Venus The Grand Tour Series (Audible Audio Edition) Ben Bova, Stefan Rudnicki, Inc. Blackstone Audio Books
Download As PDF : Venus The Grand Tour Series (Audible Audio Edition) Ben Bova, Stefan Rudnicki, Inc. Blackstone Audio Books
The surface of Venus is the most hellish place in the solar system - it's ground hot enough to melt aluminum, its air pressure high enough to crush spacecraft landers like tin cans, it's atmosphere a choking mix of poisonous gases. This is where the frail young Van Humphries must go-or die trying.
Years before, Van's older brother perished in the first attempt to land a man on Venus. Van's father has always hated him for being the one to survive. Now, his father is offering a $10-billion prize to the first person who lands on Venus and returns 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.
Venus The Grand Tour Series (Audible Audio Edition) Ben Bova, Stefan Rudnicki, Inc. Blackstone Audio Books
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Venus The Grand Tour Series (Audible Audio Edition) Ben Bova, Stefan Rudnicki, Inc. Blackstone Audio Books Reviews
As a disclaimer for my review, I'll mention that I'm trying to read all of the Grand Tour (19ish) books by Ben Bova in their chronological order - which is not the order they were written in. Vensu is the 18th book in the chronological order suggested by the Author.
Taking place about ten years after the conclusion of the Asteroid wars, Venus begins when billionaire industrialist and all around horrible person, Martin Humphries, owner of Humprhies space systems issues a ten billion dollar reward to any one who can recover the body of his oldest son, Alex, from the surface of Venus. Answering the call are Humphries younger (and estranged) son, Van, a frail and sickly "runt," and Martin's arch rival from the Asteroid Wars, Lars Fuchs. Van and Lars will race against each other and the unforgiving climate of Venus to recover Alex's remains and claim the reward. Van wants to stick it to his old man and prove he is not the runt. Fuchs just wants revenge. However, Venus may force them to work together if they want to survive, let alone take home the prize.
After reading seventeen previous Grand Tour books, I'll say that Venus was one of the most exciting. Unlike some of the planetary books in the Grand Tour series where the planet the book is named for was only an afterthought in the plot, Venus if prominently featured and plays an antagonistic role throughout the novel. The discoveries made on Venus and in it's atmosphere were well done and believable, making the exploration and the search for Alex's crashed space craft feel true and doing a fantastic job in bringing the reader into the story.
Several of the characters in Venus are repeat players in the Grand Tour series and they have rarely been done better. Martin Humphries has continued to fall into megalomania, living on the moon and spending millions throwing wild, depraved parties for himself. Lars Fuchs has become so focused on revenge against the man (Martin Humpries) who took his wife, business and freedom that he can focus on nothing else. Bova isn't always known for creating dynamic, well fleshed out characters, but I think he succeeds in Venus. Even a typical Ben Bova love triangle is kept low-key enough not to become annoying as they have in other Grand Tour books.
If you like fast-paced but well detailed sci-fi adventure, you can do a lot worse than Venus.
One of the great things a science fiction book can do is give an imaginative but realistic experience of what it would be like to go to a place that has never been visited before, like the planet Venus. Bova goes to some lengths to make his story feel realistic, taking what we know of Venus -- its crushing, corrosive atmosphere and furnace-like heat -- and creating the mix of technology and courage needed to explore it.
There are a lot of elements to Bova's story, maybe too many -- a main character (Van Humphries) with a need to prove himself against a lifetime of abuse and belittling from his father and a need to honor the death of his brother, that same character's awkward attempts at romance with a shipmate with issues of her own, a driven and grim ship's captain with the combined personalities of Captains Nemo and Ahab, a green movement hoping to use the specter of conditions on Venus to provide a lesson for Earth's politicians, not to mention the challenge of exploring Venus itself. The green movement in particular gets little play in the face of the other, more dominant elements.
That said, it's still a very entertaining story. I would have enjoyed it just for the pure "hard science fiction" story of exploring Venus. The searing heat and corrosive atmosphere are themselves characters in the story -- antagonists to be overcome. Van Humphries' relationship with his father and his devotion to his lost brother provide additional framing motivation for the expedition.
Venus by Ben Bova is part of the author's Grand Tour series, which deals with the exploration of the planets in our solar system. Venus is the nearest planet to Earth and about the same size as Earth. However, it is closer to the Sun than Earth and Bova describes Venus as "the most hellish place in the solar system." Its atmosphere is dominated by sulfuric acid and carbon dioxide, with only negligible traces of oxygen and nitrogen. The surface temperatures are well above 450 degrees Celsius (nearly 900 degree Fahrenheit) and the atmospheric pressure at ground level is equal to the pressure more than a kilometer below the surface of an ocean on Earth. In addition, Venus rotates around its axis so slowly that a single Venusian day is 225 Earth days. The "hellish" environment has prohibited Earthlings from establishing any colonies on Venus and even from exploring the planet. Unmanned probes have gathered some information, but all of them ceased their data transmission within very short time frames after entering the Venusian atmosphere. However, three years ago Alex Humphries and his crew made the voyage to Venus and he attempted to land on the Venusian surface, but no one survived that voyage. Now Alex's father, a very wealthy, powerful and ruthless industrialist/business man has offered a reward of ten billion dollars to anyone who succeeds in locating his son's remains and returning them to Earth. Van Humphries, Alex's younger brother, accepts the challenge even though he has no realistic experience that would indicate he could be successful in such a venture and he has a serious blood condition that requires regular medication. However Van embarks on the recovery mission to Venus because his father previously informed him that he will no longer support him and Van needs the money, and also because he loved his older brother. As usual, Bova weaves a complex story including much plausible scientific data and action. Van and his crew encounter much hardship, danger, and tragedy in the Venusian atmosphere, beginning shortly after they descend into the upper atmosphere and discover that something is eating away the hull of their ship. During the trip, Van evolves into a strong leader who accepts responsibility for decisions and risks his life for the mission. In addition, he must risk accepting the help of Lars Fuchs, a bitter enemy of his father and a competitor in the competition to retrieve Alex's body and win the $10 billion reward. Venus is another very enjoyable and well-crafted space exploration adventure. The characters are very well developed, unique, and believable. This book provides much tension and suspenseful action and it kept me reading with enthusiasm until the very satisfying conclusion.
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