Saturn's Race

July 3, 2000
The bestselling team of Niven and Barnes (The Legacy of Heorot; Lucifer's Hammer) have produced another compulsively readable, immensely enjoyable near-future yarn. The year is 2020 and the world is run by corporate conglomerates. Beautiful, brilliant Lenore Myles has just completed her master's degree and is poised for an exciting career in biological research. She is celebrating her graduation on the wondrous floating island Xanadu. Wealthy, attractive Chaz Kato, whose foundation was instrumental in paying for Lenore's expensive education, offers her the chance to do cutting-edge research on the island and be his lover. To entice Lenore to break her current contract, Chaz gives her his security clearance, allowing her carte blanche to the island's many technological secrets. During her exploration, Lenore stumbles upon a plot to sterilize the lower classes. Horrified, unsure of who is in on the conspiracy, she flees the island without telling Chaz of her findings. Saturn, an immeasurably powerful virtual creation run by persons unknown, plants false information about Lenore's whereabouts. This data is dutifully reported to Chaz by his ex-wife, Clarice MaibangDformerly an artist from a primitive culture, now a highly placed member of the island's security team. To save Lenore from the murderous Saturn, Chaz must plug into a program designed to create "squaliens"Dsea creatures who have been augmented for greater intelligenceDand, eventually, risk everything to uncover Saturn's identity and the secret that Lenore has now forgotten. Brilliantly weaving high-tech internets, augmentation technologies and social issues into a fast-paced cloak-and-dagger action adventure, this novel effortlessly moves from the depths of the ocean to the heights of VR to create a dazzling, seamless whole.

July 1, 2000
In this well-done futuristic thriller set in a world in which national governments are giving way to supranational corporations, a so-called council led by a mysterious Saturn and based in a high-tech floating city, Xanadu, attempts to control population growth by causing a whole generation of sterile women. Japanese American computer expert Chaz Kato is actually the grandfather of the young man who, thanks to massive surgery and medication, he appears to be. With his two lovers, American Lenore Myles and Indonesian Clarise Maibang, he discovers an increasingly bloody trail leading to the contraceptive conspiracy, which finally erupts in global war. The narrative jumps about a good deal, but each jump brings new technological wonders and social institutions, tongue-in-cheek bits of cultural history (such as O. J. Simpson portraying Othello), and continuous byplay between the three principal characters. It would be hard to call this book more than an intelligent romp, but it isn't anything less, either. ((Reviewed July 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)