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Title: Jupiter : A Novel by Ben Bova ISBN: 0-8125-7941-0 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 18 February, 2002 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.84 (38 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: I was moderately impressed by Jupiter, my first Bova book
Comment: Quick plot summary. Grant is a recent college graduate in the not to distant future (maybe one or two hundred years). Religious fanatacism has gained a large influence on Earth through the "New Morality." The government also requires two years of community service from its citizens after college. For Grant's community service, the New Morality sends Grant to a space station orbiting Jupiter to spy on their research of extraterrestrial life. Grant encounters an "intellecually altered" gorilla and gets involved in a top secret deep sea mission.
Jupiter is an interesting read but the ending is slightly unimaginative and a little idealistic. I could have done without the religious overtones. They were necessary for the plot but Bova really laid the religion on heavy at the end. Having said that, the end was by no means bad and the rest of the book was very good. The ideas presented on non-human intelligent life were interesting.
If you don't mind religious influence in a science fiction book, Jupiter is a good, simple (but not elementary) read.
Rating: 4
Summary: Science fiction in the classic style
Comment: Although he has been around for a while and I have read a lot of science fiction, this is only the second Ben Bova novel I have read, the first being one of his stories for teenagers. What I found with Jupiter is that Bova is a decent author, well-deserving of his longetivity in the genre.
Bova's late 21st Century Earth is an unpleasant place dominated by the New Morality, a futuristic spin-off of the Moral Majority. Protagonist Grant Archer is a religious man who is used as a pawn of the New Morality in its efforts to spy on the Jovian explorers. Archer is sent to a space station above Jupiter and quickly learns there are mysterious goings-on, and as the story develops, he gets more and more involved with these happenings himself, until finally he must go on a high-risk exploration of the big planet itself.
I say that this novel is in the classic style of science fiction because it is reminiscent of such sci-fi giants as Asimov and Clarke. Science and scientific exploration are the most important things, and plot and character are next on the list. Nonetheless, although his characters are not all that well developed, they are not one-dimensional. Archer, in particular, is a conflicted individual, torn between the New Morality who he often agrees with and offers his only chance to go home to his wife and his own feelings that the Jovian explorers are doing a necessary thing.
I recommend this book for fans of hard science fiction, in particular, fans of classic hard science fiction. This book fits well into this genre and will not disappoint those readers.
Rating: 4
Summary: I really liked this one. . .
Comment: I enjoyed the Mars books; I enjoyed the Moonbase books; I HATED Venus; and it was with a question of whether "Jupiter" would be more like the former than the latter that I cautiously decided to try this book.
I'm very glad that I did so! Bova, as he as occasionally done before, actually has a thoughtful, religious major character, while at the same time, railing against the worst sorts of religious fundamentalism. This type of balance is difficult to achieve.
I enjoyed the (somewhat predictable) plot and the interesting descriptions of what sort of a manned ship could actually penetrate deep into the Jovian clouds, and the descriptions of the sort of life which might exist under those circumstances.
This book was worth my time.
Recommended.
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Title: Venus by Ben Bova ISBN: 0812579402 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 15 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Return to Mars by Ben Bova ISBN: 0380797259 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Moonrise by Ben Bova ISBN: 0380786974 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Saturn by Ben Bova ISBN: 0312872186 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Precipice by Ben Bova ISBN: 0812579895 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 15 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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