Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn

infobox Book |
name = "Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn"
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = 1984 edition by Del Rey Books.
author = Isaac Asimov
illustrator =
cover_artist = Darrell K. Sweet
country = USA
language = English
series = Lucky Starr series
genre = Science fiction novel
publisher = Doubleday & Company
release_date = 1958
media_type = Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
pages = 186 pp
isbn = NA
preceded_by = Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter
followed_by =

"Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn" is the final novel in the Lucky Starr series, six juvenile science fiction novels by Isaac Asimov that originally appeared under the pseudonym Paul French. The novel was first published by Doubleday & Company in 1958. It was the last novel to be published by Asimov until his 1966 novelization of "Fantastic Voyage", and his last original novel until 1973's "The Gods Themselves". "Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn" is the only novel by Asimov set in the Saturnian system.

etting

"Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn" is set mostly within the Saturnian system, depicted as accurately as the knowledge of the late 1950s allowed. At that time, only nine satellites had been discovered, the innermost known satellite being Mimas. Asimov describes Mimas as being 340 miles in diameter, but its diameter is now known to be 240 miles. Several of the novel's chapters are set on Titan, which was then thought to be the third largest satellite in the Solar System, after Ganymede and Triton. Its atmosphere is described as "almost as thick as Earth's" and composed mostly of methane. It is now known that Titan is the second largest satellite in the Solar System after Ganymede, and that its atmosphere is denser than Earth's and is 98.4% nitrogen and only 1.6% methane.

The final chapters take place on the asteroid Vesta, which Asimov notes is the brightest of the asteroids. At the time, it was believed that Vesta was 215 miles in diameter, although its mean diameter is now known to be closer to 330 miles.

Plot summary

Six weeks after returning from the Jovian system, David "Lucky" Starr receives an urgent visit from Hector Conway, Chief Councilman of the Council of Science. The Council has been sweeping up the Sirian spy ring uncovered by Starr in the Jovian system, but the head of the ring, Jack Dorrance, has eluded capture and escaped from Earth in his one-man spaceship, "The Net of Space". A fleet led by Councilman Ben Wessilewsky is in hot pursuit, but there is only one ship that can catch up with Dorrance, and that is Starr's own "Shooting Starr".

Starr and his sidekick John Bigman Jones follow Dorrance to the Saturnian system. Dorrance tries to lose them in Saturn's rings, but his ship is destroyed by a ring fragment. A Sirian ship then contacts Starr and informs him that the Sirians have set up a colony in the Saturnian system and claimed it for Sirius. This is contrary to established precedent, which holds that all the worlds in an inhabited stellar system are considered to be under the rule of that system's inhabitants, whether they have permanent settlements on those worlds or not. The Sirians, however, intend to establish a new precedent. The Sirians warn Starr to leave the Saturnian system, and he does so. Starr takes the "Shooting Starr" to Wessilewsky's fleet, and orders them back to Earth. However, he has a plan to deal with the Sirians, and Wessilewsky joins Starr and Bigman on the "Shooting Starr" as they sneak back into the Saturnian system.

When several Sirian ships pursue the "Shooting Starr", Starr makes for Mimas at full speed. As the "Shooting Starr" dives down to the moon's surface, Starr fires his fusion beam at it, drilling a tunnel in the ice ahead of the ship, and fooling the Sirians into thinking he has crashed. Starr leaves Wessilewsky below the surface of Mimas with enough supplies to maintain himself for several months, then takes the "Shooting Starr" back into space. The ship is immediately surrounded by Sirian ships, and Starr speaks with a Sirian named Sten Devoure who demands his surrender. Starr does so, and a Sirian robot boards the "Shooting Starr" and pilots her to the Sirian base on Titan.

At the base Starr and Bigman meet Devoure, who threatens to have Bigman killed unless Starr agrees to testify at an upcoming interstellar conference on the asteroid Vesta that he entered the Saturnian system to spy on the Sirians. Starr makes a deal with Devoure: if he spares Bigman's life, Starr will testify that he entered the Saturnian system in an armed ship, and he will also lead the Sirians to Wessilewsky's base on Mimas.

At the Vesta conference, Devoure admits that the Sirians have established a base on Titan. He insists that the fact that Saturn is part of Earth's stellar system is irrelevant: "An empty world is an empty world, regardless of the particular route it travels through space. We colonized it, and it is ours." Devoure then brings out Starr, who admits to having re-entered the Saturnian system after being warned off, and also that Wessilewsky established a base on Mimas. Devoure shows a video of Wessilewsky being taken from Mimas by the Sirians.

Hector Conway then asks Starr why Wessilewsky was on Mimas. Starr replies that Wessilewsky was there to establish a colony on Mimas. Conway repeats Devoure's words: "An empty world is an empty world, regardless of the particular route it travels through space. We colonized it, and it is ours." He points out that by removing Wessilewsky from Mimas, the Sirians were violating the very principle they were trying to establish. The conference ends with a handful of client worlds voting with the Sirians, and the rest voting with Earth. The Sirians are ordered to release their Terrestrial prisoners and dismantle their base on Titan within a month. If the Sirians resist, they will face war with Earth practically alone, with no help from the rest of the Outer Worlds.

Themes

"Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn" was written between December 1957 and February 1958, in the immediate aftermath of the launch of Sputnik I by the Soviet Union, and Asimov could not resist commenting on the event. He does so in chapter 8, by having Starr talk about the superiority of Sirian robots:

:"These robots are a human achievement. The humans that did the achieving are Sirians, yes, but they are human beings, too, and all other humans can share pride in the achievement. If we fear the results of their achievement, let's match it ourselves, or more than match it. But there's no use denying them the worth of their accomplishment."

Twice in the Lucky Starr series, in "Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids" and "Rings of Saturn", Earth finds itself on the brink of war with the Sirians as the result of Sirian aggression. On both occasions, Starr uses his formidable intellect, not to help Earth win the war, but to avert the war. Even a victorious war against the Sirians, Starr knows, would leave the worlds of the Solar System devastated. Again the analogy to the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union is obvious.

"Rings of Saturn" is the only novel in the series in which the Sirians themselves appear as characters, as opposed to Sirian robots or Earthmen working for the Sirians. The Sirians themselves do "not" resemble the Soviets. With their combination of militarism and racism, the Sirians more closely resemble the Nazis. As was the case in "Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury", Asimov's own liberal politics are on clear display. In chapter 10, a Sirian character contrasts his own society with that of Earth:

:"We have kept our descent pure; we have not allowed the weaklings in, or those with poor genes. We have weeded out the unfit from among ourselves so that we are now a pure race of the strong, the fit, and the healthy, while Earth remains a conglomerate of the diseased and deformed . . . .

:"To the Outer Worlds, Councilman Starr, Earth is a terrible menace, a bomb of sub-humanity, ready to explode and contaminate the clean Galaxy. We don't want that to happen; we can't allow it to happen. It's what we're fighting for: a clean human race, composed of the fit."

Starr, speaking for Asimov, retorts:

:"Composed of those "you" consider fit. But fitness comes in all shapes and forms. The great men of Earth have come from the tall and the short, from all manner of head shapes, skin colors, and languages. Variety is our salvation and the salvation of all mankind."

External links

A [http://homepage.mac.com/jhjenkins/Asimov/Books/Book026.html review] of "Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn" by John H. Jenkins.