Customer Reviews

Saturn Rukh

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Can life exist in a gas giant's atmosphere? Intelligent life is
a hard thing to find anywhere in the universe and this book gives us a whale of a story about a sea so far away. A mission of modern science has been to find other intelligent life and communicate with it. Very few unique kinds of intelligent life have been invented by hard science fiction writers. Robert Forward is one of the best at it.

Spoilers!!

This is typical Forward: wooden characters whose interactions with each other are totally unbelievable, endless detail of beautiful, real near-future science, silly excuse-for-a-plot, and gorgeous, staggering vistas of real otherworlds and their realistic, amazingly creative inhabitants. The ruus, huge gasbags flying in the atmosphere of Saturn, are far more interesting than the humans who contact them, but Forward always does this. The scenes are giant, brilliantly colored, animated Chesley Bonestell movies: the ruus diving to hunt; the humans "climbing down Saturn's Rings" with the aid of the (real) Hoytether, a kind of super rope which Forward marketed; the funeral of an aged rukh whose flockmates sing as she falls endlessly to the lethal gas layers below; the final battle with an alien monster myth-made-real. If you value character and plot, take your business elswhere. For science and the sheer pleasure of the view, read this!

. . .for depth of character development! Like many of Forward's novels, there is a definite weakness in that department. HOWEVER, if you like "hard" science fiction -- sci fi which grasps the best that current scientific understanding has to offer, you will thoroughly enjoy this engaging book.

Forward writes of a mission to Saturn's atmosphere in order to build a fuel factory from the (almost) limitless supply of helium contained there. In the process, the crew discovers life -- life supremely suited to its environment.

4.5 for the science, 3 for the plot, 1.5 for the shallow characters. Overall, a 3 -- and a good read.

I loved this book. I could hardly put it down. Being a science-oriented person, I had no problem with all the science. It did not seem dry or boring at all. The speculation as to the nature of intelligent life in a non-Terran ecosystem was fascinating. I highly recommend this book.

Okay, I got to admit, when I first started reading "Saturn Rukh" I didn't enjoy it at all. I thought there was too much technical details and too much scientific talk (which I'm not very interested in myself). But I kept reading and when I was finished I realised this is really a fantastic story. The aliens are impossible to describe. If you enjoy/can take all the science and technical mumbo-jumbo, then pick it up. I can't do nothing but recommend it. Even if you can't take all the scientific terms and technical jibberish, try reading it. It's a really well-written story.

Life; death; birth. The discovery of intelligent life within our solar system. Good science with a plausible plot and lots of entertainment along the way. What more could a science fiction fan ask for? It may be hard to quantify, but after reading Saturn Rukh, the reader is left knowing that Dr. Robert L. Forward has produced his magic combination once again. Plausibility is balanced with fascinating speculations of proportions that stretch your mind to provide the best of both worlds -- entertainment and educational enlightenment

I always enjoy the books of Mr. Forward, both the fiction and the science articles. I recommend this book to people who like hard science fiction.

However, looking on page 214,we read his character's description of hiragana "...A single Japanese hiragana character can be either a word or a long phrase..." There is more, and this is simply wrong. Each hiragana is a simple character, and a student could easily learn the entire hiragana set in one day. Each hiragana character represents a simple sound and nothing else. Examples are ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. Mr. Forward is confusing hiragana with kanji! Other than that, a good job.

This is the 2nd book I have read by Robert Forward, the other being Camelot 30k. The premise of Saturn Rukh is simple: find a way to extract the elements of Saturn's atmosphere which allow a specialized space fuel to be made orders of magnitude cheaper.
The explorers include 6 humans. In addition two other characters are explored at least a little
The human characters and their interactions are poor, and leave you caring about none of them much. Even when tragedy happens to some characters, you don't feel much.
The alien flying creatures, Rukhs, are intelligent and have language. They are predators that are organized in packs. Robert Forward does a good job of describing the aliens and spends time behind their eyes, (dialog and thoughts). Some scenes are repeated from the Human and Rukh POV, which really helps. In this aspect he is credible.
The degree of time spent on the science explanations wears the reader down. It is not interesting enough. I found myself anxious to get to the alien interaction scenes.
The editing was poor. Example- The word "load" was used 3 times in one sentence.
Overall it rates 3 stars, much was left unresolved, especially," what benefit would the Rukhs receive as a consequence of a permanent human presence on Saturn". My sense is that this could be a good pilot to explore the evolving relationship between humans and Rukhs over a protracted period of time.

RLF is another one of my favorite authors...

Too bad he died...

If you like hard science fiction - you will like this book.

MJL

Robert Forward is a scientist who writes fiction. He thinks and describes in terms of science problems and then writes a fictional story around it. The story is of the first manned expedition to Saturn. The science behind the mission is well substantiated and interesting, (but most likely only to geeks like myself.) In Forward's world, Saturn is inhabited with creatures that "swim" in it's dense atmosphere. We are introduced to the intelligent, apex predator life forms that have an interesting first contact with the humans. The characters are interesting, but the writing is a little Tom Clancy-ish. Characters have fairly basic personalties and their interactions are a little stale.

The yarn is a good one and the predicament, of possibly being stranded is very interesting.