The novel “Saturn Run” by John Sandford and Ctein was published for the first time in 2015.

At Caltech everyone has little consideration for Sandy because they think he was hired only because his family is very rich but when he’s the one who realizes that in astronomical observations an object that is approaching Saturn and is slowing down has appeared, he ends up involved in the investigation on it. There’s no doubt that this is an artificial object and the American authorities want to send a mission hoping to contact anyone who’s traveling on that starship and at the same time to keep their discovery secret.

China has been organizing for years a manned mission to Mars but the Chinese also end up discovering the presence of an alien starship in the solar system. The Chinese plans get changed in a hurry to send their mission to Saturn with the goal of arriving there before the Americans. Between the two nations a new phase of their rivalry begins and the prize for the winner could consist in obtaining from the aliens technologies that are much more advanced than those developed by humans.

John Sandford is the pseudonym the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Roswell Camp chose when he left journalism to work as a writer, generally of thriller novels. Ctein is a photographer active in the science fiction community. The collaboration of two such different persons led to writing “Saturn Run”.

The authors explained in an appendix to the novel how they got inspired by technologies that today have been at least theorized trying to project their possible developments and possible practical applications to a fairly close future, about half a century since the story begins in 2066. There’s considerable attention on their part in trying to maintain plausibility and realism in the descriptions of the interplanetary journeys of the missions launched by Americans and Chinese. Great liberties have been taken only with alien technologies, to which they give only some pseudo-scientific explanations.

From this point of view, “Saturn Run” reminds of certain novels by Arthur C. Clarke but the authors also developed the characters by telling a lot of the ways for the members of the American mission to face the preparation and the long journey to Saturn. That’s not a military only expedition but includes civilian scientists and even special staff to document everything that includes Sandy, who quickly turns out to be much more than just a surfer hired only thanks to a wealthy family.

The novel follows above all the long journey to Saturn of the American mission with the problems that may exist on a spaceship that pushes human technologies to their limits but also thinking about how the crew could spend time since everyone would have a lot of free time available. The authors also tell about the personal relationships that get established and this also means intimate relationships, though they mention them without getting into erotic descriptions.

Another crucial element in the plot of “Saturn Run” is the rivalry between the USA and China, which in the 2060s seem the dominant powers at the global level. In the last two decades, China started developing a space program with great commitment to reach and even surpass the USA and Russia concerning manned missions. The USA is coming back after the time wasted after the end of the Space Shuttle program so it’s plausible that in 2066 these two nations could be the contenders for a first contact with the aliens.

The final result in my opinion is good but not very good. The technical-scientific element, together with a non-trivial first contact with aliens, is in my opinion the best one with interesting descriptions for hard science fiction fans. The political element linked to the USA-China rivalry seemed to me quite good but appears more oriented to stress the possible dangers of a clash between the two nations and the fact that people traveling in space have a different point of view than people on Earth. The story of the journey to Saturn seemed to me a bit too much in a soap opera style and burdens the novel while the ending is hurried so there’s also little balance between the various parts of the story.

In the end I found “Saturn Run” interesting in various ways but a bit too long due to parts I had little interest for, where the pace was slower in the story of the characters’ private lives and above all the tension dropped a lot. For these reasons it seems to me a novel that only partially succeeded but you could still like if what I saw as flaws don’t bother you.