Saturn Rukh

{{Short description|1997 science fiction novel by Robert L. Forward}}

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Image:Saturnruhk cover.jpg. Cover art by Bob Eggleton. This art does not depict the rukhs, but rather a related species.]]

Saturn Rukh is a hard science fiction novel written by the United States physicist Robert L. Forward.{{Cite web |date=March 3, 1997 |title=Saturn Rukh by Robert L. Forward |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780312863210 |access-date=2024-04-18 |website=Publishers Weekly}} It was first published in hardcover in March 1997 (and later in paperback in 1998) by Tor Books.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}} Saturn Rukh is themed around human contact with alien organisms on the gaseous planet Saturn. Like many of Forward's books, the novel is a speculation of the nature of intelligent life in a non-Terran ecosystem, in this case the atmosphere of a gas giant.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}

Plot summary

In an unspecified time in the future, a multi-national consortium sends six astronauts to Saturn to establish a helium mining factory to produce stabilized metastable helium ("meta"), a powerful rocket fuel, in the planet's upper atmosphere. If completed properly, each aeronaut will receive a billion dollars. With only enough "meta" to get them to Saturn, failure will cost them their lives. And all too soon the crew of astronauts crash-lands on a surface, which is actually the back of an enormous alien lifeform resembling a stingray in shape. They dub the bizarre creature that moves through Saturn's gaseous upper atmosphere "the Rukh". The creature is 4 kilometers long and has two brains, both male and female. When part of their apparatus is swallowed by one of these giant birdlike beings, the crew needs to find a way to communicate and to be able to cooperate with the Rukhs so that they may survive.

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