Venus

Rating:
Summary: Worthwhile
Review: This may not be the best book in the world, but it is certainly a worthwhile read. For me, the writing did keep me wanting to read more and more, making it hard to put the book down. I'm glad I picked up this book at the store.

Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: This was a great book it included many subplots. Bova did a spectacular job two thumbs up. It was great how Fusch wasnt so bad and hating after all, just misunderstood.

Rating:
Summary: Jules Verne goes to Venus
Review: This was just my second Bova book. His writting style reminds me of my youth when I first started reading books by Edgar Rice Borroughs and Jules Verne. Once I started a book, I couldn't put it down. All the while reading this, I was thinking Nataulis and Captain Nemo. Well done Bova!

Rating:
Summary: 4 1/2 stars
Review: This was the first Ben Bova Book I've read. I really liked it and intend to read more of his books. The action and adventure seems nonstop. I like it when an author can write scifi that seems plausible. Overall one heck of a good story, and I'm glad I discovered another author to go on my 'must read' list.

Highly recommended..Abgd rvw..

Rating:
Summary: Realistic Science Fiction
Review: This was the first book I read from Bova. All I can hope for is that the rest of his books are as interesting. This book takes you on an interesting ride through space and Venus and throws in some very weird and unexpected twists and turns. If your a science fiction fan, please read this book. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: Though obviously set within the same continuum that gave us both the "Moonrise" books and the Mars series, Ben Bova's "Venus" aims to set itself apart from either of the two. In "Venus", set in the middle of the next century, a ruthless millionaire offers an even $10 billion (what will that buy in 50 years?) to the first person who can retrieve the remains of his eldest son from the surface of Venus. Martin Humphries first son apparently died while trying to land on Venus years ago. His surviving son, Van, is a whiny, spoiled brat who suffers from a rare and incurable anemia. In a stroke of irony, Bova makes Van (as unsympathetic a character as you can get) the hero. Van is no fearless strapping pioneer - he explores planets using VR goggles - but his love for his dead brother draws him to Venus. (Also pushing him is the prospect of the prize money, since Van's father has cut off Van's stipend to pay for it.) Also vying for the prize is the mysterious Lars Fuchs. An old enemy of Humphries, Fuchs made his fortunes as a "rock rat", a sort of wildcat driller essentially exiled to the asteroid belt. The enmity between the two provides some of the mystery to the story. Though Humphries is the typical villain in the Bova mold (an anti-environmentalist tycoon, essentially evil incorporate), Fuchs is clearly a throwback to the mysterious genius of Verne - of dark moods, many secrets, oversized ego and an ominous sense in naming his spaceships (Fuch's mothership is named "Lucifer"; the descent module is named "Hecate" after the underworld goddess worshipped by many a coven). Bova even tosses in a sort of love-interest in the beautiful Marguerite Duchamp. When tragedy strikes, and the two must throw their lot in with the enigmatic Fuchs, Bova is deliberately vague about what Duchamp must do to protect Humphries from his father's seemingly unbalanced rival.

But the real star is Venus, one of those nearby worlds that approximates hell. Closer to the sun, it's exposed to more heat than Earth. Ringed by clouds of sulfuric acid, Venus is unable to vent its heat. Unable to hold liquid water, life (as we know it) is an unlikely find. Worse, because the lack of water has also frozen the movement of the planet's upper crust, volcanic pressure of Venus's core has been steadily building up without release, turning the planet into a geological time-bomb. With its slower planetary rotation, Venus accepts the brunt of the sun's energy on one side, (the "subsolar"), generating huge storms called "super-rotations". Bova makes all of this clear to the reader because he not uses Van as the narrator but makes Van something approachable to readers - a planetologist making the leap, not from one planet to another, but from a virtual version of one planet to another. The moralism of the Moonrise and Mars books (the corporatization of planets, and the hypocrisy of those who oppose exotic technologies) is lightened here, though expensive technology firmly demarcates the line between haves and have-nots more forcefully than in those other books. Though Van's transformation to hero is a bit too pat, and there's little-enough sense of time or tension as to what the landing will find when he lands, and even the landing doesn't get the build-up it deserves, but "Venus" still excels. "Venus" will probably be ruined by a sequel, but it will probably be at least as good as the sequel to "Mars", and it definitely deserves one more than "Moonrise" did.

Rating:
Summary: Very Ordinary
Review: Van Humphries has problems. He's unambitious, has chronic anemia, and is something of a dilettante. His fabulously wealthy father despises him because his mother died after giving birth to him and because he percieves him as a weakling. Van's older brother, who he idolized, died on the surface of Venus after becoming the first human to reach it. When Van's father offers a ten billion dollar prize to the person who retrives his older son's remains (assuming there's anything left to retrieve after a long sojourn in the hostile Venusian environment), Van surprises himself and everyone around him by deciding to go for it. It's not really so surprising, though, because Dad simultaneously tells Van that he's going to cut off his allowance and Van has no other means of support. Is ol' Dad manipulating Van?

Ben Bova's VENUS has lots of interesting material about the planet Venus in it, Van is a somewhat appealing character, and there's some engaging action. But, beyond these elements, this is a very uninspired story. The plot is routine and predictable and, with the possible exception of Van, the characters are strictly one-dimensional. I can't say I was bored by this book. In fact, I found it mildly entertaining, but there is nothing here to really recommend it. It's a true mediocrity.

Rating:
Summary: Venus
Review: Van Humphries--about to be cut off, financially, by his father--stitches together an all-or-nothing expedition to Venus, to recover what's left of a doomed explorer whose pioneering trip to our sister planet ended in disaster. The complications: the corpse Van wants to retrieve is that of his braver, stronger older brother, Alex; the ten-billion dollar reward for bringing back the remains is put up by--you got it--Van's father; Van's biggest rival when it comes to landing on Venus first is Lars Fuchs, a rock rat (asteroid scrounger), who learned to hate Van's father when his wife was stolen and his business was ruined by the elder Humphries.

All those complications...plus some rather nasty alien creatures--microcosmic and macrocosmic--waiting for whomever is courageous, or foolhardy, enough to approach Venus.

It is the complications that help keep this book a healthy read, the unpredictable developments that upset Van's mission from the get-go. Each hazard, or outright tragedy, that Van must face, forces him to grow as a man, and as an explorer, because the fact is that at the start of our story, he's pretty craven. This actually works in the book's favour, though, because Van adds instant tension by coming across as maybe his own biggest threat to a safe journey; everyone around Van outshines him, everyone seems braver and nobler than he is. Heck, his first plan is to bring along all his rich, artsy, layabout friends along on the mission, instead of a vital crew! But Van soon learns he has bigger worries than snubbing his friends--after lift-off, Van has to learn to survive space, not social faux pas. He must learn to survive hostile shipmates, a debilitating ailment, the vacuum of space or else the searing heat of a perpetually baked alien environment, and his ship threatening to crumble to pieces around him, thanks to one completely unforeseen, metal-hungry threat lurking in the clouds of Venus. Bova works hard to spice up what could be a fairly routine "boy-grows-into-man" scenario by throwing surprise after surprise at Van. Admittedly, I saw a few surprises coming, but others came out of nowhere, and always there is this creeping feeling that whatever can go wrong is about to go wrong.

Van's character remains compelling throughout, but unfortunately some of the supporting players slip in and out of three-dimensionality (metaphorically, I mean; no mutant powers here!). Van's estranged, hating father is never more than a cardboard cut-out with a cruel mouth, and the love-interest, let's call her--or more accurately, biologist Marguerite--is more uninteresting the less enigmatic she gets. Then there is the character of Venus; I'm not really sure we get enough of the planet, given that the book bears its name. Sort of a teaser look at Venus and its dangers, with the focus really being on getting there (they say that's where the fun is, but still...).

Call this a three-and-three-quarter star review, but I'll be pesky and round down, because of some routine characterization, and Bova's inability to turn it into a truly unique experience.

Rating:
Summary: A new favorite author
Review: Venus is a dificult book to put down. The imagery is excellent. Throughout the read, you feel as if you are watching a movie. I hope Mr. Bova will lisence his works for the big screen. I began reading this book after finishing "Return to Mars". I was suprised to see characters and technoligies carried from on book to another. I works very well for Mr. Bova. I look foreward to reading his Moon series now. I have discovered a new favorite author.

Rating:
Summary: Too much interpersonal conflict for my tastes
Review: Venus is in many ways the ideal woman of literature, beautiful, but improperly approached, deadly. Named after the mythological goddess of beauty, it is the closest planet to Earth and for years, considered the most Earthlike. Hovering like a jewel in the sky, it can sometimes be so bright that it casts a shadow. However, true to the literary femme fatale, the beauty is in appearance only. With acid in the atmosphere, hellish heat and tremendous atmospheric pressure, it is quite likely the driest atmosphere in the solar system and it could serve as the origin of the biblical tales of fire and brimstone.
Given this backdrop, it seems that it would be one of the last places humans would explore, but that is the premise of this story. A ship exploring the planet crashes and a wealthy tycoon offers an incredible reward to anyone who can land on the surface of Venus and bring back the remains of his son. The younger son, scorned by his father but with a very loving relationship with his dead brother, takes up the challenge and embarks on a mission to the planet. Another man, who has a great deal of "issues" with the tycoon, also constructs a ship in an attempt to get the reward.
In general, I enjoyed the science and engineering portions of the story. The strategies employed in the construction of the ships and the methods of navigation really kept my attention. If the story had just involved their difficulties in eliminating the bugs in their equipment, I would have given the book five stars. However, the author chose to include so many familial conflicts between the main characters that it wore very thin. It turns out that the relationships between many of the people are not what they appear to be.
Given the ferocity of the environment on Venus, constructing a plausible scenario whereby people could land on the surface and safely return is a complex and interesting tale. Cluttering it up with interpersonal conflicts takes a great deal away from that story and it would have been a better book if much of that had been left out.