"Books and Far Away" submissions | pay tribute to the hard science fiction of the sea of stars - reading "Crossing saturn's rings" has a feeling

When you have an accident in outer space, can you escape using the technology you already have? In The Martian, Andy Weir gives a guide to growing potatoes, while in "Crossing the Ring of Mars", Xie Yunning also gives his own answer.

The protagonist gradually leaves the road, because of the accident was thrown into the ring of Saturn, in the few remaining lives, he crossed the ring of Saturn with a very low probability, came to Enceladus, and miraculously survived, and finally waited for the rescue of the earth, but also completed the redemption of his soul.

The story reads very similar to "The Martian", such as accidents in space, roots in another planet after experiencing nine deaths, and the rescue process is thrilling. The author also wrote in the afterword that he was inspired by a series of works including The Martian.

However, in the process of writing, the author did not limit himself to the existing works, but wrote his own style with a clear idea.

First of all, the author's starting point is to let the protagonist take a big adventure in Saturn's rings. Well, this adventure has to find an excuse as a beginning, the author did not make a mistake, but honestly chose a clichéd script, the spaceship is hit by a stone, eject the escape pod, and gradually throw the road into Saturn's ring.

After that, how to survive when the road gradually drifts away? He needs food and water to survive, and saturn has ice in his rings and food reserves in his own spacesuit, which add up to a period of time. The old road, on the other hand, relies on the spacesuit jet and can move through Saturn's rings. These all provide the conditions for the big adventure.

So the question is, why did the road fade away from saturn's rings to "die"? In the first half of the story, the author interpolates the story of the road to the past: he is cloned as a father's new student, received a rigorous education, once saw Comet Kotek at the top of the mountain with friends, and had a desire to go to space to chase it. The heaviness of reality and the pursuit of ideals form a strong conflict, which not only sets a reasonable cause for the story, but also supplements the humanistic care for the story. In this process, the author also made a detailed description of his "game ghost" characteristics, such as thinking of his father when fighting Ganlov, thinking of parting ways with his friends when fighting Dr. Zhang, etc., which made the inner world of the road more abundant.

Lu Gradually survived in Saturn's rings, how should the plot continue after that? Inspired by cassini's collision with Saturn, the author made up a number two, and on number two, set up an AI "Doris", and Doris accompanied the road to drift away, and planned the route for him. After this, the author has a very powerful point, his vision is not limited to the big adventure, but gives the protagonist a higher mission. NASA's "Oates" was stuck under saturn's ice, and the old way to repair "Oates" was exchanged for NASA authorizing Doris to give him airdropped thrusters so that he could reach Enceladus. In this way, the protagonist can still shine at the end of his life, and the position of the story is instantly improved by a large margin.

So, how can the old road to Europa continue to live? The protagonist in "The Martian" is a potato, but Europa can't grow potatoes, and methane can't be used, and the author is very witty to think of making an artificial species to put on, that is, the "earth feather fish" in the book.

After this series of stories, you will find that the author's imagination is completely "released": Doris was created into human memory and became a sentient and loving AI; clones have become common, but they have begun to fight for their rights; gene editing can be easily manipulated, and earth feather fish have been designed by genetic hackers on Earth and edited and bred on Enceladus.

In this adventure, the protagonist makes full use of a series of high-end technologies today: nanorobots, 3D printing, CRISPR, nuclear batteries...... On this journey, there are also many previously mature technologies, such as hydrazine fuel, etc., at the same time, VR technology has played a huge role in people's lives and scientific research... Undoubtedly, this book is a feast of science and technology.

It can be seen that in the process of the author's self-release, although he still wrote about genes, AI ke, and Longren in a cliché, the author boldly imagined what would happen after the application of the technology. Of course, there are some details in the book that have not been polished, such as where does the medium for cultivating earth feather fish come from? Can nanorobots be as ever-changing as in the book? Without a year's worth of vitamins, can people still survive? How could the two sworn enemies of the rescue protagonist come to an agreement so quickly? I hope that in the next work, the author can start from the details and bring readers a better reading experience.

Unit: Guangzhou Planning and Natural Resources Automation Center Website Management Department

Author: Peng Xiaoping