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The planet Saturn is featured in numerous science fiction novels and films, although the planet itself usually serves more as a pretty backdrop than as the actual setting.
[edit] On Saturn
[edit] Literature
- In Voltaire's Micromégas (1752), the eponymous hero arrives at Saturn first (Uranus and Neptune were unknown then). Saturn's citizens are « only a thousand fathoms high », have 72 senses and live for about 15,000 years. Micromégas forms a close friendship with the secretary of the Academy of Saturn, who accompanies him to Earth.
- The unwitting adventurers in Jules Verne's Off on a Comet (1877) pass within 415,000,000 miles of Saturn while riding on a comet. The book describes Saturn as having 8 satellites and 3 rings. It contains a black and white illustration showing what night might look like from the surface of the planet. The rings are brightly illuminated by the sun, and an elliptical shadow is cast on them by the planet. The drawing shows the surface of Saturn as a rocky, desolate, solid surface.
- In H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, Saturn was known as Cykranosh in the Hyperborean Era, both Tsathoggua and Atlach-Nacha came to Earth from there, and Tsathoggua's paternal uncle Hziulquoigmnzhah still resides there.Its also home to the cats of Saturn, the only foe that earthly cats fear.
- In Michael McCollum's novel The Clouds of Saturn (1998), Saturn is a new place for humanity after Earth was heavily boiled by the flaring sun.
- In Charles Stross's Accelerando humans colonise Saturn's upper atmosphere as the inner planets are dismantled into a Matrioshka Brain
- In DC Comics, Saturn's atmosphere is home to immense, enclosed floating cities, the lairs of the Red and White Saturnians, twin races that began as cloned offshoots of the nearly extinct Martian race. Red Saturnians were cloned from Green Martians; White Saturnians were cloned from Pale Martians.
- Ben Bova's novel Saturn (2003) tells about a habitat en route from Earth to Saturn. There is little of Saturn itself in the novel, though. See also: Grand Tour (novel series).
[edit] Film and television
- Space Patrol (1962), puppet television series.
- "The Rings of Saturn" episode. Observing Saturn, Dart and his crew notice a meteor shadowing the Galasphere. On discovering it is actually a Saturnian spacecraft, Dart makes contact and brings a tape of Saturnian language back to Earth for decoding. When contact is finally made with the planet it transpires that Dart has inadvertently offended the Saturnians by picking leaves of their sacred tree.
- "The Miracle Tree Of Saturn" episode. A fungus is destroying crops at an alarming rate. By chance Professor Heggarty discovers a cutting from the Saturnians' sacred tree on Raeburn's desk destroys the fungus and Dart is despatched to Saturn to obtain further supplies. However, their plan has been overheard by an unscrupulous technician.
- Tim Burton's film Beetlejuice (1988) is partly set on a fictional Saturn, populated by giant sandworms.
- The movie The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Galactus consumes Saturn while enroute to consume Earth. The planet and the rings are seen dissolving as Galactus, depicted as a spherical nebula with appendages, is enroute to Earth.
[edit] Saturnian system
- See also Saturn's moons in fiction.
[edit] Literature
[edit] Film and television
- In C. S. Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength (1945), we learn of a prophecy that Ransom "shall be Pendragon in the time when Saturn descends from his sphere". This prophecy is fulfilled when Lurga, the Oyarsa of Saturn, appears in the top floor of the house at St. Anne's along with the Oyéresu of Mercury (Viritrilbia), Venus (Perelandra), Mars (Malacandra), and Jupiter (Glund). Like the other Oyéresu, Lurga's characteristics are reminiscent of the mythology surrounding his planet: his very presence fills other beings with a numbing awareness of time, befitting the associations of Saturn with Kronos and therefore with Chronos.
