Book Review: Venus by Ben Bova

Well, a new review, finally! Let's get down to it.

Venus is part of Ben Bova's Grand Tour series, and is chronologically as of this time, the last in the series, happening late in the timeframe of the series, as a comparison with his Mars story being the 3rd chronologically.

Much in the tradition of authors who have explored the moon when hardly much of it was known at the time, Ben Bova tackles Venus, the hot fiery planet on which anyone would be doomed to even try. That is, landing on it of course.

I wouldn't know how his other works in the series fare, but I would have to say that Venus is far from stellar compared to his acclaimed Mars story. But I'll be fair and say that this is partly due to the lack of knowledge about the planet that we have, so scientific accuracy would of course have to take a backseat to storytelling. Unlike Mars, where I pretty much pictured it just like what it would be like if NASA were to send a team to Mars, Venus definitely stretches and the imagination and feels unrealistic most of the time. Ultimately, it feels much more like a popcorn flick than a scientifically based scif-fi. But then again, it does have the feel of those classics like The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke and and The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, from a time where we didn't know about Mars. Much like Mars was realistic, I'm sure there will be a new novel down the road by another author, or even by Bova that updates and makes a Venus story more realistic based on what we know of it. Then maybe we could look back at Ben Bova's Venus and herald it as a classic.

If you're looking for a fun book that goes to where no authors dare to go, then by all means pick this up. But don't expect to be dazzled like Mars.

As a sidenote, as I have posted in my preview, as I was reading the book, a quote jumped out at me: "I was born in New Orleans, Mr Humphries, or what's left of it after the floods." Ben Bova has a knack for predicting things. In his Mars book, he had predicted that we'd find life on Mars through water.

Author: Ben Bova
Pages: 416
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction