Exploring Tomorrow - 015 Saturn Run - The Political Impact of First Contact 

just finished reading it today. I really liked it, a pity that John Sandford hasn't followed up with other scifi books. What I found intriguing is that in 2015 America's n. 1 adversary was probably Russia, whereas in the book he predicted it would be China.

I love the paths this book review took you into. Interesting reflections about humanity’s tribalism, and about politics, etc. As for science fiction that’s post tribalism, the closest I’ve seen is sequels to 2001 space odyssey. Especially 2061 and 3001.

I've been looking for someone to cover this book at all in the years since it came out and it's been very scant on YT. I'm a lover of relatively "close to home", relatively 'hard' space Sci Fi, like this novel, and The Expanse, and Seveneves, Mars trilogy, Three Body, and so on. Most of those start to eventually go way beyond the relatable close to home science, but Saturn Run was maybe the one that best captured a feeling of "near future space race." I think tribalism is hard to imagine getting away from as ultimately not everyone will always agree to even basic fundamentals. I As long as people have even subtly different preferences for how life should be lived, society becomes anisotropic and along those grain boundaries;the cliques and clubs and groups, fissions will form under stress, and eventually leading to factures. I don't see tribalism as so much of a human condition as it is a natural consequence of anisotropy in our makeup. No amount of acceptance and tolerance in our lifestyle can make up for the fact that eventually a stress concentration will fracture the tribe and put us back where we started. And if we are so 'annealed' as to try and prevent it, it only makes is soft and malleable to outside forces which may not be a useful state to be in. So, conscious of this in some way or not it's been the custom to keep tribes within a certain envelope. The friction between tribes is often frustrating and feels pointless and futile and wasteful. But I try and see it as, in some ways, just the means through which we operate and in some ways the inevitable friction of not being a homogenized mass forced into all being one way or the other (for better or worse) Sure, I got so frustrated by some of the people in this novel doing things I could never in 1000 years imagine trying to think or do. Boneheaded moves for sure on all sides. And good points made all around. Even though truths. But it indeed did a good job of having those different attitudes represented and being at odds in the story. I would love if there was some kind of "politician's book club" where members of the different branches and parties would read books and interact with regular folks who also read those stories and have discussions about how and where those stories can inform future political movement and reaction. That's the type of political discussion that especially the US has tried to burn away I feel. But, like him or not it was an interesting fact to hear how Obama likes Three Body Problem. And knowing an important world-stage leader was thinking about the same questions and scenarios that the book had put into my head, made things feel a little more close to home and important.