Monday 31 March 2014

Book Report #84 - Farside by Ben Bova

8 of 52
page count - 367

This had a higher page count than I'm trying to concentrate on but I've always enjoyed Bova's work and have found him an easy read.

As much as I like Bova I found this book to be longer than it had to be.  A lot of points were repeated to the point of annoyance.

That said, I enjoyed it.  This is the kind of science fiction that I'm always interested in; there are no aliens, for a start, it's about people, people trying to make a living, trying to accomplish something.  With that comes conflict and opposing interests.

The book confines itself to the moon but travel throughout the solar system is part of the reality of the setting.  This kind of near-earth SF is fun to read because it's the next logical step in human exploration.  Our technology today does not include interstellar travel. We don't have a warp drive, but if we wanted, we could travel about the solar system today.

I think Bova is doing humanity a favour by telling stories that still embraces the "What If..." spark of SF but keeps it close to home.  Perhaps he's trying to inspire people to make the "giant leap."

Ben Bova

No comments: