| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
-- Publishers Weekly
Product Description
Among the Saturnian moons, farsighted individuals, working without help or permission from any government, have established a colony. They call themselves the Kronians, after the Greek name for Saturn. Operating without the hidebound restrictions of bureaucratic Earth, the colony is a magnet, attracting the best and brightest of the home world, and has been making important new discoveries. But one of their claims -- that they have found proof that the Solar System has undergone repeated cataclysms, and as recently as a few thousand years ago -- flies in the face of the reigning dogma, and is under attack by the scientific establishment.
Then the planet Jupiter emits a white-hot protoplanet as large as the Earth, which is hurtling sunwards like a gigantic comet that will obliterate civilization....
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Decades before, a group of idealists left Earth and settled on a moon of Saturn where they have an essentially non-capitalist communist society where everyone works toward the common good.
The Kronians, as they are called, set off for Earth after Jupiter vomits forth a planet-sized ball of matter which immediately sets off for the inner system.
Earth's scientific establishment refuses to accept The Kronians' findings which indicate that Athena, as the protoplanet has been named, will not follow the course which Earth scientists predict. Soon afterwards it is confirmed that Athena is heading on a course which will bring it close to Earth and therefore cause untold destruction.
Meanwhile, Keane's nemesis, Professor Voler, is plotting a scheme to kidnap the Kronian delegation and escape on their ship.
The plot is a fairly standard affair and, with all due respect to Hogan, the effects of the protoplanet's passing was done to far better effect in `When Worlds Collide' some seventy years before.
Hogan has to be credited however with his examination of a rather unorthodox and one would imagine unpopular branch of scientific theory, based on the work of Immanuel Velikovsky. Some of the arguments put forward seem quite plausible.
Keane's love interest in the novel is Vicki, a woman bringing up her gifted son Robin alone. Robin (who is no more than a plot device to expound Fortean theories) has worked out that dinosaurs could not have existed in Earth's gravity since they would have collapsed under their own weight. It is suggested, following archaeological discoveries among Saturn's moons, that Earth was once a satellite of Saturn and was knocked out of orbit at some point in the past. This apparently explains the dinosaurs since the proximity of Saturn would have negated some of the planet's gravity, although it's not explained how anything could have survived when the planet moved from Saturn (which may have provided heat at the time) all the way to Earth's habitable orbit.
One has to say however that Hogan throws in lots of proper science to make the whole thing seem like common sense.
There's also a handy list of further reading at the back for those who would like to know more about Velikovsky and his work.
It's an enjoyable enough read, although the characters are a tad one-dimensional. One would also like to have learned more of the Kronians who have established what is essentially a Communist Technocracy within the rings of Saturn
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.
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.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
