Venus

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Bova is a master storyteller about planetary exploration! In this book Van Humphries is given a challenge by his rich father. The challenge is to go to Venus and recover the body of his dead brother who crashed during an earlier attempt to explore the planet. The prize is 10 billion dollars.

Van, a type of playboy who is used to the fast pampered life-style of the wealthy is in danger of being cut off from his source of income so his father's prize is enough incentive to risk his life to maintain the type of life he is accustomed to or have to go get a job!

Van is an anemic, who must have two injections a day or die. He is in a race to get to the deadly planet before a renegade asteriod minor (Fuchs) can get there and beat him to the prize. Venus turns out to be full of surprises and unthought of dangers. Van's ship is destroyed and he is rescued by Fuchs and put at his mercy. Additionally, Van's father had ruined Fuchs' life so Fuchs has a score to settle.

The tension mounts as Van, deprived of his injections faces death from his disease, a mutinous crew, and a crazed Fuchs. Additionally, the terrors of Venus also loom.

Bova does an excellent job presenting a science ficion thriller and presents a great deal of detail about Venus.

Rating:
Summary: who would want to go there?
Review: Having had, long ago, a novelette published that was set on Venus, I was curious to see how Ben would handle the modern concept of Venus as uninhabitable and unapproachable. He does a good job of it and the book is definitely worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting science, terrible story.
Review: I approached this novel as a fan of good literature, not as a SF fan, so maybe I am the wrong audiance. But after recently reading SF classics like Stapledon's Last and First Men and Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea I have begun to understnad what good SF is and how powerful it can be. SF can be great lit. Unfortunatly this novel is not an example of that and it pales in comparison to those novels. Bova cares very little for his characters, he ignores his plot and uses all the aspects of storytelling as merely a vehicle to talk about the possibilities of treking to Venus. I admit some of his scientific ideas appear well researched and are very interesting, but the rest of the book is packed with cliches, flat characters and rediculous plot devices. This may appeal to fans of Bova, or fans of SF, but not to someone looking for a great story or good literature.

Rating:
Summary: Great Science Fiction
Review: I enjoyed this book very much. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: very predictable. its like a B movie on late night cable
Review: i first got this book right after it was printed a few years ago. i use to belong to the science ficiton fantasy book club and recieved it in the mail.

this book really is like some crummy movie on the sci fi channel. it has its moments, but is a hollow story which is easily predicted. essentialy the guy goes to venus on a ship to recover the remains of his dead brother. thats pretty much it. a bit of suspense here and there, but you know what happens. a friend told me that mars was a better book than this, so maybe you should spend your money on that.

for those of you that dont know ben bova writes sci fi[DUH]-- but its a specific type of sci fi based on legtimate science of today projected 50 or 100 years into the future. i belive its called futurism or something like that. the niche of sci fi he writes has a specific term, but i cant remember.

this book is not all trash. it has its [brief] page turning moments, but it really doesnt take you on an adventure.

Rating:
Summary: Thrilling Science Fiction Adventure!
Review: I had never read anything by Ben Bova but decided on a whim to read Venus. Boy, was I ever glad I did! What an exciting story! I couldn't put it down. And I don't usually read a lot of science fiction (mostly I read fantasy and mystery). Venus reminded me of classic science fiction adventure stories of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Makes you wonder what's out there. I highly recommend this book to all readers!

Rating:
Summary: Bova's Disappointing Venus
Review: I just finished this book on tape. Had I not been behind the wheel for 1000 miles, I probably would not have completed it. The plot is elementary and completely predictable. The chapter titles in general are able to summarize the entire plot in 1-3 words. The main character's personna is built around a medical condition that is completely untenable, particularly with respect to rapidity of symptoms. A number of factual errors regarding Venus and the mechanics of space flight are made. The writer seems to have a limited bag of cliche' phrases which are sighted often (also in other offerings from him). The ultimate outcome is predictable from chapter #1 and no surprises, apart from occasional random acts of violence, are seen.

Rating:
Summary: Scinece OK, Fiction Not
Review: I like Ben Bova's work; just not this time. It may be the characters' fault. There weren't any of them that I'd want to spend time with -- each more selfish and short sighted than the last. Add plot twists that sent more telgraphs than Western Union and it just wasn't a book to ever pick up again. Too bad the flight was so long...

Rating:
Summary: Venus Envy
Review: I like this new novel by Ben Bova. It's set in the same "universe" as Moonbase and Moonrise. Venus is a fascinating world and Bova captures its mystery and violence quite well. My only misgiving is Bova's preoccupation with murdering parents and envious siblings! Ditto Moonbase. These brutal people are the last kinds of characters we'd want on other worlds. They are amoral and stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Maybe he's too black and white in developing his characters? No matter, Bova has developed a very hard edge although he probably had it all along growing up on the streets of Philadelphia. Still a good book by a very good author.

Rating:
Summary: Big disappointment
Review: I loved Ben Bova's "Mars," so I was looking forward to "Venus." I was disappointed, to say the least. "Mars" was good because it integrated likable, interesting characters into a believable plot, and described both space travel and planetary exploration in engrossing detail that never got boring. "Venus" felt like a gyp. Mostly it was just a soap-operaish plot with unlikable characters (even the protagonist wasn't particularly likable) and very little sense of wonder, as there was during "Mars."

I'm going to read "Jupiter" next, and I hope it has more in common with "Mars" than with "Venus."