Saturn-Ben Bova

Saturn by Ben Bova is set in the distant future, when humans have obtained the capacity for space travel and a religious group called The New Morality has become the dominant political force. A group of universities has banded together to send an expedition to Saturn, with the intent of studying it. The governments of Earth would like to start a colony, and they see this as the perfect opportunity to get rid of “troublemakers”, or those who don’t follow The New Morality’s teachings. Those who are going see this as an opportunity to get away from the oppressive government and form a new democratic society.

There are a couple of different sets of characters that are the focus of the story. Holly Lane was cryogenically frozen while a teenager because she had an incurable disease. Years later, there is a cure for the disease and Holly is back in society. She is struggling to find a place for herself, and decides to join the colony traveling to Saturn. Her older sister has her doubts, but does everything she can to protect her sister, including sending someone to watch over her.

Malcolm Eberly is a con artist who has been serving time in prison. He is approached by The New Morality to join the colony as head of Human Resources. His true mission is to make sure the “troublemakers” aren’t a problem, and to take control of the colony and form it as The New Morality sees fit. He is assisted by other people who are sent by The New Morality and eventually realizes that they are truly in power while he is a figurehead.

There are problems with this book. The basic plot of the story doesn’t make much sense. If a government truly wanted to get rid of its undesirables, they wouldn’t ship them off to start a colony under the pretext of letting them form their own government while planning on taking control. The characters themselves are also fairly shallow. Much of the time you’re told what their motivation is, instead of being shown through writing. In the first part of the book, Holly is romantically interested in Malcolm and desperately tries to get him to notice her. This plot point abruptly ends, leaving the reader wonder why so much time was invested in this part of the story. Also, the way the book ends rings a little false. For example, one of the “bad guys” is killed when someone pushes him out of an airlock. When discussing the situation later, a couple of characters (who are authority figures) make a big deal out of calling it an execution, however, the person who committed the murder faces no consequences and in fact is in the room with them, almost laughing about it. The whole scene struck me as something out of a Monty Python skit, and I kept picturing John Cleese saying “Yes, yes, it was definitely an execution, good show, old chap!” over and over again. The writing almost seemed like it was aimed for the junior high audience instead of an adult level, and I don’t think that’s what the author intended.

Overall, this was a decent book, but it could have been a lot better. If you’re in your local library and you can’t find anything else, go ahead and give it a whirl. Otherwise, you’re not missing too much.