An asteroid survey reveals an alien spaceship, seemingly damaged in a war when humanity was still in its infancy. Its discovery could tip the precarious political balance, unleashing a nuclear war that humanity won’t survive. The race is on to reach Saturn’s moon Methone, make contact, and secure a technological advantage for their country.
If this sounds familiar from novels like Clarke’s 2010, it’s because it’s a classic golden age Cold War-inflected ‘Big Dumb Object’ story, even though it was written in 2017. Johnson’s NASA background is clear in his enthusiasm for science, the engineering details of space travel, and the general aura of technocratic right-stuff positivity. What’s unfortunately less evident is nuanced politics, character development, and worldbuilding. This is a well-paced action-oriented quest plot - we go to A, uncover exposition, then to B for more exposition, and so on. But the linear narrative lacks meaningful conflict or arc, instead relying on the situation back on Earth for its tension.
It’s not a bad book, it’s just that there is plenty of modern SF that delivers the engineering and the sense of wonder, without neglecting the literary. Too much of the book is taken up with lectures that have little relevance to the plot, or unnecessary explanations of technologies which are part of the modern vernacular. This isn’t worldbuilding, it’s irrelevant textbook detail that bloats an already overlong book. If this were written in the golden age, it would have likely been well regarded, but in 2017 it doesn’t add anything new.
Mission to Methone has the science, wonder, and pace, but neglects prose, plot complexity, character development, and the romantic subplot (such as it was – the last page is cringeworthy). If it had nailed one or two more of these, I’d be happy, but as a derivative big dumb object/first contact novel, it doesn’t do enough – the genre has moved beyond these technocratic roots. Instead, if you want that golden age fix, I’d recommend a reread of the classics like Eon, Orbitsville, Rama, 2001, and so many more.
