James Nicoll Reviews

2001’s The Precipice is the first volume in Ben Bova’s Asteroid Wars series, which in turn takes place in his interminable Grand Tour setting. 

The Precipiceis also the very first book I was paid to review. I suspect the reason my review garnered me a place as one of the SFBC’s first-readers was less due to any insight I offered and more because I had the book read and the review submitted less than a day later. Twenty years and six thousand nine hundred plus reviews later, how does The Precipice stand up?

Heartbroken over the death of his former lover, former President Jane Scanwell (who died while assisting refugees from a natural disaster), Dan Randolph sets out to save the 21^st century¹ Earth from climate change and civilization itself from the short-sighted bureaucrats, self-serving politicians, deranged conservatives of the New Morality, and (of course!) the witless masses who enable the activities of the preceding factions. 

Rather conveniently, no sooner has Randolph resolved to fix a broken world than malevolent businessman and compulsive horn dog billionaire Martin Humphries arrives in Randolph’s office to offer the means to do just that. There is, of course, a catch.

Read more ➤

Ben Bova’s 1976 The Multiple Man is a standalone near-future thriller.

Americo ​“Meric” Albano is a true believer in President James J. Halliday. Meric is proud to be press secretary to the first president in memory who will be able to do the job properly. After decades of inept and crooked administrations, he believes that the US desperately needs Halliday. 

Meric is understandably upset when Halliday is found dead in an alley behind the building where the president gave a speech. 

Except… the dead man is not Halliday. It’s simply some stranger who is identical to Halliday … right down to his finger prints.

Read more ➤

Ben Bova’s 1989 Cyberbooks is a standalone near-future SF satire. 

MIT computer expert Carl Lewis ventures from his native Boston, invention in hand, to seek his fortune in New York. He comes bearing an invention he hopes will revolutionize book publishing. 

Naïve Carl is an optimist.

Read more ➤

I have excoriated Ben Bova’s fiction in the past, but I have nothing but admiration for his work as editor for Analog. While Disco-Era Analog might seem a bit stodgy to modern eyes, at the time Bova was a breath of fresh air. Rather than settle for being a second-rate Campbell, he did his best to be a first-rate Bova. He recruited new authors, many of whom differed (excitingly) from Analog​’s Old Guard. He also bought more stories by women than did his predecessor¹. While some old guard objected to Bova’s direction, enough readers enjoyed it to give him a remarkable six Best Editor Hugo Awards, as well as one nomination for the same category.

It seems unlikely Campbell would have had a Special Women’s Issue. Bova did: Analog, June 1977.

Read more ➤

1971’s Exiled From Earth, 1972’s Flight of Exiles, and 1975’s End of Exile form Ben Bova’s Exile Trilogy.

Cast out from overcrowded Earth, will our heroes be able to maintain a stable culture for the decades or centuries it will take to find a new Earth … or will they, like pretty much every other generation ship in the genre — last week’s excepted — end up recapitulating Robert Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky?

Read more ➤

1978’s Colony is a sequel of sorts to Bova’s earlier Millennium.

Chet Kinsman’s sacrifice in Millennium was not entirely in vain; the Cold War is over and in 2008, the Earth is governed by a World Government directed by the well-meaning socialist De Paolo. Unfortunately the essential issues — overpopulation, and the pollution and resource depletion that accompany it — that drove the United States and the Soviet Union to contemplate nuclear war didn’t vanish with the Cold War. The weak World Government can manage little beyond palliative measures. Doomsday has been delayed, not prevented.

And there are those who are doing their best to push the world towards its final crisis as quickly as they can.

Read more ➤