"I am Orion. I am Prometheus. I am Gilgamesh. I am Zarathustra. I am the Phoenix who dies and is consumed and rises again from his own ashes only to die once more."
Several of Ben Bova's books have been reviewed here. You can check the sidebar for these reviews and assorted biographical details. This will probably be the last of his novels reviewed here for some time.
Orion isn't really a science fiction novel. There's a brief discussion of lasers near the beginning, but after that point it's firmly in the realm of fantasy. It's in the tradition of Michael Moorcock, an author I was never that fond of, and perhaps also in the tradition of Robert E. Howard, a much earlier author who could've told this same story better.
Those familiar with Moorcock's concept of an "eternal champion" will find Orion easy to relate to. In a world where the dual gods of the Zoroastrian pantheon are real, a human champion is created to stave off the apocalypse. And of course he's handsome. And of course he's strong. And of course the love interest falls instantly and irrevocably in love with him.
The only real twist here is that time travel is involved. The hero travels backward in time to four different historical epochs, while the villain travels forward in time to those same four historical epochs. The hero is attempting to preserve the "space-time continuum" by ensuring that history remains the same, while the villain is trying to disrupt this continuum by altering key events in human history. In terms of causality it really doesn't make a lot of sense, especially given the fact that the book starts in the modern day. This said, the author (thankfully) doesn't give the reader much time to reflect on this fact, and instead moves the adventure steadily forward - or backward - depending on your point of view.
It might have been more fun (and less open to debate) if the author had made Orion the pinnacle of human development, and if he'd also made Orion's interventions in human history less about the species and more about ensuring that Orion himself is born at some point in the distant future. This would have made his speculations regarding Ormazd's "plan" more fruitful, and would have also given the novel more depth. Then again, Ben Bova obviously wasn't trying to write that kind of book. Frank Herbert could have written the shit out of that kind of thing, but Ben Bova's a more literal type of writer.
To some extent Orion resembles Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, though Bova's take on gods-made-real is less technologically-based, and more a straight-ahead swords and sandals adventure. I think this straightforward approach makes the material more accessible (hence the many sequels), but fans of Bova's science fiction will probably feel alienated by this one.
For my part I thought it was brainless fun. Could it have been better? Certainly. Could certain parts of it have been thought through more? Yes. But if you're looking for a light adventure story in which good battles evil, you could do worse than Orion.
Related Entries:
"The Artificial Man" by L.P. Davies (1965)
"They Shall Have Stars" by James Blish (1957)
"Out of the Sun" by Ben Bova (1984)
"Mindhopper" by James B. Johnson (1988)
This:
"Sarko glanced at Colt, then went on, 'General, it's only a matter of time before laser weapons make manned aircraft obsolete. They'll shoot down anything in the sky with the speed of light. What we've seen here today is just the beginning - the equivalent of the first fliers of World War I shooting at each other with revolvers.'"
...and this:
"It wasn't until the twentieth century that a new understanding of light replaced the wave theory. But the wave theory was extremely valuable. It explained not only light but many other things as well."
A couple of Ben Bova's other books have been reviewed here already. Check his name in the sidebar if you're interested in reading more. I'll also be reviewing another of his novels, Orion, in the near future. His biographical details aside, he's one of the better-researched science fiction authors.
This book is really two books, or rather a story followed by a lengthy essay. The story, "Out of the Sun," is a Cold War thriller following a scientist as he tries to discover the cause of several plane crashes. It's not a very scientific science fiction story, and most of the action hinges on whether a certain kind of laser can or cannot damage a certain kind of metal. It also feels like something that belongs more to the 60s than to 1984, the year in which this story was supposedly written. I have the feeling that Bova dusted it off for later publication, and that it took form much earlier.
Weirdly enough, the second half of this book is an essay titled "The Amazing Laser," detailing the history of the laser from Galileo to the mid 80s. It's a well-written tour of developments in that field, even though it seems to have been written in support of Reagan's "Star Wars" defense initiative.
Yet I can't help but wonder - how many people felt tricked by this book? The front and back covers say nothing about the essay, and if you weren't looking carefully you'd also miss the minuscule mention of it on the title page. How many people were expecting ray guns and rocket ships, only to find themselves confronted by discussions of electromagnetism and stimulated emission? I'm guessing a lot of readers opted out of the second half, likely feeling deceived by the publisher.
If you're working your way through Bova's bibliography, you'll certainly end up reading this one. If not, I wouldn't bother. The concepts employed in the story have been done better elsewhere, and the essay covers material presented more effectively in any number of textbooks.
Related Entries:
"Mindhopper" by James B. Johnson (1988)
"Coyote" by Allen Steele (2002)
"Slow Apocalypse" by John Varley (2012)
"Distress" by Greg Egan (1997)
"'Yes! Because we have to. The human race has to. We're explorers, Tony. All of us. Even you; it's what brought you here. It's built into our blood, into our brains. That's what science is all about. Human beings have to learn, have to search and seek and explore. We need to, just like a flower needs water and sunlight. It's what made our ancestors move out of Africa and spread all across the Earth. Now we'll spread all across the solar system and someday we'll start to move out to the stars. You can't stop that, Tony. Nobody can. It's what makes us human.'"
Mars is part of Bova's "Grand Tour" series. Mercury, a later entry in this same series, was also reviewed here. SPOILER ALERT: don't read (or read about) Mercury if you want to be surprised by Mars. Many of the plot points in Mars are described or alluded to by characters in Mercury.
So without revealing too much, I can say that Mars details the first manned mission to that planet. A multinational crew of astronauts is sent there for a period of two months, during which - you guessed it - they make a startling discovery.
Much of the action in this novel revolves around Jamie Waterman, a half "white," half Navajo member of the crew. The earliest chapters in this book flash between his arrival on Mars and his pre-flight training on Earth, with particular attention paid to the politics behind their mission. During later chapters the author moves on to both the interpersonal struggles of the crew members, and - you guessed it - that startling discovery.
In many ways this book is like the mirror image of Bova's Mercury. Mars features a large cast of characters where Mercury only features a few. Mars is a long novel where Mercury is short. Mars focuses on scientific accuracy where Mercury focuses on characters. And while Mars is far from bad, I think the facets of Mercury listed above make for a much stronger book. Mercury is a lot more focused than its earlier counterpart, and a lot of the story in Mars is smothered beneath unimportant details. Most of the characters in Mars also remain ciphers, with many of their "flaws" seemingly added on as an afterthought.
Mars also features a very ridiculous subplot concerning the Vice President. Her actions - both public and private - are implausible in the extreme, and the novel concludes without really tying up her particular plot thread. I get that she was included to flesh out the political dimensions of the Mars mission, but her machinations add little to the story.
So will I be continuing my "grand tour?" Not in the near future, though at some point I may seek out Ben Bova again. I think he's a very competent writer, though his misfires may cancel out his successes. As said elsewhere, he's written a ton of books, and many of them are probably very good.
"When the greenhouse cliff struck so abruptly, flooding coastal cities, collapsing the international electric power grid, wrecking the economy, Earth's governments became repressive, authoritarian. People who are hungry, homeless, and without hope will always trade their individual liberties for order, for safety, for food. Ultraconservative religious groups came to power in Asia, the Middle East, even Europe and America; they ruled with an absolute faith in their own convictions and zero tolerance for anyone else's."
Ben Bova has been kicking around the sci-fi world for a LONG time, and I'm a bit surprised it's taken me this long to read one of his books. He's won the Hugo several times, he was the editor of both Analog and Omni, and he's written more novels than I'd care to count. At the time of writing he's 85 years old, and his most recent book appeared this year.
His novel "Mercury" forms part of his "Grand Tour" series, which explores the (human) settlement of the solar system. This series stretches all the way back to 1985, and with new entries published every year or so you can imagine how many there are.
While the plot of this book could be dismissed as "Count of Monte Cristo in space," it's grounded in solid technical details, and written with a good eye for drama. It's not a stylistic achievement by any means - just a solidly written story of revenge - but Bova's more pedestrian writing style serves the story well. Certain touches like naming it "Goethe Base" are a little too on the nose, but this is a small complaint. In the greater scheme of things Mercury builds steadily toward its somewhat ambiguous conclusion.
Of particular note is the disaster that occurs halfway through this novel. This sequence of events is executed brilliantly, and while reading this part of the book I kept thinking how amazing this sequence would appear on film.
I've already bought Ben Bova's Mars, and plan on reading it soon. Mercury has been a surprisingly enjoyable read, and I heartily recommend it.
