Amazon.com
Ben Bova picked his villains well for this fast-paced, popcorn-and-Milk- Duds matinee: Topping the playbill is our sister planet, Venus itself, which Bova matter-of-factly describes as "the most hellish place in the solar system." Sci-fi authors (Bova included) have all but colonized Mars by now, but few have boldly gone to the aluminum-melting, sulfuric-acid-soaked surface of the Morning Star. Venus proves a mighty, unthinking antagonist indeed--frustrating the efforts of sickly but likable rich kid Van Humphries to land there and recover the remains of his older brother Alex, who died two years earlier on another ill-fated mission.
Van gets pushed back and forth between the book's two lesser villains--his mean old cuss of a father, Martin Humphries, who's posted the $10 billion Venus Prize to the first person to return Alex's body, and Lars Fuchs, a belligerent asteroid miner and Martin's arch-nemesis, who's also decided to make a go at the purse.
Characterizations ride coach on this high-adventure flight, but remember that we're talking about Ben Bova here. It's hard to dispute the master's choices as you're following Van's well-researched, thrills-and-chills descent through Venus's pressure-cooker atmosphere. With solid science, a palatable environmental message (how could you resist commenting on greenhouse gases in a book like this?), and an inspiring character arc for unlikely hero Van, Venus delivers guilt-free, man-against-nature SF in a tight, page-turning package. --Paul Hughes
From Publishers Weekly
In 1993 Bova took readers to Mars and himself onto bestseller lists. Last year's A Return to Mars also sold well. So a narrative about manned exploration of Venus seems an obvious step for this popular author, and Bova's new novel will indeed please his fans, as it offers his usual mix of solid science, serviceable (if sketchy) characterizations and lickety-split plotting with plenty of cliff-hangers. It's late in the 21st century. Three years ago, the first human to visit Venus, Alex Humphries, son of decadent multibillionaire Martin, never returned. Now Martin is offering $10 billion to whoever will retrieve Alex's remains from that planet's hellish surface. Racing against one another for the prize are Alex's aimless younger brother, Van (the story's narrator, who's just been disowned by Martin), and legendary asteroid-miner Lars Fuchs, who detests Martin as much as Martin detests Van. Van's expedition goes bad early on; high above Venus, colonies of alien "bugs" eat through his ship's hull, forcing him and his crewAseveral of whom dieAto seek refuge on Fuchs's stronger craft. Personality conflicts rampage there, particularly between domineering Fuchs and mild-mannered Van, and there's romantic tension between a young female biologist and Van. The real drama, however, arises from revelations that explain the roots of the hatreds among Van, Fuchs and Martin, and during Van's dangerous descent in a small ship to the surface of Venus, which Bova depicts with strong visual imagery as a deadly infernoAalbeit one inhabited by an unexpected life form. This novel clicks along only predictably as Van's coming of age tale, but as a voyage to an unknown world, it excels. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
When business tycoon Martin Humphries offers a fortune to the first person to travel to Venus to recover the remains of his son Alex, lost on the planet two years earlier, two men take him up on his offer. One is his frail second son Van; the other is his rival and greatest enemy. Bova's latest novel not only captures the alien and hostile Venusian atmosphere but also manages to tell a top-notch adventure story of broken dreams and lifelong hatreds that match the turbulence of Venus itself. The author's excellence at combining hard science with believable characters and an attention-grabbing plot makes him one of the genre's most accessible and entertaining storytellers. Recommended for sf collections. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
A leading light of hard sf and space advocacy turns his attention from Mars to Venus. Van Humphries is the sickly and despised second son of a billionaire whose elder and favorite son died in the first attempt to land a man on Venus. In competition with another expedition, undertaken by his late mother's first husband, he sets out to recover his brother's body. Bova's subordination of characterization to setting and hardware works well because it is subordinated to the depiction of a worthy antagonist--the terrifying environment of Venus' surface, where the atmospheric pressure is hundreds of pounds per square inch, temperatures are high enough to melt lead, visibility is nonexistent, the weather starts at vile and gets worse, and the air is, when not actively poisonous, still totally unbreathable. Altogether, the place is a fine setting for a man-versus-environment tale. Hard sf fans in general and Bova fans in particular will generate strong demand for his highly respectable new effort. Roland Green
From Kirkus Reviews
Guess where the action of editor/writer Bova's latest science fiction yarn (Return to Mars, 1999, etc.) takes place? Egotistical and brutal magnate Martin Humphries offers a prize of ten billion dollars to anyone who can reach the surface of Venus and recover the remains of his beloved son, Alex, who perished there two years ago during a voyage of exploration. Narrator Van, Martin's sickly, despised younger son, declares he'll make the attempt. Asteroid miner Lars Fuchs, Martin's hated and feared longtime antagonist, will also join the effort. With Martin pulling all the strings, Van is given little say in his expedition's makeup. Still, the party reaches Venus and descends into the thick, broiling atmosphereonly to discover microorganisms consuming the fabric of their ship! Fuchs, having also arrived on Venus in a vastly superior ship, attempts a rescue, but only Van and biologist Marguerite survive. Fuchs loathes Van, of course, and beats him up. But Van needs constant medicationhe saved none from the wreckor he'll die. Only Fuchs himself can provide a blood transfusion. Fuchs agrees, but then puts Van to work. The ship descends toward the hellish surface. Finally, after various adventures (mutiny, illness, murder, revenge), the seekers discover Alex's escape podonly for their ship to be threatened by weird, metal-eating life-forms. Exciting and vividly wrought, if somewhat predictable and improbable. The coming-of-age theme, though, should find its natural YA audience.-- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"Venus scorches."--Kansas City Star
"Bova proves himself equal to the task of showing how adversity can temper character in unforeseen ways."--The New York Times
Review
"Venus scorches."--Kansas City Star
"Bova proves himself equal to the task of showing how adversity can temper character in unforeseen ways."--The New York Times
Book Description
The surface of Venus is the most hellish place in the solar system. The ground is hot enough to melt aluminum. The air pressure is so high it has crushed spacecraft landers as though they were tin cans. The sky is perpetually covered with clouds of sulfuric acid. The atmosphere is a choking mixture of carbon dioxide and poisonous gases.
This is where Van Humphries must go. Or die trying.
His older brother perished in the first attempt to land a man on Venus, years before, and his father had always hated Van for surviving when his brother died. Now his father is offering a ten billion dollar prize to the first person to land on Venus and return his oldest son's remains.
To everyone's surprise, Van takes up the offer. But what Van Humphries will find on Venus will change everything--our understanding of Venus, of global warming on Earth, and his knowledge of who he is.
About the Author
Born in Philadelphia, Ben Bova worked as a newspaper reporter, a technical editor for Project Vanguard (the first American satellite program), and a science writer and marketing manager for Avco Everett Research Laboratory, before being appointed editor of Analog, one of the leading science fiction magazines, in 1971. After leaving Analog in 1978, he continued his editorial work in science fiction, serving as fiction editor of Omni for several years and editing a number of anthologies and lines of books, including the "Ben Bova Presents" series for Tor. He has won science fiction's Hugo Award for Best Editor six times.
A published SF author from the late 1950s onward, Bova is one of the field's leading writers of "hard SF," science fiction based on plausible science and engineering. Among his dozens of novels are Millennium, The Kinsman Saga, Colony, Orion, Peacekeepers, Privateers, and the Voyagers series. Much of his recent work, including Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, The Precipice, and The Rock Rats, falls into the continuity he calls "The Grand Tour," a large-scale saga of the near-future exploration and development of our solar system.
A President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, in 2001 Dr. Bova was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He lives in Naples, Florida, with his wife, the well-known literary agent Barbara Bova.
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