Venus

Rating:
Summary: 4 Bova Blast Furnaces
Review: Ben Bova is one of science fiction's best known authors and editors. He is not a great writer but he can deliver entertaining stories. Venus is a light read and an entertaining story but not one that will stand the test of time.

Venus features a character named Van Humphries who accepts his father's challenge to travel to Venus and recover his brother's dead body. At stake are $10 billion and his father's respect. Humphries must face a number of challenges along the way including the hostile Venusian conditions, a competing expedition and his own weaknesses. If this sounds familiar, it is. However, the possibilities involved in landing an expedition on Venus which is the hellhole of the solar system are too tempting to ignore. Venus is a very readable book and the familiarity and predictability of the plot only add to its charm.

I was particularly entertained by his descriptions of the Venusian climate, the wind conditions, the intense heat and the great pressure. Just when I was getting annoyed at the lack of explanation of the ship's modus operandi, Bova began to explain heat exchangers. Still there wasn't very much depth in the explanation. I expect that thermodynamics is not Bova's specialty.

All in all, Venus is nice light read although I would save it for a cold winter night when the description of the heat might be really appreciated.

Rating:
Summary: typical Bova's novel
Review: This is one of the very few novels written about Venus and Bova did pretty good job, once again in combining the good descriptions of Venus with the science fiction speculation. The son of a millioner goes on the quest to find his brother's remains on Venus.(His brother's first manned expedition to Venus ended in fiasco). Along the way he learns more about his family... For people, who look for literature-like writing and character development, look elsewhere. This book is for Bova's fans, who like myself read science fiction because of speculative ideas and plot. Fast paced, straight to the point novel.

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: Quality Science Fiction, with a Strong Plot
Review: This is the first time I've ever sat down to read anything by Ben Bova, a name that I had heard attributed to "hard" science fiction. As far as my science fiction reading goes, I normally prefer my science plausible, but not hard: my own science background was physics and chemistry to the end of highschool, and then a mild spattering of brain-centric biology for my psych/english lit degree.

Imagine my surprise when I found "Venus" to be a science fiction novel with a strong plot as well as hard science. The science in this fiction does not overwhelm, with the typical use of a character or two that aren't as accomplished in the realms of science as the others, forcing the more educated to explain to the others - and the reader.

The plot itself starts as a basic 'run for money.' A truly hateful man sets up a prize: 10 billion for the first person to return from Venus with the remains of his son, who died there on the first manned mission to the hellish planet. The other son, a weakling, a runt, and a bit of a dandy, rises unexpectedly to the challenge, and the race is on.

That said, this 'protagonist' is the least enjoyable part of the book. The main voice of the novel, he begins as a whiny, spoiled, soft and clueless man, and though he almost immediately begins to grow, there are points at which you'd gladly see him tossed out an airlock.

Woven into the story is a rich tableau of family secrets and hatreds, a political -vs- corporate battle, and of course, the hostile attempts to survive in the hellish world that is Venus herself.

For a fast-pace action science fiction novel, 'Venus' delivers in spades. The characterizations are often a little slow to growth (especially our 'hero'), but suffer through his views for the first quarter of the book and I promise you you'll be involved and interested in his welfare from there out.

'Nathan

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: Blistering Entertainment
Review: When I started reading this tale, I was less than impressed with Ben Bova's choice of a protagonist. But, the reader quickly begins to empathize with Van Humphries, the somewhat sickly, younger son of billionaire, Martin Humphries.

The plot develops as Martin-still mourning the lost of his first son Alex; whose spaceship crashed on the first manned expedition to Venus-withdraws his financial support for Van. Simultaneously, Martin announces a $10 billion Venus Prize to the first person who recovers Alex's remains from the planet's scorching surface. Reluctantly, Van rises to the challenge, and puts together an expedition in search of his monetary independence.

In a well-paced tale, Van encounters incredible dangers and a determined rival, Lars Fuchs (his fathers arch-enemy), as he descends through Venus's hellish atmosphere. Van experiences real character growth as he struggles to overcome everything his shipmates and Venus can throw at him.

You know the writing is good when you stay up late because you've got to find out what happens next. That's what happened to me when I reached the book's climax.

--David Hitchcock, author, VIRTUAL LIFE and PATENT SEARCHING MADE EASY

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: Boring, predictable Bova cookie-cutter plot
Review: The plot of Venus is very predictable. The Characters are all paper-thin and even the descriptions of Venus and the science of being there is nothing better than what can be found in a book that focuses on planetary astronomy.

If you want to read Bova's Tour 0f the Solar System series, then Venus is a required read. If you are looking for Hard SF that will make you think, go read Stephen Baxter, Gregory Benford or Greg Bear. This book will disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: Not one of Bova's best
Review: I'm surprised that people like this book as much as they did. I really liked _Mars_, reasonably liked _Return to Mars_, liked _Jupiter_, but I really really did not like _Venus_.

Why?

Somehow, nothing resonated for me. I found the characters boring, the dialog awful at times-- note especially the horrible exchange after Van tells his father that he will tell the media all of his secrets:

--------------------------------------------
"You... you..." Martin sputtered.

--------------------------------------------

I know that I'm not reading Bova for sparkling dialog and characterizations, but this really is sub-par.

Even the descent into Venus just wasn't exciting. I often had trouble developing a mental picture of what was happening, something that was never a problem with _Mars_.

Maybe it was Bova burnout? (I read _Mars_, _Return to Mars_, and _Venus_ over a 2 week period).

Recommendation-- read _Venus_ last, or not at all. It isn't even that necessary for Bova's universe building.

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.