Customer Reviews

Cradle of Saturn

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Okay, the villains make cardboard look thick, the end-of-the-world genre has been "done to death" :), and the Kronan social model is, to be charitable about it, ridiculous. Add to the foregoing the fact that it took me four tries to get past the book's opening, which doesn't (apparently) have *anything* to do with the story, and you'll understand why, despite the fact that I'm a Hogan fan, it took a year for me to get around to this one even after I bought the hardcover.

On the other hand, I finally discovered that this book has two things going for it. First, is Hogan's attitude toward scientific evidence, which shines through many of the scenes. It can be summed up in the phrase "evidence outweighs theory," and Hogan's characters make their case without theatrics. The second thing is the *scale* of the story. It is uncommon for an author to show you in your guts how having six billion voices screaming "INCOMING!" simultaneously feels.

Once this story really got rolling in Part Three, I was hooked. It was like stepping on a skateboard at the top of Mount Everest with no brakes. At midnight, I found myself turning "just one more page" and forcibly reminding myself I had to get up early. I had to know "what comes next, what comes next,...", and I was relating seriously to the hero, who tries desperately to do the right thing even if it means giving up what might be his only shot at survival. That sort of involvement is something only solid writing can create. To be sure, this book has its flaws and it's not Hogan's best work, but it was worth the time and effort I put into it, and I don't recommend starting it if you don't have the time to finish it. Like all the rest of James Hogan's writings, it is good, solid reading. I may not read this one a second time, but I'm glad I read it a first.

Remembering that Science Fiction should more properly be called Speculative Fiction (from Larry Niven), this book meets the criteria very well. Hogan puts a readable and interesting tale around the question "What if Velikovsky was right?" If you like stories that explore different ideas that make your mind work somewhat, you should enjoy this one. If you decide that all existing scientific theories are wrong, or right, based on this book, you are being as closed minded as Hogan's "establishment" scientific bad guys. Treat this one as a good read exploring, literally, earthshattering ideas and handle the scientific arguments by looking at source documentation, (some of which Hogan was nice enough to reference in the paperback), not relying on this fiction book, and you'll enjoy "Cradle of Saturn".

James P. Hogan has a mixed record in the world of "hard" science fiction, with some good books and some not so good. His latest novel, "Cradle of Saturn" (COS), goes well beyond the "not so good" into the "terrible". Ideally, good science fiction results from the combination of good fiction plus at least reasonably plausible science. Unfortunately COS fails on both counts. The writing is turgid and uninteresting, and the "science" is pathetically bad.

In recent years Hogan seems to have fixated on the idea that a conspiracy of scientists is attempting to conceal the Truth about a variety of topics, including AIDS, the stratospheric ozone layer, dinosaurs, evolution, and so forth. Most of the reasoning he uses to support these claims is neither original nor credible. As someone who has some familiarity with atmospheric chemistry, I can say with confidence that most of his allegations about stratospheric ozone are worthless.

Yet in COS, Hogan carries his anti-scientific revisionist nonsense far, far beyond most of his earlier writings. The central theme of this book based on the work of Velikovsky, a crackpot whose ideas about the history and dynamics of the solar system were unsupportable when first published in the early 1950s, and have only become more so in the past half century. To justify his use of Velikovskian ideas, Hogan has to bend, break, or ignore most of modern geology and physics.

Some might argue that the science doesn't matter, as long as the literary side of COS is well done. Unfortunately, it's not. Hogan's characters are cardboard cutouts, with no depth or personality. His prose is uninteresting, and the story frequently is pushed aside to make room for thinly-veiled rants relating to Hogan's bizarre anti-scientific obsessions. It IS possible for a persevering reader to make his or her way through to the end of this book, but the question is -- why would one want to? There are far more worthwhile books out there than could possibly be read in anyone's lifetime; plowing your way through "Cradle of Saturn" will only prevent you from reading something else that would probably be infinitely better.

If you really want to read something interesting by Hogan, I'd recommend "Inherit the Stars" and "The Proteus Operation" over "Cradle of Saturn" any day.

This book really did make me think on a few of the things that "could" actually happen in the universe. It also gives a good presentation of what Immanuel Velikovsky tried to tell about in his book, "worlds in collision". Hogan goes as far as to show how stagnate and closed-minded our scientific community has become. Hogan's characters, while relativly flat to begin with, begome very developed towards the end. This is a good book for the sci-fi theorist.

Its a good read. even better for the generation (below 45) who weren't there for the last round of Velikovsky's popularity. The characters are all out of central casting, the scenes are well done if predictable. if I had bought it on an airport rack it could have served me well the last six times Air West left me at the gate with multiple hours to kill because they are organizationally incapable of keeping to a schedule IMHO. However, this was sold to me as cutting edge hard SF by Baen, a well regarded genre imprint. Truth in advertising please. It is neither hard, nor SF at all. Its a made for Hollywood end of the world disaster novel. A very good one but not what I thought I ordered.

I've enjoyed a number of Mr. Hogan's books in the past but I actually put this one down after 460 pages with only 65 pages to go. It seems to have every one-dimensional charactor and plot cliche you would expect to see in a bad SciFi book. All the scientists are good guys and all the politicians and media are bad guys (and of course they're conspiring together to hide the "truth"). Although there was some interesting science it couldn't overcome a depressing and predictable plot. By the time the hero (a scientist, of course) realizes that he's been in love with his assistant all along you just wish they would both die and put us all out if our misery.

Some of the reviews have compared this to the Bruce Willis movie "Armageddon." I have to admit I didn't see the movie, but I think the comparisons are very superficial. If I had to compare it to a movie, it would probably be "When Worlds Collide." Speaking of movies, I doubt that Hollywood will make one of this book, and if they did they would probably butcher it, but it might be worth it just for the special-effects spectacular that would be needed for the ending. The basic idea of a large object colliding with Earth is not new, but it was handled very well in this book. There were also some echoes of the first Hogan novel, "Inherit the Stars." Hogan doesn't do as many sequels as some writers, but it would be interesting to see what he could follow this up with. It sure wouldn't be set on Earth, unless it was much further in the future. I made the mistake of picking this up to read a little bit before going to sleep, when I was about 150 pages from the end. I ended up finishing it, and was really dragging the next day. As I said above, the way it ends is not too big a surprise, except perhaps for the extent of the disaster, and you knew the hero would survive, but it still keeps you going. I have read a lot of science fiction that was exciting, and a lot that was intellectually stimulating, especially by James Hogan. This book combines both and does it very well.

Hogan's novel is science fantasy in the style of Richard Garfinkle's _Celestial Matters_ (which is set in an alternate universe where Aristotelian physics works). Hogan's premise is that the science and history of Immanuel Velikovsky are correct, and he also incorporates the work of Velikovsky's followers such as Charles Ginenthal.

In Hogan's universe, electromagnetism really does control planetary motion, Venus really was ejected from Jupiter just a few thousand years ago, and Earth really did once orbit Saturn. To top it off, there really is a conspiracy of scientists trying to suppress these truths in favor of the establishment science.

Unfortunately, Hogan's book doesn't measure up to Garfinkle's. Beyond the premise, there's not much new here. The first part of the book is a fairly predictable loner-against-the-conspiracy story. This is followed, once the Velikovskian physics comes into play, by another unsurprising escape-from-the-doomed-Earth plot. The action is also frequently interrupted by exposition, as one character or another stops to explain Velikovskian science.

Except for the protagonist and one or two others, characterization is minimal. Most of the minor characters could be replaced with cardboard cutouts labelled "Precocious Child", "Government Bureaucrat", or "Establishment Scientist", and even the major characters are pretty flat.

Overall, Cradle of Saturn will probably amuse watchers of fringe science and lovers of science fantasy, and parts might even appeal to fans of "The X-Files" genre. But it may be of little appeal to general readers.

You know, I really enjoyed "Inherit the Stars", and the sequel "..Gentle Giants.." was okay. Both had a scientific authenticity that made the stories ever so much more enjoyable. But apparently Hogan has fallen off the wagon, and fallen in with the Crystal Healers in this improbable tale that debunks practically every major accepted scientific theory, from astrophysics and orbital mechanics to evolution and isotopic geology. Clearly motivated by previous nutcase Velikovsky, Hogan literally villifies institutional science, as he scrapes together every half-baked, anecdotal pseudo-scientific story he can find. At times, I would swear this story was being written by a Biblical Creationist - they are so good at ignoring the intricate web of interconnected and supporting scientific evidence. Ironically, this is just the argument that Hogan uses to trash the world's scientific institutions. Predictably, I got pretty mad.

I won't bore you with the details, but the astronomical aspect of this story involves a protoplanet spewed out from Jupiter that just happens to be destined for a close encounter with Earth, after going around the Sun. According to the story, this has happened before in Earth's recent history, and all the "real" evidence points to this bizarre conclusion, but none of the powerful figures in the scientific community believe it. I can safely say that the odds of a single ocurrence on such a scale is, quite literally, astronomically low. And two such events in a six thousand year timeframe is ridiculous! (And that's assuming that Jupiter actually does hock up these planetary spitwads!)

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote of a mysterious and unknown island called Caprona, somewhere in the Southern Ocean, and the story was fine for its time. If written today, in the current era of multiple orbiting observation platforms, the author would be laughed right out of the publishing houses. And that's exactly what should be done with this piece of literary junk.

Admittedly, the action in the second and third parts was riveting at times. But every spare moment our heros had, they'd be patting themselves on the back for being right. Despite the obvious conclusion the book was headed for, I found myself rooting for the meteors, hoping for a miraculous dead-on strike. Hogan seems so good at that.

If you want to read something by Hogan, read "Inherit the Stars". Don't bother with this one.

I read this book and I liked it, so I figured I should rate it. Then I read some of the reviews and felt obligated to write a review. First things first, this novel is science fiction (key word there FICTION.) Many of these reviewers are spouting off that everything put forth in this book is flat out impossible. Isn't it just as impossible for dinosaurs to be cloned, robots to be constrained by "laws" to make them like humans, people to travel through time, the souls of the dead returning to posses people in the future? Don't be so narrow minded as to think that just because an author writes about something that they are preaching about it. Hogan used Velikovsky's ideas to create an entertaining read, he is not trying to debunk popular theory and convert readers. Something else to think about, Darwin, Gallaleo, Einstein, any "founder" of some scientific belief that we readily accept today was often times decried as a heritic, a fool and a nutjob when they first put forth their ideas. Don't be so simple as to think it couldn't happen again. So if you read this book, read it as a form of entertainment and put your biases behind you. If you spend all your life trying to find wrong everywhere you look you just look stupid.