{"id":48,"date":"2010-04-07T19:59:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/2010\/04\/book-review-venus.html"},"modified":"2012-10-11T12:47:17","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T16:47:17","slug":"book-review-venus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/2010\/04\/book-review-venus.html","title":{"rendered":"Book Review : Venus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Venus<\/a> Title : Venus<\/b>
Author : Ben Bova<\/b>
Genre : Science fiction<\/b>
Pages : 382<\/b>
Rating : 3.85\/5<\/b><\/p>\n

One of the books in the \u201cGrand Tour\u201d series by Hugo award winner Ben Bova, Venus is a novel about space travel and exploring new worlds. It is also a classic \u201cunderdog\u201d tale with a bit of the \u201ccoming-of-age\u201d genre mixed in. The book itself is set sometime in the future where the moon has been colonized, rejuvenation treatments are common so no one really grows old anymore, and man has tried to explore other worlds in search of life and life-sustainable living environments. <\/p>\n

Venus has a harsh climate \u2013 that much is known. The first attempt to actually explore the planet fails and results in the death of the explorer, Alex Humphries, the elder son of billionaire tycoon, Martin Humphries. Humphries, a cold, hard, domineering man has one son remaining – Van. Unlike the now dead Alex, Van is frail and resented by his father for surviving. Van also has a potentially fatal condition \u2013 pernicious anemia, in which the red cells in his blood are unable to replicate. To keep alive Van must inject himself at regular intervals with a life-giving enzyme. Not quite the able, confident son Martin wanted, Van is loathed and mocked by his unloving father as \u201cRunt\u201d.<\/p>\n

I pulled in a deep breath, then stood as straight as I could manage. \u201cAnd it\u2019s lovely to see you too, Father.\u201d<\/i>
\u201cAren\u2019t you enjoying my party?\u201d<\/i>
\u201cYou know better.\u201d<\/i>
\u201cThen what\u2019d you come for, Runt?\u201d<\/i>
\u201cYour lawyer said that you\u2019d cut off my stipend if I didn\u2019t attend your party.\u201d<\/i>
\u201cYour allowance,\u201d he sneered.<\/i>
\u201cI earn that money.\u201d<\/i>
\u201cBy playing at being a scientist. Now your brother, there was a real scientist.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Van lives a rich socialite\u2019s life, dabbling in science, on the allowance his wealthy father scornfully gives him. The only two people who actually ever loved him, his mother and his elder brother Alex, are now dead, and Van is surrounded by fair-weather friends. When on his 100th birthday, Martin announces that he is cutting off Van\u2019s allowance, Van finds himself almost penniless. When Martin also announces an award of ten billion dollars to any explorer who brings him back Alex\u2019s remains from Venus, Van, tempted by the award money and the desire to explore the inhospitable planet in Alex\u2019s name, decides to launch a mission to Venus. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to take your prize money,\u201d I said.<\/i>
That popped his eyes open. \u201cWhat ?\u201d<\/i>
\u201cI\u2019ll go to Venus, I\u2019ll find Alex\u2019s body.\u201d<\/i>
\u201cYou?\u201d he laughed.<\/i>
\u201cHe was my brother!\u201d I said. \u201cI loved him.\u201d<\/i>
\u201cI had to twist your arm to get you to come up here to the Moon, and now you think you\u2019re going to Venus?\u201d He seemed enormously amused by the idea.<\/i>
\u201cYou don\u2019t think I can do it?\u201d<\/i>
\u201cI know you can\u2019t do it, Runt. You won\u2019t even try, despite your brave talk.\u201d<\/i>
\u201cI\u2019ll show you!\u201d I snapped. \u201cI\u2019ll take your damned prize money!\u201d<\/i>
Smirking, he answered, \u201cOf course you will. And elephants can fly.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Van, however noble his intentions, has stiff competition, because there is one other man angling for the award He is Lars Fuchs, Martin\u2019s sworn enemy, a ruthless renegade out to wreak the worst kind of revenge on Martin and his family. . .<\/p>\n

This is true-blue science fiction, but it is also a \u201chuman\u201d story, with lots of drama, emotion and unexpected twists thrown in. Quite a satisfying combination. Told in first person, we see the story unfold from Van\u2019s point of view. Bova fleshes out Van\u2019s character nicely, and really Van is quite the underdog. He has fainting spells (when there is a delay in taking the enzyme), is incapable of exertion, is frightened of new adventures, and mostly takes the easy way out. When faced with true scientists who revel in investigation, he realizes that he has just \u201cbeen playing\u201d at it. <\/p>\n

Van is regarded by others, as a wishy-washy character, incapable of accomplishing anything of value. With his impulsive decision to go to Venus, Van surprises others (and himself), but hellish Venus is going to test him as he has never been tested before. As the main protagonist, Van was a bit on the weak side, never quite able to energize me into rooting for him wholeheartedly. Since he is the narrator, we are privy to all his fears, which takes away from his character, because really, don\u2019t most of us want our heroes to stand tall, feeling not even the smallest twinge of fear in the face of grievous danger ?<\/p>\n

This is the first book by Bova that I have read, and even though a part of a series, stands alone quite well. Bova is good at description, develops arresting characters, and keeps the events in the book moving pretty quickly. This book was an excellent read, un-put-down-able after about a 100 pages. Each book in the Grand tour series is focused on a planet in our solar system. If they\u2019re anything like \u201cVenus\u201d and I\u2019ve heard they all are at least as good, if not better, they go straight on my to-read list.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Title : VenusAuthor : Ben BovaGenre : Science fictionPages : 382Rating : 3.85\/5 One of the books in the \u201cGrand Tour\u201d series by Hugo award winner Ben Bova, Venus is a novel about space travel and exploring new worlds. It is also a classic \u201cunderdog\u201d tale with a bit of the \u201ccoming-of-age\u201d genre mixed in. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[71,3,39,24,4,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4_star_rating","category-books","category-fantasy","category-recommended","category-review","category-sci-fi"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Title : VenusAuthor : Ben BovaGenre : Science fictionPages : 382Rating : 3.85\/5 One of the books in the \u201cGrand Tour\u201d series by Hugo award winner Ben Bova, Venus is a novel about space travel and exploring new worlds. It is also a classic \u201cunderdog\u201d tale with a bit of the \u201ccoming-of-age\u201d genre mixed in.…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2215,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/2215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}