviathans of Jupiter (The Grand Tour, #14)|Ben Bova|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1316130496l/8730311._SY75_.jpg|13574702]! ( )